New gTLD

There has been considerable discussing about registering COVID-19 and coronavirus domain names for resale. Bloomberg’s Quick Take just posted a video about 17 year old Avi Schiffmann, who created “one of the largest coronavirus-tracking websites in the world.” He did it using the nCoV2019.live domain name, which was registered on February 2, 2020.

I am sure new gTLD and ccTLD registries have been beneficiaries of the “run” on domain name registrations related to the coronavirus pandemic. People have often cited trust as a major factor in choosing a .com domain name for their business or website. I wonder if people who visit this popular .Live website notice that it uses an alternative domain extension, and if they do, I wonder if this is helping to educate the general public about non .com domain names.

Domain industry attorney Jason Schaeffer shared a neat usage of a .NYC domain name I thought I would share with readers.

The Jewish holiday of Passover (Pesach) is coming up this week. For Jewish people around the world, matzah (unleavened bread) is one important aspect of the Passover seders and the holiday. Finding and buying matzah can be quite challenging while quarantining due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

For those in need of matzah in New York City, the Mitzvah Tank is offering to supply it, and they are using a .NYC domain name to promote the offer: Matzah.NYC:

A tweet caught my eye this afternoon, and I want to draw attention to it. As you may have been hearing, the US and likely elsewhere is dealing with a shortage of personal protective equipment. This is especially problematic in for first responders and medical staff at hospitals in many parts of the country. In fact, the US has turned to uncustomary sources for PPE supplies.

This afternoon, a company called Harbor Freight Tools announced it would be donating its entire inventory of PPE, including N95 masks, gloves, and face shields. The announcement was made via the company’s Twitter account:

Whenever I see a TechCrunch tweet mentioning a large fundraising round for a company with a short and/or generic-ish brand name, I immediately focus on the domain name used by the company. This morning, TechCrunch published an article about a company called Ada, which announced a $44 million Series B funding round:

Ada raises $44M Series B to improve its chatbot customer service platform https://t.co/7Ui4sbBdpz by @mjburnsy pic.twitter.com/555yJDktNg

— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) March 19, 2020