Betabeat » domain names

.NYC Domain Names May Finally Become a Reality

Jessica Roy — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:52:43 -0400

A photo from the .NYC domain campaign (gothamist.com)

If the "Made in NYC" label wasn't enough to cement your status as an integral part of the burgeoning local tech community, perhaps a .NYC domain name might pique your interest. Luckily for enterprising young founders hankering to swap .ly or .co for a cooler extension, the New York Times reports today that the city is seeking a contract with a Virginia-based company that could bring us closer to finally landing .NYC's.

We first reported on the city's continued pursuit of .NYC domain names last June, when NYC EDC president Seth Pinsky told us that the new domain could offer local businesses and the city unique opportunities to establish New York as a beacon of innovation.

Now that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has approved .NYC as a domain extension, the city is in talks to establish a five-year contract with a Virginia company that would, according to the Times, "apply for the domain and operate and market it on the city’s behalf. The company would pay the upfront costs, and the city would get a share of revenue." Not only would we get our much-desired .NYC domains, but the city is also slated to make at least $3.6 million from the deal.

Scoring its own domain has been a New York pipe dream for a while. A campaign started by Connecting.nyc Inc. last year helped push the desire for .NYC's into the mainstream. The .NYC Domain site argues, "The greatest city in the world deserves its own domain extension." Here, here.

If you thought the 212 area code was an elite Manhattan status symbol, just wait until .NYC is unleashed upon the masses. According to Coactivate, if everything goes according to plan, we could all be fighting over the .NYC extension as early as Spring 2013.

We're totally down to jump on the bandwagon. Betabeat.nyc, anyone?

Cover Your Internets! More Than 10,000 XXX Domains Go Live Tomorrow Morning

Nitasha Tiku — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:19:32 -0400

VinDiesel.xxx?

It's finally upon us, you guys. The Internet will soon be awash in pornographic websites! Well, more categorically-organized pornographic websites! Did we mention there will be porn? There will be porn!

At 11am tomorrow, Stuart Lawley's vision of one domain registry to rule all adult entertainment sites will come to fruition, with 10,000 .XXX sites going live at once under the slogan, "Let's all be adult about it." Mr. Lawley, CEO of ICM Registry has been fighting ICANN for the right to the domain since the 90's, arguing that a unique domain would make it easier for consumers to bypass porn if they weren't looking for it.

[Betabeat would argue that no one ends up on etsysellersinflagrante.com by accident, but we digress.]

"There's a lot of information out there on the Internet," Mr. Lawley told Business Insider, arguing that the .XXX domain would make it easier to compile information. Again, we would like to interject that if you're having trouble finding porn on the Internet, you're doing it wrong. But Mr. Lawley also makes the fair point that the domain makes it easier for parents to block on Firefox and other browsers.

For once, the adult entertainment world and orthodox religious groups are united in opposition, though for different reasons. Pornographers argue that the domain stifles their web presence, religious groups argue the opposite.

For those requiring more context for this momentous occasion, Business Insider has thoughtfully advised readers not to miss its slideshow "15 things you need to know about Internet porn." We haven't clicked on it yet, but we imagine it's just the word: "It's everywhere" repeated 15 times with some imaginative stock photography.

ICANN Is Playing Fast-and-Loose With Domain Names. Here Are 10 We Would Like to See

Nitasha Tiku — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:47:16 -0400

ICANN's long-awaited ruling came down today in favor of increasing the number of domains on the Internet beyond just identifiers for countries and suffixes like .com or .org or .gov. The move is liable to set off an "internet land rush," says the Washington Post. Any combination of letters, including non-Latin character, is up for grabs with only one check in place: every new domain suffix comes with a $185,000 application fee and a $25,000 annual maintenance cost. So really it's more of a check on what's in one's bank account, than whether the internet could benefit from a .rupertmurdoch or .walmart. AllThingsD's John Paczkowski predicts: "This is going to be a massive brand identity land grab and one that’s unlikely to do much good for consumers, but plenty for ICANN and its coffers." But rather than divvy up our beloved Internet according to who can pony up the fees, Betabeat would like to make a plea for honesty in domain names. Here are some helpful suffixes we'd like to see at the end of our URLs next year.

1) .contentfarm

Think how easy it would be to identify Demand Media properties or figure out which AOL-HuffPo blogs are just there for the SEO?

2) .vanityproject

With all the big paydays for tech investors and founders , we predict this segment of the internet will show considerable growth over the next quarter.

3) .futurepivot

That way when users hate your first idea, they'll know to check back again in few months.

4) .grouponclone

A handy guide for any public investors when Groupon IPOs.

5) .bs

C'mon, Bahamas. Give up this suffix for the greater good.

6) .dinosaur

How to tell your new media from your old.

7) .spam

Great SEO is like poetry, sprinkled with Google Ads.

8 ) .domainsquatter

Speeds up the process from squatting to bribe.

9) .bigbrandtypo

Yes, we're looking at you, Twiter.com

10) .xxx

Poof, like that, half your internet, all in one vertical.

Conde Nast Has Big Plans for Reddit, Goes On Domain Shopping Spree

Ben Popper — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:34:07 -0400

I'll take two of everything

As Reddit's traffic has boomed, rumors have swirled that Conde Nast may be shopping the site around to prospective buyers. Suspicions that something big is in the works came yesterday, when Conde Nast shelled out for 285 Reddit related domain names.

Once upon a time relations between the social news site and its publishing parent were very strained, with Reddit publicly blogging about the lack of resources.

Since then the team has expanded in size and founders like Alexis Ohanian have been brought back on board to consult. The site's IAMA Q&A sessions have become a popular platform for celebrities and even politicians to engage with a large audience online.

All Things D's Peter Kafka reported that Conde was mulling a sale of Reddit for as high as $200 million, citing sources and the sites explosive growth.

The purchased domains seem ready made for an expansion of verticals categorizing news and entertainment: travelreddit.com, soccerreddit.com, redditbiz.com and many others.

Even if this is just a sign of good housekeeping and not a harbinger of a big sale or spin off, it bodes well for Reddit. Conde is recognizing what a powerful property is has on its hands and might be trying to cut down on sites phishing traffic off related domains. Creating a separate domain for different topics, like sexreddit.com, will also go a long way to improving the sites ranking on search.

Letter.ly Goes Down Due to Libyan Conflict

Ben Popper — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 12:07:23 -0400

We've bounced this tidbit back and forth a few times at Betabeat, but it seems like the turmoil in Libya has finally had a concrete impact on a site using that nation's .ly domain.

"Last week the agency we used to register the letter.ly domain was taken down as a side effect of the war in Libya. Our domain registration expired and, and we were unable to renew it. As the expiration propagated, the site appears to be dead and emails sent to your subscribers probably bounced," the Letter.ly team wrote in an email to users.

As Betabeat's Adrianne Jeffries reported back in March, a number of sites saw prominent companies like bit.ly using the Libyan domain and assumed it was safe for them. Many have now taken on second homes, just in case the real world tumult continues to spread to the web. - Bb