The Daily: Right of the Dot

Today, I learned that the lords of the internet will be approving for sale new top-level domain names. For example, the following are common top-level domain names currently permitted: .com, .net, .org, .biz. Many of us are accustomed to the dot-com boom (and bust) and the colloquialized terms and references relating thereto.

What the introduction of new top-level domains means is that there will likely be many more different website addresses, some that will be specific to a business or type of business. Instead of visiting “Disney.com,” you may visit “Magic.Disney.” Dot-Disney displaces the dot-com. Or instead of going to “Macys.com” to shop online, you might type in “Macys.shop”.

Apparently it costs a lot to gain control of the content to the right of the dot. At least for the most obvious terms. Entire businesses have been built around and for acquiring the management rights thereto. I think we’ll pass on that for now. Instead, I’ll just brainstorm about what names would be right-domains for us: .law, .golf, .love, .yogi, .mich, .goblue, .yoga.

What would you grab if you could get a right-of-the-dot domain?

Online Vice: Photo Browsing

Looking at photographs online is a huge time suck for me. Once I start looking at the flickr Explore – 7 Days Interesting I’m lost for an hour or more. I could flip through the pages endlessly. I recognize that 95 percent of the pictures on there are rubbish, but every once-in-a-while I’ll find a good one worth favoriting.

Right now, I’m finding the photos on The One’s We Love similarly addicting.

The Ones We Love is a project highlighting young and talented photographers from around the world. Each artist contributed six photographs of the person(s) who is most important to them, taken outdoors in a natural setting. The goal of the website is to portray the people who are loved, cherished, and inspirational to these artists, and also showcase the differences and similarities in the photographs each of them took within the same guidelines.

Instapaper

Instapaper is the best site I’ve come across thus far in 2008. The basic premise is:

1) You come across substantial news or blog articles that you want to read, but don’t have time at the moment.

2) You need something to read while sitting on a bus, waiting in a line, or bored in front of a computer. Instapaper solves both of those problems.

I suppose the same task of saving a news story for later could be accomplished by posting it to a social bookmarking service (E.g., del.iciolus) with the tag, “to read.” But, the interface and simplicity of Instapaper are what set it apart form a general bookmarking service, email, or other form of saving online articles.

Once you’ve read an item, it’s marked as read. You can edit titles and URLs, the later of which is good if you want to replace a URL with a permalink.

I have two stories posted to my Instapaper, and I plan on posting many more. Time to say goodbye to the “To Read” folder on my Mac.

Twitter

Twitter is the “funnest” website I’ve found in months. It is an update service based entirely on the question, “What are you doing right now?” You can send updates via IM, text message, and of course from the web.

Oh, Twitter is what I use to update the Yugflog.com homepage and the content on the top of the sidebar to the right. This is all working towards what I hope will be a virtual data feed of all my communication.
Let me know if you join!