11/10/2014
By Ivan Pereira
The city’s new web domain is a big hit, and tech experts say it will add to the New York’s rep as a worldwide tech metropolis.
Roughly 52,586 .nyc sites were registered as of Friday evening, according to the city’s Department of Information, Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT). The registrations, which were open to New Yorkers starting last month, surpasses .London which has 48,309 registrations.
Minerva Tantoco, the city’s chief technology officer, told amNewYork she isn’t surprised that so many businesses and individuals are signing up because New Yorkers have never been ones to be shy about their hometown pride.
“I think a big part of the success is that it is exciting. We are giving New Yorkers a chance to own a part of the Internet,” she said.
DoITT says about 27,000, or 52%, of the .nyc sites are registered to individuals while the remaining sites are for businesses. Only registrants who live or own a business in the five boroughs can have the domain.
Tantoco said the domain evens the playing field when it comes to New York’s place in the global economy. It’s one thing for a city tech startup to succeed in the city, as so many have done over the last decade, but it’s another when they can they boast they’re made in New York, according to Tantoco.
“It lets small companies and big companies brand themselves as .nyc and that has a positive impact,” she said. The Times Square Alliance, which launched newyearseve.nyc, agreed.
TJ Witham, a spokesman for the group, said the alliance jumped on the opportunity to acquire the website because it wanted to remind the world that the ball drop is a quintessential New York moment.
“We are one of many celebrations around the world. Aligning ourselves with New York was exciting for us,” he said.
Of course, some businesses and New Yorkers have already gotten a little carried away with the domain. Last week, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg was at the butt of many jokes after it was revealed his law firm bought 400 .nyc sites related to his name, including inflammatory sites like mikestooshort.nyc.
Bloomberg’s law firm later relinquished many of those domains.
Andrew Allemann, the editor of blog Domain Name Wire, which first reported Bloomberg’s domain registration spree, said the surge in registrations is remarkable and could be the standard for other American cities.
“.NYC is slowly shaping up to be a great success story,” he said.
