With a gargantuan online website (Amazon.com), numerous specialty sites (Zappos, IMDB, Audible, Goodreads, Comixology), physical stores (Whole Foods, Amazon Books, Amazon To Go), Amazon actively seeks out new markets to conquer. Online, that territory is marked by domain names, the addresses people use to search, find, and buy items online.
How would Amazon sell comics and other related merchandise online? Well, two ways. One is they buy an established online retailer and acquire expert staff, as well as significant back-issue inventory. (Quite a few comics retailers are approaching retirement.) The other is they go big, and utilize their gTLD .books as an aggregator for geeky product found on Amazon.com.
What’s a “gTLD”? That’s short for “generic Top Level Domain”, which in tech-talk is the last section of an Internet URL. (.com is the best known TLD.) A few years ago, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers auctioned off a set of generic domains, such as dance, city, and… books. (The entire list is here, AAA to ZW, if you're curious. Comics and manga have yet to be offered. BD is reserved for Bangladesh.)
What’s a “gTLD”? That’s short for “generic Top Level Domain”, which in tech-talk is the last section of an Internet URL. (.com is the best known TLD.) A few years ago, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers auctioned off a set of generic domains, such as dance, city, and… books. (The entire list is here, AAA to ZW, if you're curious. Comics and manga have yet to be offered. BD is reserved for Bangladesh.)
Amazon spent a reported $10 Million to acquire the .books gTLD, which currently is parked. (They own 52 gTLDs.) The placeholder is found here, at http://www.nic.book/ . The Amazon Registry Services, Inc. DNS Practice Statement for the BOOK Zone Version 0.2, which details their DNS security, is also available, if you're into that sort of thing. There's ICANN paperwork as well.
Oh, So? Well, after a Top Level Domain, you add the Second-Level Domain (SLD) to create a unique web address.
Amazon could set up a retail site using www.comic.book . See how powerful that is?
www.cook.book is just as powerful, selling cookbooks, utensils, appliances, and even ingredients.
www.text.book for university students.
www.school.book for home schoolers.
www.phone.book.
www.work.book for business books and office supplies.
www.note.book for sheet music.
www.sketch.book for art supplies.
www.scrap.book for paper artists.
www.date.book for booklovers (kinda like "Netflix and chill", which is the modern version of "looking at etchings"). (www.horn.book.com if those "etchings" are by Aubrey Beardsley.)
Amazon could set up a retail site using www.comic.book . See how powerful that is?
www.cook.book is just as powerful, selling cookbooks, utensils, appliances, and even ingredients.
www.text.book for university students.
www.school.book for home schoolers.
www.phone.book.
www.work.book for business books and office supplies.
www.note.book for sheet music.
www.sketch.book for art supplies.
www.scrap.book for paper artists.
www.date.book for booklovers (kinda like "Netflix and chill", which is the modern version of "looking at etchings"). (www.horn.book.com if those "etchings" are by Aubrey Beardsley.)
[Note: if Amazon does not grab these domains, they would be great URLs for entrepreneurs to set up trading posts within an Amazon-owned domain.]
Amazon has stated that they will also sell access to that gTLD to publishers and authors, just like Tuvalu sells access to their .tv TLD. (Tuvalu earns about $5 Million a year from licensing that domain.)
Looking at the foreign gTLDs that Amazon owns, there is one that is especially interesting:
Looking at the foreign gTLDs that Amazon owns, there is one that is especially interesting:
書籍 (Japanese for "books")
This Japanese domain has existed since August 2013. 33 domains are active, 16 are parked. You can see the list of domains here. Many of them are trademarks, such as Rolex, Google, and Apple, and are likely reserved to prevent cybersquatting, the ransoming of trademarked URLs to corporations. Currently, the active domains redirect to https://www.amazon.co.jp/. Amazon will most likely follow a similar path with .books, reserving the common URLs for themselves.
When will Amazon utilize their new .book domain, purchased in 2014? Unknown. It's possible they acquired it to prevent others from using it, but this seems very unlikely, given how lucrative this domain can be. Book.com (1998) and books.com (1992), both owned by Barnes & Noble, have yet to be fully exploited, so it might be awhile. (Aside from email addresses, both URLs redirect to www.barnesandnoble.com .)
Something to note: Aside from .com and .edu, most people are not familiar or comfortable with strange TLDs. The adult film industry tried to encourage the use of .sex and .xxx to create a more controlled online environment, yet most websites maintain their .com URLs because that is what people know. There is also the taint from fake websites which mimic a well-known URL. This is mostly a generational learning curve...decades ago, people didn't trust the Internet for online purchases.
Most likely, URLs will interlink and overlap like a Venn diagram, sharing data and content. Zappos could mirror a fashion book discussion group on Goodreads, Twitch can stream a fashion show that is also featured on Zappos, and IMDb would recommend documentaries. It might be that one day, .com will be seen as a relic, like .uucp is today. Perhaps URLs themselves will become invisible, just like IP addresses are today, as people either click on an app or shortcut, or a digital assistant automatically links to the site. Most likely your Amazon Fire or Apple iPhone will not let you leave their "garden of pure ideology" of that device. One day, your loyalty card might require a Loyalty Oath.
Think that is scary? What happens when the Mom-and-Pop stores go out-of-business because they can't survive in the current pandemic climate? Who fills that void of specialty shops? I'll discuss that next.
When will Amazon utilize their new .book domain, purchased in 2014? Unknown. It's possible they acquired it to prevent others from using it, but this seems very unlikely, given how lucrative this domain can be. Book.com (1998) and books.com (1992), both owned by Barnes & Noble, have yet to be fully exploited, so it might be awhile. (Aside from email addresses, both URLs redirect to www.barnesandnoble.com .)
Something to note: Aside from .com and .edu, most people are not familiar or comfortable with strange TLDs. The adult film industry tried to encourage the use of .sex and .xxx to create a more controlled online environment, yet most websites maintain their .com URLs because that is what people know. There is also the taint from fake websites which mimic a well-known URL. This is mostly a generational learning curve...decades ago, people didn't trust the Internet for online purchases.
Most likely, URLs will interlink and overlap like a Venn diagram, sharing data and content. Zappos could mirror a fashion book discussion group on Goodreads, Twitch can stream a fashion show that is also featured on Zappos, and IMDb would recommend documentaries. It might be that one day, .com will be seen as a relic, like .uucp is today. Perhaps URLs themselves will become invisible, just like IP addresses are today, as people either click on an app or shortcut, or a digital assistant automatically links to the site. Most likely your Amazon Fire or Apple iPhone will not let you leave their "garden of pure ideology" of that device. One day, your loyalty card might require a Loyalty Oath.
Think that is scary? What happens when the Mom-and-Pop stores go out-of-business because they can't survive in the current pandemic climate? Who fills that void of specialty shops? I'll discuss that next.
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