Yesterday afternoon, Susan Lawrence of Minds & Machines shared some news that could provide a boost for the new .Country domain names. According to an article that was published on MusicRow, the .Country new gTLD extension has some early adopters that might help drive awareness of the new .Country domain names. Awareness is a critical aspect in generating new registrations of the domain names.
Excited to announce our newest .country Pioneer, The Academy of Country Music! http://t.co/w2UioLLoSc #countrymusic #ACM #country
— Susan Lawrence (@Susan_MM_gtlds) December 12, 2014
In the article, it was mentioned that some of the early adopters of .Country domain names are musicians and country music groups such as Dolly Parton, Eli Young Band and Sam Hunt. The Academy of Country Music was also named as an early adopter. While it is good for the registry to have their domain names owned by some of the leading people and groups in the space (as opposed to potential cases of abuse or cybersquatting), I think the more important factor in getting people aware of the extension is the usage and marketing of the domain names. It appears they may have that aspect covered, too.
According to the article, “The Academy will use the new .country domains to promote events throughout 2015 and beyond.” Should the Academy of Country Music begin using .Country domain names in marketing materials promoting their awards and events, it will get people to focus on the .country extension. They may be confused at first, but they will likely learn what .Country is and how it is used, and that could cause others in the business, as well as fans of country music, to register their own .Country domain names. With country music’s fervent following, people may want to buy their own .Country domain names, just like their favorite musicians.
Getting the Academy of Country Music on board as an early adopter seems like a big win for the registry, especially if they make good and relevant domain names available to hand register at reasonable prices.
The .Country domain name extension is a joint venture between Top Level Domain Holdings (parent company of Minds & Machines) and Uniregistry. Domain names are now available to register.
.country came out 3 months ago, and has a whopping 743 registrations to date.
You are not encouraging forward investment with such pr dribble.
This wasn’t “pr dribble.” The article I quoted was published yesterday in a country music news outlet.
I have no idea when the Academy of Country Music got involved. I also don’t know if they started doing any marketing with the new .Country domain names, as the article mentions they will.
That’s great news for .country. I’m hoping they get some great exposure that has all the country music artists buying up their own domains. However, I could also see lots of potential UDRP’s due to squatters trying to beat the musicians to the punch. lol