TLD is a TLA (three letter acronym) for Top Level Domain. A Top Level Domain is the segment of a web address furthest to the right. Examples of TLDs that you've seen are .COM , .GOV, and .NET - maybe you've seen .MIL for the military, or .EDU for schools. These are all assumed to be US domains, which the rest of the world finds somewhat arrogant.
Internationally, you'll see country names ( .DE , .FR , .UK, .CN, .IN, .JN). Here's a world map with country-based TLDs represented by spatial orientation and by the relative size of the domain:
The tiny island sovereignty called Tuvalu happens to be assigned the .tv TLD, which they have subleased to people interested in URLs that relate to television. This is quite profitable for them.
There are moves afoot to establish many more TLDs, and there are benefits and fortunes to be found in running a new TLD. For instance, when .biz became available, there was a bit of a geek land rush to secure URLs.
What brought this to mind was a NYTimes article about how two groups are competing to establish and operate a new TLD, .GAY. They'd be able to sell names within that domain (such as Philadelphia.gay, or vacations.gay for instance) to the highest bidder. That would be a lucrative TLD to operate.
TLDs have previously been distributed nationally, but cities are just beginning to get into the game. If you subscribe to the Richard Florida worldview of city-based economies, it makes sense to extend TLDs down to the city level.
New York City has convinced ICANN, the people who approve or deny requests for TLDs, that it's appropriate for cities to develop their own TLDs, and they're on the verge of getting approval for .NYC. link1 link2
Pittsburgh should establish .PGH as a Top Level Domain. In this case, we're not interested in profits from administering the domain as much as we're interested in extending the regional brand into the web. We want advertisements and logos to say Steelers.PGH, DollarBank.PGH, etc. We want out-landers to see those URLs and think, "that's a city that gets it".
They'll still keep their .COM URLs, and they'll still resolve to the same websites, but it'll be a very low cost web marketing initiative for the region.
Here we go DOT P-G-H, here we go!
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