.movie coming to a Web site near you

New.net, an Internet start-up aiming to speed up the domain-name registration process, has released a new domain name suffix, ending in .movie. The Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based company is betting that the new Web address extension will help people find official movie sites easier and faster than memorizing cumbersome Web addresses. New.net said it has entered more than 1,000 of the most popular official film sites into a catalog so people can access the sites by typing in the name of the movie followed by .movie. Film fans, for instance, can find the "Spiderman" movie site by typing in www.spiderman.movie instead of www.sony.com/spiderman.

The company said that unlike other New.net domain names, which are available for registration by businesses and individuals at $35 per year, .movie Web addresses will not be for sale but can be accessed for free. New.net was started last year by investor Bill Gross and his Net incubator Idealab. The company created software, which can be run by an Internet service provider or on people's computers, that enables people to access unconventional Web addresses. In April, New.net signed deals with several service providers and software makers. --Gwendolyn Mariano, Special to ZDNet News