Is there a dot app in your future?

The first question should be “is there an app in your future?” If you are one of the 100,000-plus appsbar users then app building has mostly likely become a great tool for your business, band, art, or avocation.
Now you might be able to get a website with a .app extension to showcase all of your hard work.

Icann, which is short for the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has acknowledged receiving applications for nearly two thousand new top level domains.

The leader in the clubhouse is .app with 13 applicants ranging from Amazon to the .app Registry. Icann is expected to approve hundreds of these extensions for use, the first of which should be in use by next year.

Icann disclosed that applications had been filed for suffixes featuring brand names like .heinz and .walmart, cities (.nyc and .paris) and categories of products and services like .bank and .home.

How about a dot.me? Individuals can register their own names followed by .me. As an aside, if you haven’t registered your own name you should get on that.

There are only a handful of so-called generic top-level domains, including .info, .net, .org and the popular .com — which, according to supporters of the expansion plan, is running out of capacity for accommodating the digital world’s ever-growing addressing needs.

If you think about it, the internet could use a new suffix that people actually use. Other than a dot-com, dot-org, and the occasional dot-net (as in brucespringsteen.net), the other suffixes are often avoided.
The issue? They reek of amateurism. If you have an idea and you have to dot-info your domain then you lose and awful lot of credibility. Many companies these days will choose their name and branding message based on dot-com availability.

Disagree?

When is the last time you signed on to a dot-mobi site? How about dot-bix, dot-ws, or dot-co?
The new app craze has the potential to lead to a dot-app craze and expand the boundaries of the internet.
And what is the cost of all this dot-nonsense?

Icann set the price of applications high, at $185,000, to try to discourage frivolous bids; still, more than 200 terms are being sought by more than one bidder. In addition to .app, extensions like .inc and .art were particularly popular, attracting 10 applications each.

Icann has detailed criteria for the selection process, specifying that trademark owners would have first dibs on their own names. The organization will also conduct criminal background checks on corporate officers at the applicants, in an effort to prevent fraud and other abuses. Objections can be filed with Icann for two months.

appsbar.com adds app commerce feature.

Huge milestone reached last week for appsbar, our free-to-use resource for creating and publishing mobile apps on smartphones and tablets.

Now you can sell direct to your customer base through the app with an app commerce function that uses Paypal services to allow you to sell your creations.

The press release came out last week but the news is important enough to spend a little time today to discuss the potential that comes with the new app commerce function. We’ve often talked about appsbar, the free app builder, being revolutionary. This takes the revolution to a whole new level.

Apps have become the de facto marketing tool for cutting edge businesses and DIY types looking to expand into the mobile medium. Appsbar allowed those groups previously blocked, due to a lack of funding and coding fundamentals, to quickly and easily build an app.

Over 100,000 have signed on to date and those users have had great success spreading the word about their songs, services, menus, and charitable efforts.

But how do you measure the economic impact?

Appsbar has made it a whole lot easier with this new function. The process is simple enough. Sign into your appsbar.com account (if you don’t have one, all it takes is an idea and a valid email address) and head to App Settings.

After clicking through you will be asked if you would like to activate the E-Commerce function for your app. A quick affirmative click and the appsbar team goes to work on activating the function in your app. The user receives a confirmation email in less than a day and you are ready to start selling.

From a revenue standpoint, the ability to have a mobile storefront is huge. Think of a local band putting on a show. You can sell tickets through the app. Close the performance with your new single. Sell the download through the app. A week later send out a notification reminding your fans about that song.

The possibilities are endless. How would a non-profit fare? If you ran a PSA through the app with a request for donation think of the impact that would have to your donor base. If your take-out restaurant has a new menu item, you could push that out to your app users and have them facilitate the entire transaction through their phone; order, purchase and all.

If you haven’t spent some time at appsbar.com, or perhaps you’ve already built your app and are looking for an opportunity to upgrade (yes, it is still all free) this might be the time to get involved in growing app-conomy.

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