It has been almost a week since I started messing around with the new Chrome Browser from Google at home. Would love to use it from work, but I have a Mac. One of the most relevant questions I had to ask myself was, could this be the end of URL’s?
Google refers to the new URL area on Chrome as an Omnibox, which is nothing more then a search field. This search field basically takes over as the address bar. The more and more I kept using Chrome, I realized that it had been days since I had to manually enter a URL into the address bar area. Most of the sites I needed, and recently visited, were already on the main page. When I actually did have to enter in a URL, Google almost completed every word I was looking for.
Will people necessarily care about the domain names they are purchasing anymore, or will any name suffice as Chrome will complete it anyways. If my living was based upon buying and selling premium domain names, I might want to consider having a back up plan.
Many publications have recently started to place bar codes in their ads which enable readers with certain software (iPhone has apps like scanlife for example) to take a photo of the bar code and be directed to the website. Once again, this diminishes the need for a premium name, since most visitors will not even notice the name of the site they have landed on.
It is not my belief that URL’s will disappear and be totally irrelevant. As newer technologies are introduced, I feel they will not play such a dominant role in the marketing of a company. Soon we will see the days of paying millions for premium domain names in the same light as paying $300 a share for CMGI back in the day.
To give an analogy: Remember a time, you actually had to memorize a phone number to dial a friend? Then a thing called a phonebook on your mobile phone suddenly appeared, and now you just click their name and you are connected. URL’s might meet a similar fate.
