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.IO dominates the Apple App Store

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Lots of app developers use .io in their names, but it’s not what it seems.

I was reviewing the top games on the Apple App Store this morning and quickly noticed a trend: .io is all the rage with app developers.

8 of the games on the top free charts have a .io at the end:

  • Paper.io 2
  • Hole.io
  • Bumper.io
  • Ping.io
  • Tornado.io
  • Slither.io
  • Paper.io
  • Beetles.io

So a boon for .io domain name owners? Not quite. It doesn’t look like the game owners all own the corresponding .io domain names used in their app names.

Rather strange if you ask me.

.Io is the country code domain name for British Indian Ocean Territory.

Domain names at CES 2018

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You had to search to find domain names.

Some of the domain names at CES 2018.

I spent last week in Las Vegas at CES, the big technology trade show that features 3,000 exhibitors.

Throughout the week I kept my eyes open for domain names. The thing that struck me wasn’t which top level domain names I saw. It was how few domain names I saw.

I’m used to seeing tradeshow booths with domain names plastered on them. That was even the case last year at CES. This year, I saw relatively few. I had to seek them out.

Instead of domain names, it seemed that most exhibitors focused on good branding. Want to follow up with the company after the show or learn more about them? Take a card or Google the brand name.

Sure, there were domain names there. But it seemed like I had to search for them.

In addition to .com I saw .care, .life, .io and even .ms.

And this year I saw .tech a couple times. I was shocked last year that CES didn’t plaster CES.tech on any signs at the event. It was a big coup for Radix to land CES as a .tech user, but every sign last year pitched downloading the CES app rather than going to CES.tech.

Domain reads: .Com for uptime, .Bank transitions

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Domain industry pros should read these two articles.

I read a couple of interesting domain name related stories over the past few days that should be interesting to DNW readers. They give perspectives on domain names from people outside the domain name industry.

The first is a story from social media stream company Stream titled Why Stream Stopped Using .IO Domain Names for Production Traffic.

People in the domain industry often talk about the confusion of using alternatives to dominant top level domain names like .com. But Stream has another reason to choose a mainstream TLD: uptime.

The company uses the domain name GetStream.io for its website and also used a .io domain for its API. But a failure by the .io registry on September 20th made it rethink this.

Verisign talks a lot about its uptime record. Here’s a company recognizing that.

After the registry technical issues, Stream decided to move its production domain name to a .com and will add a .org as a backup. Click here to continue reading…

Registry-based .IO backorder service to shut down

by — Expired Domains 3 Comments

Change comes as backend registry services are transitioned.

Afilias is taking over backend registry services for Internet Computer Bureau (ICB Registry) and its three ccTLDs .AC, .IO, and .SH. This transition will take place on June 10.

As a result of the transition, there will no longer be a registry-run backorder service for .IO.

In DNW Podcast #136 I interviewed Mike Carson, who runs Park.io. Park.io is a country code drop catching service that made a name for itself with .io expired domains.

The current .io registry began offering its own backordering service after he started Park.io. However, the registry service wasn’t very domainer-friendly: there were no refunds if the current owner renewed the domain.

Nevertheless, .io shutting down its service should be good news for Park.io.

The accidentally successful top level domain names

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Is there a lesson for new TLDs in the success of .io and .ly?

Over the weekend I was listening to last week’s DNW Podcast again and thinking about Mike Carson’s thoughts on ccTLDs that have taken off compared to new TLDs.

One thing struck me as I thought about this: some of the most used “repurposed” country code top level domain names actually weren’t marketed at all.

Let me explain.

By repurposed, I mean country code domain names that have been adopted by groups that like the extension but have nothing to do with the country. Examples include .io (adopted by tech companies because of the I/O connotation) and .ly (adopted by companies as a sort of domain hack adding -ly to names).

British India Ocean Territory and Libya didn’t set out to make their extensions the next cool thing through a marketing campaign. Instead, companies decided the names were cool.

We’re seeing the same thing with .AI right now.

This is a little bit different from a couple other remarketed domains like .co and .me. In both of these cases, entrepreneurs decided to repurpose the domains and market them. (This might be open to some dispute. I don’t recall if .me was taking off on its own before GoDaddy stepped in to inject marketing muscle behind it.)

Is there a lesson in this for new TLDs? Maybe. I’ve seen some success getting end user adoption through marketing. .Live comes to mind. So seeding a domain with marketing efforts makes sense.

But at the end of the day, you also have to be offering an extension that people want to use.