AlexRav
Regular Member
Interesting article on the .ly extension and other popular country codes commonly used by startups.
"Syria is by no means alone as a complicated country in control of a catchy .com alternative. Montenegro is responsible for .me addresses -- popular for personal portfolios, and also with Facebook, which now owns fb.me. Libya licenses every url that ends in .ly: embed.ly, crowd.ly, Adf.ly, Ow.ly, and all the the “bit.ly” links shortened by Bit.ly.
The nation of Tuvalu licensed their suffix, “.tv”, to Verisign in exchange for $10 million up front, and $2.2 million annually. That annual fee makes up about 10% of the small island government’s total revenue. Tuvalu’s government has literally paved their streets with domain name money. The coincidence that their country name’s international abbreviation is an English-language pun has become, arguably, their most valuable resource.
How did such a system come about? And is it here to stay?"
http://priceonomics.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-ly/
"Syria is by no means alone as a complicated country in control of a catchy .com alternative. Montenegro is responsible for .me addresses -- popular for personal portfolios, and also with Facebook, which now owns fb.me. Libya licenses every url that ends in .ly: embed.ly, crowd.ly, Adf.ly, Ow.ly, and all the the “bit.ly” links shortened by Bit.ly.
The nation of Tuvalu licensed their suffix, “.tv”, to Verisign in exchange for $10 million up front, and $2.2 million annually. That annual fee makes up about 10% of the small island government’s total revenue. Tuvalu’s government has literally paved their streets with domain name money. The coincidence that their country name’s international abbreviation is an English-language pun has become, arguably, their most valuable resource.
How did such a system come about? And is it here to stay?"
http://priceonomics.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-ly/