This means two things: first, many very lucrative names will not be available for entrepreneurs to buy, and second that companies will not invest very much money to market their dot-biz extensions. Consequently dot-com extension will not receive anywhere near amount of marketing attention that went into promoting dot-com TLD (don't expect Super Bowl in 2002 to be for dot-biz what it was for dot-com in 1999!). Without this push, dot-biz extension will probably remain in background.

So it looks like dot-com TLD will likely be market leader for foreseeable future. But while many of "the best" dot-com names are already registered, many are not being used. A recent study shows that as much as half of registered domain names are not in use. The domain market will therefore center around trading names with dot-com extension that have already been registered on markets like Sedo.co.uk, or Greatdomains.com. Here buyers and sellers of already- registered names can connect with one another to utilize their valuable dot-com domains.

But while dot-biz extension will not eclipse dot-com, it definitely will have an important secondary role as a cheaper and more accessible alternative to dot-com. Just don't think that business.biz to fetch $7.5 million that its dot-com predecessor did anytime soon.

Kevin Clune is the Country Manager for the US, UK and Ireland at Sedo GmbH (www.sedo.co.uk). Sedo is the leading European domain exchange with over 250,000 unique visitors to its German, English, French, Spanish, Swedish and Dutch Sites.