Did you know there is a .Love new gTLD extension? .Love domain names can be bought at many domain registrars, and it looks like there are nearly 30,000 .Love domain names registered. I had forgotten about the .Love extension until I saw a Valentine’s Day tweet from InterNetX this afternoon:
There are Almost 30,000 .Love Domain Names
XYZ Registry Publishes Quarterly Report
The XYZ registry published its Q4 2018 quarterly report (pdf file), and the registry shared some internal and external stats from the extensions the registry manages (.XYZ, .Cars, .Car, .Auto, .Rent, .Storage, .Theatre, .College, .Security and .Protection). The report is dubbed as a quarterly report, but it looks like some of the information is compiled from the full 2018 year rather than the fourth quarter alone.
Here are some of the facts XYZ shared from across the extensions it operates:
New EnCirca Service to Streamline .BOT Registrations
EnCirca is the registrar for the .BOT domain name registry, which is managed by Amazon. In advance of NamesCon, EnCirca just put out a press release to announce a new service to help streamline .BOT domain name registrations. You can read more about .BOT domain names and how they are used on the Amazon Registry website.
This $300 Million Company Uses a .Cash Domain Name
According to a TechCrunch article published yesterday, a startup called Dosh announced it had raised a $40 million round of funding. CrunchBase reports that the company has raised $97 million in funding since it was founded in 2016. After the most recent funding round, the company is now valued at $300 million. Notably, Dosh uses a .Cash domain name: Dosh.Cash.
GoDaddy Marking New gTLD as a “Premium Domain”
Almost a year ago, I shared a video from GoDaddy that explains what a premium domain name is. The video is shown as a pop-up when a searched domain name is listed for sale via Afternic and available to purchase during the standard registration sale process. In the sales box at the top of a page, there is a link that says “What are premium domains?” and clicking the link generates a pop up with the video.
Yandex Pulls a Rudy With Yandex.Phone Launch
I was scrolling my newsfeed today, when Techmeme published a tweet referencing a news story about a new phone from Yandex. Apparently, the company launched a new phone that is called Yandex.Phone. Here’s an excerpt about the new smartphone from the company’s press release:
“Yandex (NASDAQ:YNDX), a technology company that builds intelligent products and services powered by machine learning, has unveiled its first smartphone, Yandex.Phone. “
Here’s the tweet from Techmeme that references Yandex.Phone:
Russian search giant Yandex launches https://t.co/buznx2lIzZ, its first smartphone, with 5.65-inch display, 4GB RAM, Android, and Snapdragon 630 for ~$270 (@psawers / VentureBeat)https://t.co/T2C4Vj2h2Whttps://t.co/1sIjiEXfgm
— Techmeme (@Techmeme) December 5, 2018
As you can see, there are two urls in the tweet, with the first one being Yandex.Phone. It appears that this is an unintentional link that was created because there is a .Phone new gTLD extension, so Yandex.Phone is actually a domain name that becomes a hyperlink within a tweet. Effectively,