Neustar Archives – Developed NYC

Why the .NYC TLD namespace has a solid foundation

I have always believed that geoTLDs (.nyc, .london, .paris, .boston) have the greatest potential of all new domain extensions especially when we look to metrics of potential other than registry profits.

GeoTLDs have a clear audience of individuals, organizations and businesses - many of whom focus their marketing and messages at the local community. Of course financial feasibility of running a TLD is important, and part of that correlates to the size of the city as well as the love and affinity people share for the city. .nyc therefore, seems to have it all.

Something else .nyc has, is a city government that is behind it as a partner with the registry (Neustar). The City of New York has both a financial incentive for the TLDs success (40% share in the profits, the rest to Neustar) and a moral obligation to nurture .NYC to be a safe space that innovates and provides economic opportunity.

While researching the beginnings of .NYC I came across th…

GoWomen – GoDaddy Celebrates International Women’s Day

GoDaddy did something quite special today to celebrate women and move away from their (sexist) Super Bowl commercials - they changed their name to GoWomen.

GoDaddy also featured several profiles of inspirational women including designers, musicians and TV personalities across their website and they promoted the hashtag #BalanceForBetter as part of the cause.

It was really the subtle switch of the GoDaddy logo to the GoWomen logo that seemed to have the most powerful effect for me. When a company changes its name, however briefly to support a cause, they are quite literally putting the cause before themselves - respect.

This also reopened my mind to how male dominated the tech and web field is. My work as a high school computer science teacher has seen a big emphasis on encouraging underrepresented groups to get involved in CS education - our recruitment work has focused on minorities and females.

A recent unit I've been teach…

.NYC Best of Boroughs 2018 Winners

This morning I attended the .NYC 2018 Best of Boroughs celebration at Neustar's offices on Park Avenue. Here's what I was told to expect: Live announcement of the 2018 .nyc Best of Boroughs winners! FREE breakfast Swag bags and giveaways for all attendees City and borough representatives Fellow .nyc changemakers Event photographer and press Although a free breakfast usually gets me out of bed, I was very excited to hear who the winners of the Best of Borough's competition were and to meet others who have built their brand on a .nyc website. .NYC website owners were invited to submit websites before the submission deadline on September 19th to be in with a chance to win $5,000 + borough bragging rights + inclusion in marketing campaigns. The submission period was followed by public voting along with judges considering the story behind the submission, the website experience and the value to local community. Today the winners were announced and they…

NYC Travel and Tourism Domains Auction Results

Almost 1 year on from the Technology themed NYC Premium Domain Auctions, the Travel and Tourism themed NYC Premium Domain Auctions were completed and the results show that awareness of .NYC still has some room to climb. Firstly, there was the news that BroadwayTickets.nyc was snapped up before the auction began for the price of $25,000 by Broadway League Inc (Broadway.org). This sale wasn't publicized and if it had happened a month before the travel auctions maybe there would have been an effect on the final auction prices. Below are the final results from the travel and tourism themed auction: Domain Name Price Sale Type Sale Venue Date Registered boattour.nyc $555 Neustar Auction: Travel (#4) Sedo May 10, 2018 broadwaytickets.nyc $25,000 Negotiated Pre-Travel Auction Sedo May 8, 2018 concierge.nyc $750 Neustar Auction: Travel (#4) Sedo May 10, 2018 flights.nyc $500 Neustar Auction: Travel (#4) Sedo May 10, 2018 gui…

Premium NYC Travel Domains without the Auction

Earlier in the week I wrote about the upcoming premium travel related NYC domain auctions. The list is definitely worth a look and I'd advise everyone who lives and works in the five boroughs to get involved and potential grab a great name at an unbelievable price. But it got me thinking - can I find other available premium NYC travel domains without the auction! Here's a recap of the names that will be auctioned starting May 3, 2018 at 1pm: boattour.nyc guides.nyc shows.nyc boutiquehotel.nyc hotelguide.nyc showtickets.nyc broadwaytickets.nyc limos.nyc shuttle.nyc bustour.nyc lodging.nyc sightsee.nyc carrental.nyc museum.nyc theaters.nyc citytours.nyc pedicabs.nyc ticketbroker.nyc concierge.nyc reservation.nyc tour.nyc flights.nyc see.nyc visiting.nyc getaways.nyc A nice feature of the Auctions.nyc website is that along with the promotion of the 25 premium travel related domains on auction (s…

NYC Travel Domain Auction – Opens May 3, 2018

Following on from the success of the real estate, fashion and technology themed NYC domain auctions, Neustar and the City of New York are preparing to roll out the premium NYC travel domain auction in their fourth themed auction on on May 3rd. “I can think of no more fitting tribute to kick off the summer travel season than with these travel-related web addresses,” said Nicolai Bezsonoff, General Manager, Registry Solutions, Neustar. “Reaching those in-market travelers with a unique domain that signals they’ve reached a legitimate travel business based in New York will go a long way to engender the kind of brand trust that will keep customers coming back again, and again.” Businesses, organizations and people who live and work in five boroughs of New York City are all able to participate in the NYC travel domain auction. The auctions open at 1pm EST on May 3rd and the auction concludes at 1pm on May 10th, 2018. Bids in the final stages of the auction may extend the auc…

OWNIT.NYC Looks Back at 3 Years of .NYC

Recently OwnIt published an article called History Has Its Eyes on You .NYC in which the last 3 years of this city TLD is summarized. It's an interesting travel through time reviewing the .NYC's place among other cityTLDs, the success of the Best of Boroughs campaign and a look at the range of businesses, not for profits, individuals and other entities being a part of it and how premium domain sales are shaping up for the city and the registry. The article described the premium .NYC domain sales: It was just a year ago that we kicked off .nyc’s second year anniversary with the release of thousands of “premium” .nyc domain names. A premium .nyc domain name has a higher intrinsic value than the average domain name, and is likely to be in far greater demand. To date, over 515 premium .nyc domain names have been sold to New Yorkers through the world’s leading domain retailers, with a collective value of over $595,157 -- making .nyc domains some of the hottest tickets ar…

Voting Now Open – .NYC Best of Boroughs Contest

On 9/13 .NYC's Best of Boroughs Contest opened and called on all businesses, organizations, community members and individuals with a .NYC website to share their story and compete for bragging rights within their borough. As of 12am on 9/20 the submission deadline closed and the small one week window garnered 79 submissions across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island - take a look. So far leading Manhattan in the community category is the 100 Gates Project (100gates.nyc) with 88 votes. It's interesting to see such a diverse group of entrants across all boroughs. As part of the 2020studio.nyc's entry, they stated: I wanted the entire world to immediately know firsthand that this company was right in the thick of things: Directly right in the Universal Mecca of the Creative World by having a .nyc web address. In answering, "What inspired you to make this website or entity?" LuckyHoney.nyc responded: As a pilates instructor and production fit …

Neustar and the City of New York Launch “Best of Boroughs” Contest – Enter Now!

Earlier today Neustar and the City of New York launched the inaugural "Best of Boroughs" Contest which is open to businesses, organizations, community members and individuals with a .NYC website. Be quick this contest will be over before you know it - See the Best of Boroughs contest pitch below. 7 Days Only It’s the inaugural .nyc Best of the Boroughs contest. Calling all businesses, organizations, community members and individuals. Is your .nyc website the best of your borough? It’s time to share your story. We are celebrating the community that makes NYC, on .nyc and we want to feature your business, website or idea in an upcoming citywide advertising campaign. The .nyc domain, on behalf of the City of New York, is looking to showcase authentic .nyc websites as unique as their communities. 5 Winners Looking for neighborhood bragging rights? We will have 5 winners across the City-one from each borough. We’re talking to you Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens an…

Happy 3rd Birthday .NYC

The NYC Top Level Domain (TLD) will be three years old this October. Its precise birth date is at first unclear due to the NYC launch schedule. "General Availability" (where anyone who attempted to register an available domain was successful) was on October 8th 2014 but for many early NYC domain registrants, the two step "Landrush Period" would be the date to celebrate. The two steps of the Landrush Period were: August 4th to October 3rd 2014: Depending on registrar, registrants had to pay $70-100 for the Landrush application and keep their fingers crossed that no one else applied for the same domain during this period. If no second applicant the domain was theirs on October 3rd 2014 If a second person applied for the same domain, an auction would be conducted during one of three rounds depending on the first letter of the domain name: A – I: October 23 – 27, 2014 J – R: October 28 – 31, 2014 S – Z: November 3 – 6, 2014 Before General Availab…

Does the Genesis of a TLD Matter?

Verisign, the registry operator of .com and .net (as well as others including .tv, .cc and .name) have a page on their website called, "What does .com Mean?". It's an easy read and looks back at the history of .com. A few sections of the page I found especially interesting in light of the naming, applications and awarding of new gTLDs: While we know that the first .com was assigned to symbolics.com on March 15, 1985, the genesis of .com is less clear. According to Craig Partridge, chief scientist at Raytheon BBN Technologies, the name for domains evolved as the system was created. At first, .cor was proposed as the domain for corporations, but when the final version came out it was switched to .com. What would the implications be, to have a .cor (meaning "corporations") instead of a .com? My guess is that .net may have been more successful as the generic nature of the TLD may have been more attractive than the pigeon holing of corporations i…

NYC Tech Domains Auction Results

Following the Fashion themed NYC Premium Domain Auctions and the Real Estate themed Premium Domain Auctions, were the Tech related domain auctions which concluded today. At the end of the auctions it was a similar story the other auctions but without two domains selling in the 5 figures. This time web.nyc was at the top spot with bidding reaching $8,638. One reason for the apparent lack of excitement for these domains (with many selling at $500) is the fact that technology is more global than local so it may make sense that new startups, app builders, and even tech investors may shy away from building on the .NYC for tech-related projects where they expect to interact and market more globally. Take a look at the results below and leave a comment if you're feeling chatty! Domain Name Price Sale Type Sale Venue Date Registered vc.nyc $1,750 Neustar Auction: Tech (#3) Snap Names May 18, 2017 connect.nyc $2,059 Neustar Auctio…

NYC Fashion Domains Auction Results

This was the second in a series of Premium .NYC Domain Auctions by Neustar and the City of New York and it concluded earlier today with two huge surprises. Firstly, who knew there is more money in fashion than real estate. The "Real Estate" themed NYC premium domain auctions last year in October made records with RealEstate.nyc and Apartments.nyc selling for $21,300 and $16,155 respectively. The Fashion themed auction proved it could do one better with Shop.nyc selling for $33,500 and Fashion.nyc selling for $37,000. The rest of the results are below and I'm curious who the sellers are and if they are an investor or someone with an end use in mind. Again there are some great names that sold for $500 and if the SnapNames auction app or mobile website worked properly (I was no where near a desktop) I would have had a few bids in for some of bargains! Domain Name Price Sale Type Sale Venue Date Registered apparel.nyc $500 Neustar Au…

NYC Real Estate Domains Auctions Results

The first in a series of Premium .NYC Domain Auctions by Neustar and the City of New York has just concluded and I think we can say it was a success with a few surprises. Each of of the NYC premium auctions will contain around twenty domains that are connected by a theme. The auction that ended today contained domains relating to "Real Estate". RealEstate.nyc ($21,300) and Apartments.nyc ($16,155) were the front runners drawing significant bidding action. At the other end of the chart I was surprised to see brownstones.nyc, construction.nyc, coops.nyc, interiors.nyc and sublet.nyc all go at (or close to) the reserve price of $500. Especially when a name like Townhouse.nyc sold for $21,000 in the original Landrush Auctions in 2014. Domain Name Price Sale Type Sale Venue Date Registered apartments.nyc $16,155 Neustar Auction: Real Estate (#1) Namejet October 28, 2016 brokers.nyc $1,908 Neustar Auction: Real Estate (#1) Nam…