|
.ORG
fans
are singing Happy Birthday to
their favorite domain
extension today as the revered
TLD celebrates its 30th birthday.
The first .ORG domain - Mitre.org
- was registered on July 10, 1985
and since then .ORG has blossomed
into the world's 3rd largest gTLD
with over 10.5 million
registrants.
To
commemorate the impressive legacy of
.ORG - a TLD aimed at "bringing
people together around a shared
cause" -
Public Interest Registry –
the nonprofit operator of .org,
.ngo and .ong – has
launched Happy30th.org,
a website where users can explore
notable .org websites through an
interactive timeline and discover
how these websites and organizations
have changed throughout the past 30
years.
|
|
|
|
Brian
Cute
CEO, Public Interest
Registry |
Brian
Cute, the CEO of Public
Interest Registry, said,
“The .ORG domain continues
to give a voice to organizations
and individuals working on
behalf of the greater
good. From encouraging
philanthropy and
volunteerism to preserving
natural and cultural
heritage, fostering economic
growth and much more, causes
that live on .ORG
bring incalculable benefits
to our communities, our
society and our shared
planet. We look forward to
many more years of giving
organizations of all kinds a
trusted online home for
building communities and
working towards a common
cause.”
There
are approximately three
billion people online
worldwide today. With
respect to the millions who
use .ORG, PIR noted "the
growth of the Internet has
allowed nonprofits to thrive
through online giving,
cultural institutions to
spread word of their
traditions, and global
communities to breakdown
boundaries and come together
online." |
Giving
some specific examples, a PIR news
release pointed out, "when
Japan was struck by a
devastating tsunami, when a building
collapsed in Bangladesh, and
when a 7.8 earthquake rattled Nepal,
people from across the world turned
to .ORG websites like japansociety.org,
ifrc.org,
and globalgiving.org
respectively to take
action." Here are some
other notable .orgs from the past 30
years:
·
WordPress
debuted wordpress.org
on May 27, 2003 and it has grown to
become the largest self-hosted
blogging tool in the world, used on
millions of sites and seen by tens
of millions of people every day.
·
The Wikimedia Foundation
introduced open-source database wikipedia.org
on January 13, 2001, and today it
offers free educational content in
284 languages as one of the top 10
most trafficked sites globally.
·
The Nature Conservancy has
operated nature.org
since May 15, 1996 where it
communicates efforts to preserve
lands and waters in more than 35
countries worldwide.
·
UNICEF launched unicef.org
on March 10, 1993 where it promotes
the well being of children in 190
countries and territories. On
February 9, 2015, UNICEF launched 7.org
in support of its initiative, 7: The
David Beckham UNICEF Fund, to
protect millions of children around
the world from danger.
·
As the very first .org registrant on
July 10, 1985, The MITRE
Corporation (mitre.org)
continues to work with the U.S.
government to research and develop
expanded uses of technologies to
solve problems.
For
more information about Public
Interest Registry, you can visit www.pir.org. To
learn more about .org’s growth and
composition, download the latest
bi-annual “Dashboard”
report at www.pir.org/dashboard.
You can also find 30 interesting
facts about .org and the Internet
from the past 30 years at www.pir.org/30-org-and-internet-facts.
|
