Episode 532: The Wild West Of The Internet

NPR

Published September 2, 2016 at 1:06 PM EDT

Note: This episode originally aired in April, 2014.

There are over 120 million websites ending in .com. But a few years ago, a bunch of new domains came online. So instead of .com, .gov or .net, not there's also .ninja, .bike and .cool, too. In all, over a 1000 new top-level domains, as they're called, were added to the list of possible website endings.

Today on the show, what happens when you just create a whole bunch of internet real estate out of nowhere? We meet some of the new land barons with big dreams. And some who wish things would just stay the same.

For more, check out these websites:

Here's a list of new top-level domains that currently exist.

Here's a list of top-level domains that have been applied for.

Namestat and nTLDStats are websites that track how well each one is doing — how many sites have registered with each domain.

Music: "Got My Eyes On You" and "Dreamy Afternoon". Find us: Twitter/Facebook.