The Gold Rush Is On for Dot NYC Domains

Anne Kadet reports for WSJ:

 [D[igital-world observers say the .nyc market is already hot. Since the domain launched in early October, more than 50,000 .nyc URLs have been registered, pushing it into the top 10 of the hundreds of new extensions released this year.

And that’s despite the fact that .nyc it can be purchased only by folks with a city address.

“Dot NYC came out of the gate strong,” says Mike McLaughlin, general manager of domains for GoDaddy, the largest of the Internet registrars designated as an official .nyc vendor.

So what are locals buying?

A GoDaddy analysis shows that across the city, among the top five words appearing most often in the new URLs are “new,” “Brooklyn” and, somewhat predictably, “law.” In Staten Island, top keywords include “cars,” “cash” and “kids.”

In Manhattan, of course, the top keyword is “best.”...

More than 60 pizza-related domains have been registered, including dollarpizza.nyc and pizzadrone.nyc. Real-estate developers like Related are registering address URLs (55HudsonYards.nyc), while mom-and-pops register their own business names...

And as first reported by Domain Name Wire, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg ’s law firm has registered hundreds of Bloomberg-themed URLs, presumably to keep them out of circulation. They include KingBloomberg.nyc, BloombergisaWeiner.nyc and GetaLifeMike.nyc.