Perry

Hewitt

Tag: gTLDs

  • Friday 5 — 1.24.2014

    Friday 5 — 1.24.2014

    1. Google search previewGoogle knowledge graph, which seeks to represent “real world things and their connections,” surfaces the relevant content you see on Google search results pages, like movie times. This week Google added to their results a short description of websites that are “widely recognized as notable online, when there is enough information to show.” There’s a lot of content creep from destination pages into search results, presumably to keep people on site for ad impressions on the Google domain.
    2. There’s a lot of credit for brands moving fast in social media — here’s a terrific insight on the value of social media restraint for brands. Now that news travels with us everywhere on our mobile devices, there’s a feeding frenzy quality to breaking news. Brands dive in to add context to the news — whether it’s an earthquake or a Bieber peccadillo. This article points out the value in recognizing that just because you can find an angle for your brand, it doesn’t mean you should.
    3. On February 4, a whole bunch of new generic top level domains (.gTLDs) will go live on the internet. Some feel this is just a clever way to part marketers from their money, with a hefty 185K price tag for each top level domain. Let the land grab begin.
    4. Every exec who’s ordered an agency team to deliver a viral video should check out this New Yorker piece of research that finds six elements of avidly shared content. They include emotion and an element of social currency that translates into the insider handshake. Miraculously, quality storytelling makes the list: apparently some cat videos are more equal than others.
    5. What do the Facebook news feed changes mean for brands? The updated algorithms will downplay text posts from brands in favor of more organic visual shares. This shift marks another way the visual web is raising the bar for content creators.

    Weekend fun: At the risk of becoming a character in this New Yorker cartoon, I still have to recommend you waste three minutes over the weekend watching this 8-bit version of The Big Lebowski.

    Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.

  • .nyc enters the domain name fray

    nyc domainJust over a year ago, I wrote a couple of posts about generic top level domains (gTLDS) — what people were applying for, and the risks of domain expansion.

    Last week Mayor Mike Bloomberg announced .nyc, a top level domain the city will make available only to NYC-based businesses and residents. The theory is that a high-rent, sought-after internet domain is a brand benefit, and an opportunity for NYC-based businesses. There are still a number of legitimate questions about the both the execution and the benefit, but it’s an interesting effort in the context of Bloomberg’s broader digital innovation legacy.

    On the coattails of this announcement, GoDaddy announced a marketing effort to push Los Angeles firms to adopt the .la domains. Unlike the newly approved .nyc, the domain is already available, and assigned to Laos. Not sure how much traction this will get as a non-exclusive offer without alignment to broader digital city initiatives.

    Is there value in .nyc and other city-based geographic domains promoting locale as brand? Or will knowing domain names become a charming anachronism, like knowing telephone numbers (1-800-54-GIANT, anyone?) before an age of one-click mobile Yelp and speed dial? Traffic referrals today come primarily from search and social, with mobile social on a rapid rise. If I had a relative investment to make, I would prioritize optimizing for social before the additional domain, but am curious to see who opts for both.

  • Risks of new ICANN gTLDs

    [W]hat if the name was created by an open source community, without the financial resources to mount a challenge? I have some standing there, because I played a role in establishing blogs. How does Google get the right to capture all the goodwill generated in the word blog?

    Dave Winer quoted in Giga Om on the risks inherent to corporate use of generic words in new ICANN gTLDs

  • Let the bidding begin: new gTLDs visualized

    Today’s the big reveal for who applied for a new gTLD. Looks like brands went for proprietary names: Barclaycard, XEROX (really?) and nominal nonprofit AARP, and some of the more compelling generics. Above is the list of English language gTLD applications visualized with wordle. The larger words indicate where there are multiple applicants, which results in bidding — good luck to those vying for .home or .app!