Globe joins race for new domain names
Get ready for a whole new wave of website addresses.
By next year, the Internet could have hundreds of new domain names — the terms that come after the dot in dot-com website addresses. On Wednesday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a nonprofit group that hands out the domains, revealed the names of about 2,000 applicants seeking to administer new domains as part of the biggest-ever expansion of Web addresses.
On the list is The Boston Globe, which has applied to run the domain .boston. The Globe joins nonprofits, government agencies, and universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is seeking the domain .mit.
Domain names that use geographic locations, such as .boston and .nyc, are in particular demand, sought after by governments, businesses, and other organizations that want their website addresses to be associated with their locations. Administrators of the new domain names will be able to sell or give away website addresses that use their particular domain suffixes.
The Globe contacted city of Boston officials for approval in seeking the domain .boston. In return, it will give the city website addresses on that domain that are named for city functions, such as police.boston.
“The Boston Globe sees the new domain extensions as a great opportunity to organize and promote Web sites for our innovative city, and is pleased to have the endorsement of the city of Boston for this application,’’ said Christopher Mayer, publisher of the Globe.
Mayer said that in the coming months, the Globe and the city will be revealing plans to manage the .boston domain “for the benefit of our city, its businesses, organizations and residents.’’
The Globe has operated websites since 1995. Its sites, including boston.com and bostonglobe.com, receive more than 7 million unique visitors per year.
The application to run a top-level domain costs $185,000. The new domain names could be announced as soon as next year.
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