Category Archives: Domain names

A fantast.ic new country code

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Last week I wrote about the coming of IDNs (internationalized domain names).

But IDNs aren’t the only new country codes to keep your eyes on.

There is also the occasional new Latin-based ccTLD.

Like .IC.

The Canary Islands is looking to get a country code to raise its visibility.

That, and also to bring in a few million dollars in registration fees. Just imagine all the Bay Area startups that would relish a funky new combo-ccTLD name.

Plast.ic.

Elast.ic.

Bombast.ic.

Am I sounding a bit sarcast.ic?

Of course, the gap between asking for a ccTLD and actually getting one can be quite significant. First you have to be included in the ISO 3166-1 list of country codes.

According to Wikipedia, here’s how you do it:

Currently 246 countries, territories, or areas of geographical interest are assigned official codes in ISO 3166-1. According to the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA), the only way to enter a new country name into ISO 3166-1 is to have it registered in one of the following two sources:[6]

To be listed in the bulletin Country Names, a country must either be:

The list of names in Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use of the UN Statistics Division is based on the bulletin Country Names and other UN sources.

Once a country name or territory name appears in either of these two sources, it will be added to ISO 3166-1 by default.

That last I checked, Canary Islands is not on either of these two lists.

That said, I have a feeling that the Canary Islands will get its wish, although it might take some time. The IC acronym has already been reserved on its behalf and the Islands would not be the first autonymous territory to get its own ccTLD. The rest is just lawyers, lobbying, etc.

.YU we hardly knew you

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It’s funny how top-level domain names (TLDs) outlast the countries they represent.

In 2007 I wrote about the end of .YU (Yugoslavia), though it didn’t exactly go away back then.

Stephane Gelder writes that the TLD for Yugoslavia expires officially in a week, to be replaced by .RS (Serbia).

So this is it. Goodbye .YU. It was nice knowing you.

Speaking of domains that won’t die. .SU is still with us. I’m not sure that one will ever die. It’s become one of those retro domains that Russians don’t want to let go of. And I understand the attraction.

Domains are the street signs of our digital lives and it’s hard to let them go.

In case you’re wondering, I did not include .YU in the poster.

Bit.ly is leaving Libya for the islands

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So Bit.ly has launched an even shorter URL: J.mp.

You can’t get any shorter than this, at least not until we see single-digital TLDs.

I can’t help but wonder if this new URL is a sign that Bit.ly is planning to shift away from its Libyan-dependent domain to one that may be a tad bit more politically stable.

And you could argue that .MP does the trick. It is the domain of the Northern Mariana Islands. It’s also a part of the US (in some legal fashion that I don’t fully understand), which has to make the lawyers at Bit.ly breathe more easily.

So my prediction is that Bit.ly will be replaced by J.mp. And though Bit.ly might play up the shorter angle for the reason why, I think it’s the legal angle that matters more.

PS: I added J.mp to a growing list of these branded country code domains.

WordPress launches wp.me

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Another day, another URL shortener. Only this one I think will be around a lot longer than many that are out there.

That’s because it’s supported by WordPress.

It’s also the world’s first two-letter Montenegro (.me) domain.

Even though I use Bit.ly on Twitter, I still have concerns about what would happen if Libya clamped down on its ccTLD (link).

The only bummer about wp.me: You have to host a blog on WordPress to take advantage of it.

PS: I’ve created a new post dedicated to the ever-growing list of “countryless ccTDLs.”