The internet is about to get a lot bigger, come mid-March, when another batch of gTLDs (generic top level domains: various alternatives for the ".com" or ".org" that follows a web address) hit the public. On March 19, one of those gTLDs up for grabs is .UNO, the first dedicated domain for Spanish-speakers.

As we previously reported, .UNO was created for Latinos, Latin Americans, and Spanish speakers worldwide, as part of the effort by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to create new gTLDs suffixes for websites.

The .UNO domain was officially announced late last year as one of nearly 1,400 new domains that ICANN, the official registration organization for internet domains, plans to add to the internet. ICANN's expansion of top level domains comes in response to the phenomenon that should be familiar to anyone that has been active on the internet for five years or more: the proliferation of the internet, and the websites that run on it. With so many people adding new content and addresses to the world wide web, but so few top level domains, like ".com", ".org", and ".net," the actual web addresses "before the dot" have had to get longer and more complicated, since each one has to be unique for its top level domain.

That won't be the case soon, as more gTLDs are added by the week. Soon, .UNO will become available for the general public to register their websites, after being made available first to Trademark Clearinghouse, a venture partly operated by IBM that sought to reserve already-registered trademarks for the new gTLD expansion, and GoDaddy, a registration company that is using the .UNO expansion to grow their Latin American presence and help get Latino and Latin American entrepreneurs' businesses registered under .UNO.

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On March 19, it will be your turn, and everyone else's, to get your hands on a .UNO top level domain. The .UNO domain is touted as "the first global web extension dedicated to Spanish-speaking businesses, consumers and individuals online" which will "provide a unique opportunity for Hispanic and Latino web users to communicate and transact business together, in one space, online," offering "differentiation to Spanish-speaking businesses and entrepreneurs," and a "voice and a platform within a community environment which transcends geography and citizenship," according to introductory announcement of the top level domain.

One could also see it as a useful tool for non-Hispanic businesses that want to reach out to the Spanish-speaking audience online too. According to a release by Dot Latin LLC, the company launching the .UNO domain extension, marketing in the U.S. directed at Latinos has grown up to $7.9 billion in 2012, as companies try to advertise and appeal to the growing spending power and tech savvy of Latinos.

For businesses that are primarily English, but want to grow beyond their primary audience, a .UNO extension on their current web address -- as a signal that this is a web page "en español", rather than having a link or button somewhere on the main English page that Spanish-speakers have to search for -- could be a boon to these marketing efforts. This is already happening, according to Dot Latin, as major brands like McDonalds, Amazon, and Apple have already registered .UNO.

Beyond .UNO, there are a plethora of domain extensions coming into existence or freshly available on the web for any number of interests and uses, ranging from ".photography" to ".menu" and ".ninja." The world wide web is about to get a lot wider.

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