I cannot say the same about the .bcn domain. It was just one more of the ideas from the City Council without regard to the opinion of people from Barcelona (they are Barcelona, I imagine is their thought) In Barcelona not only there was no interest in the .bcn. There was opposition. Peope were afraid it could debilitate the .cat domain.

Quite surprisingly, it is now the US Commerce Department who is raising concerns about the expansion of new tld domains.

My experience on the Internet is that it is a place for chaos, So the less chaos the best.

So, if new tld do not come soon as it seemed then in Barcelona we just should be happy we have the .cat domain.

But then why should the Berliners do not have the .berlin?

Maybe the answer is to do the things step by step. Just give only one domain to a city and see what happens. In that casy I imagine the city should be BERLIN.

I wonder what to do now with my www.dotbcn.com … maybe I could do a website about utopic projects related to Barcelona city …

In this post I want to talk a bit about ICANN, the ones who would decide about the top level domains to be assigned!

In order to do that I am just reading a transcription from a meeting at Cairo. You can read it at http://cai.icann.org/files/meetings/cairo2008/public-forum-open-discussion-06nov08.txt

I am amazed that questions in that meeting are similar to ones I made myself. For example, the person representing .nyc is worried because they have to pay a lot of money to submit the candidacy and then they are not sure which are the criteria to be successful! I have the same doubts! Imagine the Barcelona City Council asks for the .bcn and a rich private investor askes also for .bcn. Who has more possibilities to win? Should a City Council have more possibilities that just a private company?

I past here the part where the CEO from dot berlin talks:

” [ Applause ]

>>PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Sir.
>>DIRK KRISCHENOWSKI: My name is Dirk Krischenowski, and I’m founder of the dot Berlin initiative.
We are here for the 11th meeting on — in a row, ICANN meeting. And I’m hopeful every time, since the timeline ICANN publishes before the ICANN meeting looks very promising to us and others. But with us, also the community of Berliners is looking forward to acquire its top-level domain, dot Berlin.
But every time we are going back to our community in Germany, we are disappointed, disappointed about the three- to six-months delay in the new TLD process, which makes up nine months from now before the next round actually opens.
I call this a consecutive pregnancy of ICANN. And what is usually done when a pregnancy will not end naturally is cesarean section is the method of choice for both saving the life of, in our case, I would say, the new TLD applicants, and ICANN.
I’m also speaking on behalf of the city TLD stakeholder alliance, the city TLD initiatives of Barcelona, Berlin, Hamburg, New York City, and Paris have formed on Tuesday. Our interest group is planning to become part of ICANN’s structure and framework. And we invite others to join our group. And we are happy to do cooperation and collaboration with them.
Besides the timeline, our group is also concerned about the 75,000 annual fees for city TLDs. This amount is unfair in comparison to the ccTLDs and existing gTLDs. It also endangers the business models of the city TLDs seriously.
Therefore, and for these reasons, I would appreciate if the board will not allow ICANN to further postpone the introduction of the new top-level domain names.
Please help to give birth to the new top-level domain names finally.
[ Applause ]“

So a group has been formed between New York, Barcelona, Paris, Hamburg and Berlin. I wonder how many people from these cities know that! I hope to know more!

In http://citytld.com/news.htm I see a photo with Dirk Krischenowski and also Amadeu Abril i Abril from the .cat.

It also says the people who represented the .bcn: Jaume Bordell i Sarro , Joan Batlle i Montserrat , Marta Tellez , Raquel Gisbert i Borras

I find that much more interesting that whether Barcelona gets the .bcn tld domain …

De fet … el que em preocupa és quelcom que està per damunt de domini .bcn sí o .bcn no. Es tracta de cap on va Internet. I Internet en general.

I és per això que he pensat de fer d’aquest blog, actualment un bloc de www.dotbcn.com, un lloc on exposar les meves preocupacions sobre el que suposa Internet.

Internet, tal com la coneixem ara, fa poc que va nèixer i encara no té grans detractors i ´més bé tot el contrari.

Però i si resultés que Internet sigui nociva?

No em refereixo a spam o enganys per Internet. Em refereixo a la bogeria de tenir cada dia més i més informació a Internet. La sensació de caos. L’addicció a Internet. El viure el un món virtual i abandonar el món real.

I si Internet ens està fent uns desgraciats a milions de persones. I si estem tan enganxats que no ho volem admetre?

Bé, he pensat fer de DOTBCN un lloc per pensar sobre això. Un think tank d’anar per casa, per començar …

Este post está aquí para explicar lo que pasa. Resulta que desde hace años, por lo menos desde los 90, existe un bar gay llamado PUNTO BCN en el Eixample barcelonés. Pertenece al grupo Arena ( www.grupoarena.com ) y es una de los símbolos del ambiente gay en la capital catalana. Me pregunto la razón de su nombre.

En su web veo que también han obierto más PUNTO en otras lugares como Panamá (PTY), San José (SJO), Santo Domingo (SDQ).

I wish something similar happened in Barcelona: the townhall with www.puntbcn.cat and a private company with maybe my domain, www.dotbcn.com trying to get the .bcn.

Let’s see what happens in New York. In Barcelona meanwhile, let’s wait and see … as always.

The first question is the following:

Imagine two different bodies want the same top level domain. What happens then? I say that because the fee for the ICANN is quite expensive so I wonder what should be done in this case.

The second question is the following:

We all know that there are disputes about domains. So, what happens with top level domains?

In some months ICANN will decide about the creation of new top level domains. One of these domains to consider will be .bcn. The City Council of Barcelona is the one who will try to opt for this domain …

.. but … just the City Council of Barcelona?

No one else …?

DOTBCN could try to opt for it too …

Let me explain. Imagine a trade mark called DOTBCN. It will have the prestige of Barcelona. Imagine that trade mark even having its own domain: .BCN …

Would that not be great?

What I mean is that .BCN instead of being the domain of the City Council it could be the domain of a private trade mark.

As it is obvoius the .bcn does not receive much support from people from Barcelona. Just the opposite. There are fears that the .bcn domain could bring shadow to the .cat domain. And what is worse, that shadow would be brought through public money.

But a private .bcn would be the opposite. It would bring prestige to Barcelona and no public money would be spent. Being a private domain the .cat won’t be theaten at all. .BCN would just be a prestigious trade mark.

A .bcn brought by the City Council can only bring disputes as it needs public money and it may seem a way to bring shadow to the .cat. A private .bcn will just bring prestigious to the city.

People from Barcelona could say: ” Barcelona is so trendy that a trade mark has bought the .bcn domain just to take advantage of the image of Barcelona. So Barcelona is one of the few cities of the world having a top level domain just because it is atrendy city” The capital of Catalonia could be proud of that and the rest of Catalonia too.

On the other hand if the .bcn is given to the City Council you create a politics problem as suspicious arise behind a .bcn public domain when we just got the .cat domain. It is not my imagination. Currently I see no support for the .bcn domain and there are people against it ( http://www.causes.com/catipunt )

If it sounds crazy what I am saying, just look at NYC. They have two webpages: www.dotnyc.net and www.connectingnyc.org

Anyway, if this idea of mine does not bring any support I just may give up the domains such as www.dotbcn.com to the City Council. Although they may prefer a www.puntbcn.cat or www.puntbcn.org for their iniciative.

Let me end, however, by saying that a private .bcn could also have disadvantages. It is quite interesting to read http://www.openplans.org/projects/campaign-for.nyc/nyc-faq , a faq for the .nyc.

Meanwhile here I put a list of domains that I have found with the words dotbcn (English), puntbcn (Catalan) or puntobcn (Spanish).

As I write this some of these domains are mine ( www.dotbcn.com, www.puntbcn.com, www.puntobcn.com ) although I could give them to a foundation similar to the one we have for the .cat domain ( www.domini.cat ).

Be aware of the dates of registration. www.puntobcn.com.es was already registered in 2004 by a particular. www.puntobcn.es was already registered on June 13th 2008 by another particular. My domains followed suit on June 24th 2008. Since the beginning my domains showed content related to the .bcn top level domain.

It is about 5 months later that the Barcelona Townhall begins to register domains. First they register, www.puntbcn.org and www.puntbcn.cat ( quite correct politically, I find) on November 21st 2008.

And on November 27th 2008 they registered the following ones including a .eu one: www.puntobcn.eu

I wonder why they have not registered www.puntbcn.eu or www.dotbcn.eu too.

Here is the list I mention above:

www.dotbcn.com
me
Record created: 2008-06-24
Record expires: 2009-06-24

www.dotbcn.net
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-27
Record expires: 2009-11-27

www.dotbcn.es
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-27
Record expires: 2009-11-27
www.dotbcn.cat
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-27
Record expires: 2009-11-27
www.dotbcn.org
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-21
Record expires: 2009-11-21

–

www.puntbcn.com
me
Record created: 2008-06-24
Record expires: 2009-06-24

www.puntbcn.net
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-27
Record expires: 2009-11-27

www.puntbcn.es
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-27
Record expires: 2009-11-27
www.puntbcn.cat
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-21
Record expires: 2009-11-21
www.puntbcn.org
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-21
Record expires: 2009-11-21

–

www.puntobcn.com
me
Record created: 2008-06-24
Record expires: 2009-06-24

www.puntobcn.net
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-27
Record expires: 2009-11-27

www.puntobcn.es
private owner 1
Record created: 2008-06-13
Record expires: 2009-06-13

www.puntobcn.com.es
private owner 2
Record created: 2004-02-10
Record expires: 2009-02-10
www.puntobcn.eu
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-27
Record expires: 2009-11-27

www.puntobcn.cat
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-27
Record expires: 2009-11-27
www.puntobcn.org
Ajuntament Barcelona
Record created: 2008-11-27
Record expires: 2009-11-27

Let’s see which domain or domains are finally chosen to represent the townhall .bcn candidacy.

Meanwhile here you have my image to show my preference for just one foundation for the .bcn and the .cat domain:

So, I’ve been thinking about the subject and my thoughts have changed a bit. I think that the .bcn should exist as Barcelona city exists BUT … why should the townhall pay for that?

I have .cat domains and the government of Catalonia is not behind them. Just a foundation. So, why should the capital of Catalonia pay money for a .bcn domain?

I thing that a .bcn would be great when it comes from the people of Barcelona but not from the townhall.

Anyway, whatever happens, one thing is clear to me: the domain .cat will be one of the best domains one can have. Much beautiful than .bcn. A lot of people around the world know what a cat is. Few know what a bcn can be …

Here a give you a link to a comment in Catalan and mostly in Spanish about the ideology behind the .bcn …:

http://www.directe.cat/punt-de-mira/largumentari-ideologic-del-domini-bcn-10816