.To has become the second country code (ccTLD) to rebrand itself to represent a city.
Following on the succesful rebranding of .La which is the ccTLD for Laos for Los Angeles , .TO which is the ccTLD for Tonga send out a press release today announcing the re-launch .TO for Toronto
“Comparatively speaking, .TO is wide open”, observed Eric Lyons, of Tonic – the .TO registry operator. “There are thousands of generic keywords and highly brandable names available for registration that are already taken under .COM or .CA”
Web.to which is offering .TO domain names, email and web hosting to those businesses looking to emphasize their Toronto roots and target the Toronto market, is a joint venture offered by the .TO registry operator, Tonic and easyDNS Technologies, a Toronto-based DNS, email and web provider.
“It’s basically a one-stop shop for getting a business, a portal or a call-to-action page online”, added easyDNS CEO Mark Jeftovic. “We’ll do all the heavy lifting for you technically and all you have to do is say the word ‘go'”.
Tonic has been managing the .TO Top Level Domain since 1995.
easyDNS is a Toronto-based ICANN accredited and CIRA certified domain registrar and DNS provider with over 100,000 domains under management.
Will .TO & .LA (both of which have been around) be confusing with the launch of gTLD city extensions like .NYC? Any ideas on how this will be resolved?
“Following on the succesful rebranding of .La which is the ccTLD for Laos for Los Angeles”…
Successful? That is debatable to say the least. I guess it depends on what the definition of success is.
As far as .TO goes, looks like hucksters everywhere are trying to get their share of the Snake.Oil pie.
Brad
This is hilarious, these registries think end users are fools, well they are not, .ca is a much better choice of .to, nobody will want to be associated with .TONGA when they have better choices.
This is all domainer rumble, the end user is trying to run their business, stay afloat, recruit employees, all these guys keep thinking of is ways to squeeze another $10 out of them
what a joke. businesses would be better off going with .ca, an extension customers actually recognize. not everyone calls toronto, to…
sometimes the shitstorm of stupidity exceeds my ability to even comment on it.
.CO should rebrand itself as ‘Colorado’. Or ‘Cocaine’. Or ‘Confusion’. Any would suffice.
I prefer .to as just the word “to”. Good for a small handful of call to actions.