Is the General Public Domain Name Savvy?

At a number of domain industry events late last month, I had the opportunity to ask many of the attendees, "Does your family understand what you do for a living?"  Most told me that, "No my family has no idea what I do, but they enjoy the money that I make."

Now I ask, “Does the general public understand what the domain industry does for a living?”  I think that you will agree with me that for the most part, it is still a mystery.  Just check out this YouTube video released earlier this week entitled, “How Internet Savvy Are We?”

Whether you think your friends and family would answer the questions in the videos correctly or not, I do have to say that the world is becoming more and more savvy.  In fact, I just visited Central America this week for an exposition.  I had the opportunity to meet a European businesswoman who explained to me her domain portfolio and strategy.  Although she was based in Belgium and serviced travelers to South America, she not only had .eu domains, but also .be, .com. .org, .net, and .travel domain names with her business name, variations of that name for keyword specificity, and many in various languages. 

I believe that this entrepreneurial woman is still a rarity in the general public, but I think we are starting to see the tide turning.  With the expansion of gTLDs, do you think that we will witness the growing awareness of domains amongst the general public?