What I found is this:
Circa 1999: [useit.com]
It is likely that domain names only have 3-5 years left as a major way of finding sites on the Web. In the long term, it is not appropriate to require unique words to identify every single entity in the world. That's not how human language works.
The proposals to open up new top-level domains like .shop are a poor solution from a usability perspective since there is no easy way to remember which domain ending is associated with which site. The only new TLD that's useful is .sex which would allow very simple ways of filtering content that's undesired (or desired, as the case may be).
Update added 2005: Domain names are still in use, and it looks like they may have several more years to go. But my prediction that they would become a less important way to find sites has come true: it is now much more common for users to type a company name, a site name, or even a domain name into a search engine than it is for them to guess the URL. Even so, enough users continue to enter their destination directly into the browser's URL field that it's still important to have an easily guessable domain name and easily typable URLs.
Circa 2012:
Ummmm . . . nevermind . . .
Jakob makes for an interesting read. Either you get his message - accessiblity matters - it makes a difference to reflect on accessibility - or you don't get the message, you're not a convert . . . or you have another design agenda. :)
The problem with Jakob, like the rest of us - present company included - is that our enraptured relation with some insight occasionally leads us to grant ourselves license to speak prophetically. In my case my eyes glaze over and I start rambling on about the importance of geotargeting domain names for future benefit in local search . . . "But . . but . . it makes a lot of sense as a prophecy . .
It's a big world with a lot of issues and variables. Trying to predict an outcome by comtemplating all the order and chaos of the world is a challenge for the best of us. Mostly it's a crapshoot and some of us are shooters - placing out bets, rolling the dice and shooting off our mouths. All because we enjoy the action and are prepared to live with the outcome.
My prediction: Domain names and URLs will be around for a long, long, time, if for no better reason than inertia and vested interests win out, time and time again. OTOH, there may be something to search by URL. I mean, it's not all bad - to actually find what you are looking for by typing in a logical address.
But . . . I oculd be wrong . . .
"$25.00 Yo bet! Horn high yo! Sixes and Eights! Press the nine. Eight all the hard ways. Come on shooter!"
[edited by: Webwork at 3:05 pm (utc) on Aug. 15, 2006]
There's certainly been a few soothsayers about.
But they are wrong on first principles: You can find anything with SEs - spam permitting ;) - but if you want a unique site, there is no surer way, currently, than the domain name.
Until someone at least suggests an alternative uniquity system, predicting the end of the one we have is fairly silly, really.
But much the same is true of most of my predictions .... :)
grokking popular culture
English please:-)
So I was trying to say: Popular culture -- the way the great majority mass of people function on average -- is very often not well comprehended by more technically focused minds.
Didn't Bill Gates once think we'd not need domain names?
I could happily take over Microsoft.com if he doesn't need. lol
In the long term, it is not appropriate to require unique words to identify every single entity in the world. That's not how human language works.
Strange. Where he lives, I thought they did that with numbers because regular names weren't unique enough. I'm calling an entity a person or a company, since I don't think anything else can use or purchase a domain. I thought the next step was DNA because people can lie about their number if they wish.
Domain names aren't quite human language. It's much more governed and controlled, and people who wish to use them are pretty much forced to conform to one set of rules. Human language is nothing like that.
The only new TLD that's useful is .sex which would allow very simple ways of filtering content that's undesired (or desired, as the case may be).
Strange. That gets all complicated and messy when everyone else discusses it.
Circa 2005:
But my prediction that they would become a less important way to find sites has come true: it is now much more common for users to type a company name, a site name, or even a domain name into a search engine than it is for them to guess the URL.
How does someone typing a domain name into a search engine make his prediction any more true? Most people just don't know what window to type in. Typing a domain name into a search engine and guessing the url sound like about the same thing to me.
Domains are less important largely because search engines don't give much weight to them anymore. If you're going to do branding or use a company name, you probably still want those domains.
To me, domains aren't becoming less important. Seems like they are becoming more important since I usually like to have 3 or 4 domains for the same project. One for the search engines and one for the phone and radio for starters. Add in some common typos or anything that might be a synonym.
In the long term, it is not appropriate to require unique words to identify every single entity in the world
hmmm... how does the idea of using something that is not unique to identify something that is unique work exactly?
Of course, that would kill virtual name hosting by requiring that every site have a dedicated IP address, which ARIN would strenuously object to.
Company names, and people's name, and other ways of identifying sites, are not unique.
You have to have some unique way of identifying any particular site. Mr. Neilson may not think the current domain name system is particularly usable, but I don't see him suggesting any viable alternatives.
Sorry, but I prefer to find Marriot hotels by byping Marriot, not 243.83.xx.yy.
Off-topic but related: A few weeks ago I was out and about, and needed to call my husband. I didn't have my cell phone with me. I found a pay phone (increasingly harder to find these days) but I still could not call him, because I simply couldn't remember his number. My phone has it programmed in. I never actually dial the number.
The world is a very complicated thing but i dont see teh reason,because of which domain names can ever loose their importance,its the same as to predict that some day having an address in 5 th avenue would make mo difference with an office located on Unknown-street-somewhere-outside of the city 555
