During the first 60 days in New York City’s launch, applicants without competitors are guaranteed to get the domains they want, while competitors will enter a bidding war.
New York’s official public launch of its top-level domain on Aug. 8 could be the start of a new online trend. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) began pushing for more top-level domains in 2012, when they called for applications and received ideas ranging from .shoes to .HIV. Of the initial applications, 1,700 new top-level domains passed initial evaluation and could someday become part of the Web’s vernacular.
London and Las Vegas have also applied for their own top-level domains. New York City’s application fee to ICANN was $185,000, and there’s a recurring annual fee of $25,000. The city contracted Sterling, Va.-based Neustar for five years, during which time the city is guaranteed at least $3.6 million in revenue.
After one day, many New Yorkers and New York City businesses tweeted their interest in owning a dot-nyc domain.
Landrush is here! Just pre-registered my @dotnyc address. Excited to have worked on .nyc and see it IRL. http://t.co/73sxsoMaDz #nycownit — Grace Cheung (@gracecheung) August 4, 2014
The OwnIt.nyc website features five local entrepreneurs and businesses that have aligned their branding with the city. Musician Bridget Kelly, the Brooklyn Music Festival, and fitness studio Row House are among the first to own a .nyc domain.
As of Aug. 5, the domain names don’t work, but soon, many more city-specific domains could be seen in Twitter feeds and on billboards. -- Colin Wood
