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.








