On a whim this evening, I went to register a “.ly” domain name.
Currently, the Libyan dot.ly extension is stuck. Stuck in the chasm between “too trendy” and “dot what?”. In the tech world, .ly domains like bit.ly, song.ly, present.ly and even Orie.ly are popping quite often. But they’re not even visible where the sheep are grazing.
But a quick search into the .ly domain names STILL available is rather amazing. They’re expensive, at $75-$150, but nonetheless, they’re there for the taking.You can find terrific domains like occasional.ly. local.ly. global.ly. gent.ly, and even thinkwise.ly. It’s unbelieveable. And similar situations exist with the Swiss (.ch), Montenegrian (me) and – to a lesser extent – Nauru (.nr) and South Korean (.kr) domain names.
So maybe it’s time we start bringing these into the mainstream. It makes domain names simple, snappy and cheerful. There’s a bit of a novelty factor. They’re memorable. All good things for ours or our client’s brands, surely?
And let’s face it. There ARE NO dot coms left. everything is taken. We need to move on.
So, my prediction is that these things are soon to fly out the door. They are going to become accepted in the mainstream. And people will start snaffling them. There’ll be a land grab.
Maybe we should all start investing in these. I’m no investor, so I can’t really guess whether there’s really any money to be made. But I’ve got a good feeling about this one.
UPDATE: follow @libyanspider on twitter for the best updates on .ly domain availability and thoughts.
