On Tue, 27 Aug 2002, Ewen McNeill wrote:
And then someone could build a directory service over the top of that offering a one-to-many mapping.
And as Chris pointed out that's (almost) already been done by Google (or whoever you deem to be search engine of the moment). Now if we had a flat domain structure that made *no* claim to being some sort of directory then we could be having the debate about how to have a sensible directory with search facilities which only returned NZ results funded from the domain name fee. Now that would be a useful topic for this group to think about instead of agonizing over which second level domains would give a meaningful structure. Imagine this debate being held over 0800 numbers: Oh dear, we can't get 0800 454 672 (0800 4LIONRA), we can't possibly continue with our business plan, people simply won't know how to ring us or be sure that they're talking to Lionra. Let's ask the phone companies to create a new number space 0801 (and 0802) so that we can have 0801 454 672 and only allow our pals in the space. That's not how banks, travel agents, plumbers, charities etc work. If they get a good 0800 number they use it (although I suspect it's more promote by telco marketing people than it's really worth) and if they don't they don't. Whatever happens they need to tell people what their number is, they need to have in business cards, adverts.... And the other thing they do is get themselves listed in Yellow Pages, a directory service. Any parallels here with the net? If I wanted someone to find my business on the net, I'd be much more interested in getting a high listing on Google etc that having a cutesy domain name. <TANGENT> Interesting to note that the BANK category of Yellow Pages contains Pacific Home Loans and Thomas Cook - entities that at first pass seem to fail the criteria for 'bank.nz' and look the sky hasn't fallen in. Also nice to note the categories before and after BANKS: Balloons-Hot Air and Banners. There's some food for thought in the Yellow Pages categories. Expect domains like: acupuncturists.nz acupuncturists-members-of-the-nz-register-of.nz corsetry.nz ham-and-bacon-curers.nz galvanizing.nz shelters-geodesic-or-inflatable.nz And the justification would be the same as that of the banks. And of course 'celts.nz' can use many of the arguments put forward by 'maori.nz'. </TANGENT> - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog