We Get It Award: U.S. Mint

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

U.S. mint advertises a .gov domain but also registers .com version.

This morning on the radio I heard an advertisement for the new United States Dollar coin. This is perhaps the 50th attempt by the U.S. Mint to introduce a dollar coin in America, and Austin has been selected as one of the roll out cities. (Someday the mint will understand that American’s hate coins.)

At the end of the commercial listeners are directed to visit UseDollarCoins.gov, which forwards visitors to a page on USmint.gov. I give the U.S. Mint points for selecting an easy-to-remember domain name, but of course the first thing I checked was if it also registered UseDollarCoins.com. The U.S. Mint’s PR agency, Weber Shandwick, had the foresight to register the .com, .net, .org, and .us versions of the domain name. With the exception of UseDollarCoins.net, all of the domains forward to the appropriate page on USmint.gov.

Although many people who hear the commercial will type .com, I think typing in .org and .us is also feasible.

This isn’t the first time someone in government has grasped the power of generic domain names, but we’ve also seen plenty of bureaucrats who mess it up.

Further Reading:

  1. Mint.com Mints Millions for Domain Seller
  2. Mint Condition: How Domaining is Like Collecting Baseball Cards

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4 Comments » - Posted in We Get It by

Comments

  1. Presidential Dollars
    September 25th, 2008 | 12:51 pm

    Very cool. I hadn’t heard about the domain name usage in the radio ads.

    One other interesting government domain choice I always remember for the US postal service. They use the usps.com as their domain name, and usps.gov forwards to usps.com

  2. Lincoln's Cabin, Obama Coins vs. John Kerry Coins, Walking Liberty Halves | Coin Update
    September 25th, 2008 | 4:00 pm

    [...] brief report from Austin about the US Mint’s radio advertisements promoting the Presidential Dollar coins. [...]

  3. Grx
    September 25th, 2008 | 7:11 pm

    I don’t think Americans hate coins. Many do recognize that coins ought to be made of copper, silver, or gold. Not trash metal with poorly crafted artwork.

  4. Bonaparte
    September 26th, 2008 | 3:18 pm

    DOES ANYONE USE THE PRESIDENTIAL DOLLAR COINS?

    In Canada they have $1 and $2 which is great as you can buy lunch with your change.

    I think they look great and I use them everywhere I can with the help of a little change-holder called Portsou that I picked up online.

    Check it out http://www.portsou.com Go dollar!!!

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