Jan 23, 2014 11:37 AM EST By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Similar to the realization achieved after cleaning or organizing one's garage -- that there's more space when the old golf clubs are put in their bags, when the tricycle isn't upside down and angled, and when the backup to the backup lawn mower is moved to the front curb trash -- the controllers of internet domains, or the The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), realized (or were forced to realize) there are more creative ways to end a website address than the standard gTLDs (generic top level domains) like .com, .org, .gov, and the old school .net.

Companies, groups, individuals, organizations, and all other entities not named can now establish their own gTLDs for $185,000, ABC News reported. The actual price is higher with the potential profits exponentially greater.

Overall, ICANN's received 1,930 applications for 1,410 different domains, around 100 of which are expected to become viable internet destinations in February, according to ABC. Most are companies. Google, for example, bid on 101 gTLDs ($185,000 x 101 = $18.6 million); Amazon went after 76. One firm called Donuts plans to create a business through the influx of gTLDs and has set aside $100 million for the purpose of buying domains, according to Quartz. (They've got 307 so far.)

Donuts could become a billion dollar company in the near future or bankrupt. One applicant told Quartz that the actual cost of purchasing a domain, when taking into account lawyer fees, travel expenses, and bidding wars (nearly 40 percent of the proposed domain names have been or are currently contested, according to Quartz), is more realistically $1 million. Yet, the potential profits are enormous. An investor who plans to purchase ".xyz" will sell "second level domains," or websites using his domain (example: sports.xyz) for $10 each. He believes he can sell a million his first year, netting him $10 million.

Nothing is a sure thing, of course, and the expansion of domain names has many counter arguments (documented in this fantastic article on Quartz), which is perhaps why some companies are showing more caution. Apple and Gucci, for example, applied for just one domain, .apple (wait, their website is going to be apple.apple? an apple per day, two apples per domain...) and .gucci, according to ABC.

"This is a historic milestone for ICANN's new gTLD Program and the Internet as a whole," Christine Willett, vice president of gTLD operations, said in a statement. "The year ahead will be defined by new opportunities in a vastly expanding online landscape."

Unsurprisingly, Willet is one of many who believe in the limitless world of domains.  

"They're not in the habit of investing in loser ideas," she told ABC News of companies like Google and Amazon and their heavy investment. "It's a significant investment for two of the leading tech companies in the world."

By the way, researching for this article led me to browse sports.com for the first time ever. It's basically an assemblage of Associated Press articles. By the logic of domain expansion, sports.com should be more successful than espn.com, but that is obviously not the case. Perhaps, then, new domains will be an easy sale, but not a necessary buy.

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