Every day, it seems like more and more startups and companies launch on, or move to, .com alternative domain name extensions. Some do this out of necessity because the matching .com is unavailable or too expensive, and others do it for branding or other marketing purposes. In my opinion, if a company uses an alternative extension such as a new gTLD or ccTLD, they need to embrace the extension in their branding.
.US Town Hall Hosted by Neustar
Neustar, the company that operates the .US domain name extension, will be hosting a .US Stakeholder Town Hall webcast meeting on October 24, 2019. The primary topic of the Town Hall webcast is for the .US management team to discuss its recent developments to promote the use of .US domain names. .US registrants will also have the opportunity to ask questions and share their own thoughts about the current state of .US domain names:
2019 Nordic Domain Days Approaching
The 2019 Nordic Domain Days event will be taking place in Stockholm, Sweden from November 25-26, 2019. The annual domain name-focused event is a part of the larger Internet Days conference, which expects to host over 2,500 attendees. The event will be held at the Stockholm Waterfront Congress Center.
Here’s a general overview of the event, which you can see is primarily regional in nature:
Rick Schwartz Chooses Rick.TV
A couple of weeks ago, Rick “Domain King” Schwartz posted a poll on Twitter asking people to help him select a domain name to post the video content he has been sharing on Twitter. My opinion was that Rick should continue to use the RicksBlog.com domain name he has been using for years, and the people who voted gave this name a slight edge over the alternative, Rick.TV domain name.
Over the weekend, Rick announced that he made a decision and will be using the .TV ccTLD domain name which is commonly used for television and video programming:
Element AI Does It Better
Yesterday, I published an article about a company called Healthy.io. I praised the company for incorporating its .IO domain name within its branding, making it less likely that people will make a mistake when navigating to the startup’s website or sending email to employees. I found an even better example of a company’s wise usage of its ccTLD domain name.
This morning, several tech publications covered the news of a major funding round for a company called Element AI:
Healthy.io Does .IO the Smart Way
Last night, VentureBeat published an article about a $60 million round of funding for a company called Healthy.io. The healthtech startup has now reportedly raised around $90 million in funding to date:
https://t.co/srnfUBGWb9 raises $60 million to help patients complete urine tests on their phone https://t.co/1f6NwWsPpk by @Kyle_L_Wiggers
— VentureBeat (@VentureBeat) September 12, 2019
As you can see, Healthy.io uses the .IO ccTLD for its website. In my opinion, this company is using its non .com domain name in a very smart way.