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I
got a note
from Radix
Registry this week
letting me know that .FUN,
one of the nine new gTLD
extensions the company administers,
had crossed the 100,000
mark in total registrations. That is
an important milestone for any new
gTLD registry to reach but I've
never put a lot of emphasis on total
registration numbers because, if you
compare them to other TLDs, it's
like comparing apples to oranges.
Some
registries reach huge
registration numbers by selling
their domains for as low as a penny
apiece (or even free). Others, with
higher fees and a much lower number
of registrations, could easily be a
lot more profitable than those
with far more registrations. There
are over a
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thousand
new
gTLDs now and dozens of different
approaches to pricing, with all
registries trying to come up with
the best balance to help their
extensions succeed.
While
total registrations paint an incomplete
picture, one measure of success
that just about everyone agrees on
is a high level of adoption by
end users. If people are
building websites and businesses on
a TLD that dramatically increases
public recognition for the
extension. That in turn persuades
more developers to adopt the TLD
creating an ever widening circle of
expansion.
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New
gTLDs are less than five
years old (with many
younger, like .FUN that was
just re-lauched in April
2017), so they have just
started this cycle but
we've already seen instances
of how this can work from
TLDs that have been around
longer and followed the
development path to success.
One of the most prominent
has been .io, a once
little-known ccTLD
representing the British
Indian Ocean Territory,
that people in the tech
sector started adopting.
Others in that field and
others liked the way it
looked and sounded, so they
built on .io too. As a
result .io has grown into a
widely-known extension that
does well in both new
registrations (despite a
very high registration fee
compared to .com) and
aftermarket sales. |
That
is why the many examples of sites
that have be built on .FUN were what
really caught my eye in the
information I got from Radix. Those
included sites representing
industries like gaming, media,
entertainment, travel, technology
and others. There were also
blockchain startups (www.coin.fun
and www.lucky.fun)
and contextual domain-redirects
(such as Amazon’s www.prime.fun
and www.fire.fun)
that use .fun domains for brand
building and positioning.
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Radix
originally acquired the
rights to .FUN in October
2016 from Oriental
Trading Company, a party
supplies brand owned by Warren
Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.
Radix wanted the TLD for its
broad potential in the
lifestyle industry as well
as the media and
entertainment industry.
Radix's Swati Maheshwari told
me, ".FUN is one of the
few new TLDs that evoke a
primary human emotion giving
it broad appeal. The keyword
‘fun’ is also easily
understood even in
non-English speaking
geographies, giving it an
edge in the global market
for all things light-hearted
and leisurely." Radix
is practicing what they
preach, having incorporated
the concept themselves in a
game you can play at www.birdie.fun. |
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Swati
said, "from apps to
comedians, corporate events to
luxury travel - a wide array of
business sectors are using .FUN in
exciting and fun ways," and she
went on to provide more examples of
websites that are sharing the .FUN:
1.
www.culture.fun
is based in Sunnyvale, California,
and helps its corporate clients
build a friendly and fun working
environment. It also offers to conceptualize
and execute corporate events,
parties, team building activities,
etc. Some of its clients include Adobe,
BuzzFeed, Amazon, etc.
2.
www.hello.fun
is a voice-chat app by Singapore
based Bigo Entertainment.
Through this app, users can create
free voice chat rooms and join other
groups that match their interest.
3.
www.tenerife.fun
is a luxury yacht rental service in Tenerife,
the largest of Spain’s Canary
Islands.
4.
www.ismo.fun
is the official website of Finnish
standup comedian, Ismo Leikola,
who made his U.S. debut in 2014 at
the Laugh Factory in Hollywood
where he won the title of The Funniest
Person in the World.
5.
www.manwalksintoabar.fun
is an an experiential travel company
that arranges island tours and pub
crawls for tourists in Madeira,
an archipelago comprising 4 islands
off the northwest coast of Africa.
6.
www.design-lab.fun
is the design portfolio of New York
based Ani Liu, an alumnus of Harvard
University Graduate School of Design
and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Media Lab with
significant social media clout.
7.
www.gogo.fun
is owned by in-flight Internet
subscription service, Gogo Air
redirects to this Chicago based
service’s ‘buy before you fly’
page meant for individual
passengers.
8.
www.playlab.fun
is an American edu-tech startup
that promises to create unique and
engaging learning experiences for
children through Virtual Reality.
9.
www.eli.fun
is an Armenian business that
offers travel packages and boutique
experiences handpicked for couples,
families, kids, etc.
10. www.jumpingpandas.fun
is a fun plug-in from Radix
and 1&1.
When 1&1’s Volleyball team
went to the court recently, we got
together with them to create a
website for the team which is called
Jumping Pandas.
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In
closing Swati noted, "It
has already been over a year
since .FUN was launched and
the TLD has seen a healthy
uptake thus-far with 36% registrations
coming in from the USA
and the rest from Europe,
Japan, Russia
and China. In
November 2017, .FUN received
its MIIT accreditation
which made it possible for
the TLD to make inroads into
the growing Chinese
business sector. As more
and more brands look to
connect with their customers
with a fun-filled,
light-hearted positioning,
.FUN will prove to be one of
the most promising nTLD for
businesses across sectors
and geographies." |
Swati
Maheshwari, Radix Registry |
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