Jun02

Six

Posted by Daniel Negari in Featured, gTLDs

What a time we live in.

As we all adjust to the new normal, XYZ’s mission has remained the same. We are committed to helping people everywhere connect with the world online with memorable, brandable, and cool domain extensions. The XYZ team is working remotely and continuing to provide our customers and partners our best standard of service while keeping our team safe. A big priority of ours has been to support the .xyz community while they face the many serious challenges that come with COVID-19. One of the first things we did was waive redemption fees during the pandemic through our XYZ RPG waiver restore program. I am proud to announce that we’re extending this program for six more months, through the end of the year. All partners interested in offering this program to customers may contact our team. We continue to conduct targeted outreach campaigns to support independent professionals in online communities affected by coronavirus. All of XYZ’s efforts to support the global online community are tied to a singular goal: keep connections going around the world.

.XYZ community members are stepping up to help, too. Residents of MIT’s “tough tech” incubator Engine.xyz have shifted their focus to developing COVID-19 tests and tracking its spread. A tech company CTO in Italy developed a dashboard aimed to illustrate the current status of COVID-19 worldwide on Cov19.xyz. Popular clothing brand PublicSpace.xyz has begun releasing reusable face masks via a new website, PersonalSpace.xyz, and donating a portion of the proceeds to front line workers. It’s incredible to witness the .xyz community rising to challenging times, and becoming even more innovative and inspiring. I could not have dreamt of such an inspirational and devoted community.

The magnitude of new ideas launching online continues to demonstrate, more than ever, the importance of the availability and universal application of a domain like .xyz. It gives everyone a chance to generate income and launch a business online with a domain name that is affordable, memorable, and flexible. That is critical. Independent professionals looking to shift their business online can get up and running quickly with a memorable .xyz domain. The boundless relevance of .xyz means that when your business pivots, your TLD can stay the same. Those looking to use this time to develop their skills can share their progress and successes on a personal .xyz site. First-time hobbyists can become members of a new community by creating a personalized .xyz site.

New members of the .xyz community can take advantage of the many educational blog posts and Quarterly Reports that our team shares regularly. These cover everything from finding a niche and growing an online audience to creating a brand new website for your hobby or side project with the ultimate .xyz domain. You can count on .xyz to be the platform that supports innovators, creators, and entrepreneurs in any global climate.

6 years old and a great future to come

I’m proud to be able to look back today on six years of hard work, commitment and success for .xyz. As I’ve said in years past, I like to measure success through data. There are nearly 3 million .xyz domains registered worldwide, up 700,000 from a year ago. We have seen registrations spike in emerging markets such as Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam and nice growth from the U.S., Canada , China, Japan, Brazil, India, Australia and pretty much every country around the world. No other new TLD has more websites ranked Alexa’s top 1,000,000 list than .xyz. We are helping internet users everywhere stand out online, and we are still in the early days.

Innovative offerings such as the 1.111B® Class of .xyz domains have begun growing and taking form. Initially we worked with the Ethereum foundation to enable ETH wallet pairing with .xyz domains. That partnership has helped produce some of the most technologically advanced .xyz community members we have. Startups like Vega.xyz and Argent.xyz have secured millions in funding to offer blockchain-based technology to their customers. And they’re utilizing their Ethereum-compatible .xyz domains proudly.

Adopters like these have pushed .xyz to the front of the new domain landscape. There are many award-winning professionals, innovative startups, and exciting communities that have made their online presence stand out with a .xyz. XYZ TLD adopters garnered millions in funding the past 12 months. You can find some written about in media outlets like TechCrunch, Forbes, The Verge, CNET, and many more. In case you haven’t been following our #WebsiteWednesday series, here are just a few (and some of my personal favorites):

National Arts and Humanities Award winner Melissa Hung (MelissaHung.xyz)
2019 Financial Times “Most Influential People of Color in Tech” honoree Bayo Adelja (Afritech.xyz)
Former Amazon leader JJ Delgado (JJDelgado.xyz)
MIT’s $175 million startup accelerator The Engine (Engine.xyz)
Skype co-founders’ robotic delivery service Starship (Starship.xyz)
Rideshare startup Be, one of the most popular apps in Vietnam with over 25 million completed trips (Be.xyz)
3D artificial intelligence-powered camera startup Percipio (Percipio.xyz)

Our diverse community consists of everyone from small independent startups, to some of the largest companies in the world. Our goal of enabling dreamers to dream has come to fruition. I know how much these end users contribute to the overall spread of the .xyz brand and mission. Our team sees .xyz adopters and ourselves as part of a community of forward-thinkers who are ushering in a new era on the web. For this reason, we feature our community of users as much as we can. You’ll find .xyz adopters in everything our team makes, from blog posts and social media, to quarterly reports.

The XYZ team has done a fantastic job of spreading the mission of .xyz this year. Being that .xyz is a global domain built to empower the next generation of internet users, you’ll find the XYZ team making an impact on the world stage. XYZ supported 15 hackathons this year in five different countries in 2019, and supplied young coders with a platform to launch their imaginative creations and projects. Through partnerships with organizations like DesignContest and Generation Girl, XYZ is empowering internet users to find their voice and make their dreams a reality.

We could not have had the global presence and success without our registrar partners. Our partners have collaborated with XYZ this year on some very exciting initiatives. GoDaddy welcomed our team for a 5th run of the Road Show and published articles from our team on domain investing and domain name security on their blog. Porkbun and MatBao published informative articles featuring .xyz end users who can give their customers inspiration for establishing their own bold online brand. Namecheap has prominently placed us in front of their innovative customers throughout the year and we’re happy to be able to lend our experience to our partners and their audiences and help end users get online with the perfect .xyz domain name.

Our anniversary is relevant because of you

Our focus has always been on getting .xyz domain names in the hands of the innovators, dreamers and doers, and throughout the month of June, .xyz domains will be available for less than $1 at most retailers around the globe. The potential for creatives and out-of-the-box thinkers everywhere to bring their awesome idea online is alive and well. The current state of the world means that we are all having to adjust to a new reality. With the help of our registrar partners worldwide, we’re delivering special pricing to internet users everywhere.

Domains can offer freedom, opportunity, and a voice for all. I’m excited to see independent professionals using .xyz to bring their businesses online. There will be exciting new projects, apps, and communities that will be created on a .xyz. These domains will be the first online presence that many young entrepreneurs build for themselves. We could not be more excited to be providing this platform right now.

We continue to have a no tolerance policy for abuse in our zones. Our internally generated Anti-Abuse Technology has kept the XYZ namespace safe. .XYZ currently has a lower spam score than many older domain extensions, according to Spamhaus^[1]. We have been able to keep prices low for consumers and keep bad actors out. Our Anti-Abuse Team has recently joined forces with two international cybersecurity groups formed to combat COVID-19 cyberattacks. Participating in these groups adds to the robust anti-abuse measures XYZ already has in place, including working with industry-leading partners to strictly enforce the XYZ Anti-Abuse Policy.

What’s next

Looking ahead, we acquired five new TLDs, allowing us to expand the XYZ portfolio and provide customers with even more great naming options for their websites. We look forward to launching these domains at affordable price points in the near future. It has become more and more relevant for the beauty industry to brand themself online with .Beauty, .Hair, .Skin, and .Makeup. These four new domain extensions are prime opportunities for individuals and business owners to utilize, to control their marketing and branding throughout the internet. We look forward to helping people find what they are looking for on .Quest domains as well!

As internet growth continues to accelerate, .xyz will remain the focal point for our team. The number of .xyz websites will continue to grow, and we will continue to support the .xyz community through our marketing and community building initiatives. I expect 2020 to be our strongest year yet in terms of community growth as we pave the way for innovation around the globe.

This year also marks the 5 year anniversary of the .Cars .Car and .Auto new gTLDs. We have been very happy with the growth of these extensions and have conducted a strategic review of our joint venture with Uniregistry. We expect to either wholly own the TLDs or sell our 50% stake in Cars Registry Limited, later this year.

The XYZ Registry thanks you for your support, the .xyz community is growing, the new domain extension movement is growing, and on a personal note I am expecting my firstborn next month. XYZ’s 6th anniversary will serve the creatives, entrepreneurs, and innovators who have always supported XYZ. For six years our mission has been the same – to provide innovation and choice to the next generation of internet users. I promise that we’ll keep to our mission and enable the next generation of dreamers to innovate. Year five was truly amazing, and the last three months have been tough for everyone. I hope everyone is safe, and we echo the statements of Sesame Street: