Web Protocols

At last we come to a lecture of the week that is relevant to OmniEXP. As a singularly web-based endeavor, web protocols play a huge role in how OmniEXP conducts its business. I think that specifically I'm going to want to talk about SSL, and then maybe briefly get into domain names and the role ICANN plays.

So first off, lets discuss SSL. OmniEXP's website would definitely employee several instances of SSL overlapping the HTTP protocol. First off, OmniEXP is a website that allows for the creation of distinct and, more importantly, secure personal accounts. So right off the bat, you want the account registration and account log-in process to be SSL encrypted. Otherwise, it would be pretty easy for ne'er-do-wells to monitor the unsecured traffic and pick out people's account information, which could lead to instances of griefing and even identity theft.

Another key point of SSL encryption would be in the event that inputting your gaming data from other sources requires some sort of account authentication process. I'm not precisely certain how it would work, but lets say someone wanted to attach their Steamworks Achievements to their account. Obviously we wouldn't want them manually inputting their scores, both for the sake of convenience to the end user and also fairness to everyone, in the event that certain parties might fudge the truth on their actual statistics. So we would want to interface with the Steam client to access their information, which might require the use of SSL encryption in the event that the user has to provide any account specific information to our end in order for us to facilitate that data transfer. We don't just want to protect our users' privacy as it pertains to our site, but their privacy as it pertains to the web.

Finally, I suppose we can talk a bit out domain names. We would definitely want to snag a '.com' domain, as nothing screams successful venture quite so much as that suffix. Hopefully www.omniexp.com would be up for grabs. If not, then we'd have to figure out some way to buy that domain or file some sort of complaint if that didn't work out. Worst case scenario, we'd either go with a different web suffix or a different venture name. OmniEXP was just sort of the first thing that popped into my head, I'm not beholden to it.

I don't think we would be interested in ICANN's new suffix initiative. As cool as .game might be, I think it would only serve to cause unwarranted confusion among our customers. Maybe if the program was more widely adopted in the future, we'd consider throwing down the capital needed for it, but at the moment I don't really see the point to it. Its an utterly useless initiative up until the precise point that competition demands it not to be.