We have been covering the story of Chicago.com sale of subdomains and email addresses for over a year.
Chicagobusiness.com, did a very nice story yesterday on Josh Metnick and what he has and plans to do with Chicago.com
We have noted that Chicago.com in many ways maybe the first new gTLD as its business plans for the sale of subdomains and email addresses using the vanity Chicago.com is very similar to a new gTLD. The city of Chicago did not apply for a .Chicago new gTLD
Today Chicago.com just sent us a press releasing announcing a multi-year partnership with the Chicago Tribune Media Group to bring hundreds of thousands of dotChicagosm Domain Names and @Chicagosm email identities to market in three auction phases.
“We see tremendous opportunity in offering Chicago.com’s innovative products to our loyal readers and users,” says Bill Adee, Vice President of Digital Development and Operations at Chicago Tribune Media Group. “Now, everyone can own a small, digital piece of the greatest city in the world, while benefiting from a simple, memorable email address or website URL.” With a Chicago region MSA of approximately 10 million individuals, and nearly 1 million businesses, Chicago.com is partnering with the largest Domain Name auction platform in the world – Pool.com – to provide the transactional infrastructure to manage the auctions. A significant number of famous Chicagoans and well-known Chicago companies have already purchased their names.
About the Auctions: Phase One release, ending June 25, will open for the bidding of 573 assorted high- demand personal names and business categories.
Phases Two and Three will expand the available inventory of names later this Fall. To learn more about the upcoming auction and how to register and reserve your name, visit https://identity.chicago.com.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE MEDIA GROUP (CTMG) is a media and business services company that publishes the Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune. CTMG also produces related print and interactive media serving Chicagoland like RedEye, Hoy, Chicago Magazine, Naperville Magazine, TribLocal, The Mash, chicagotribune.com, chicagonow.com and metromix.com. Reaching 4.8 million adults each week in the greater Chicago area, CTMG is the leading news and information destination in Chicagoland.
CHICAGO.COM is a corporation based in Chicago and founded in 2002, intitally with the mission of helping Chicagoland’s 10 million residents and 50 million+ visitors per year discover things to do. In February of 2012, Chicago.com launched its @Chicagosm and dotChicagosm products, allowing for open registration of email identities and Chicago.com domain names to Chicagoans, non-Chicagoans, and Chicago area businesses and organizations. For more info, visit http://chicago.com.
A BETTER CHICAGO enables people and companies who are passionate about our community to invest in a group of extraordinary nonprofits that are creating opportunity for our region’s low-income population. Led by our board, staff and partners, A Better Chicago is a collection of talented professionals, advocates and leaders who are committed to building a better Chicago for everyone. For more info visit http://abetterchicago.org
extraordinary nonprofits that are creating opportunity for our region’s low-income population. Led by our board, staff and partners, A Better Chicago is a collection of talented professionals, advocates and leaders who are committed to building a better Chicago for everyone. For more info visit http://abetterchicago.org
What am I missing here? We’re talking about email addresses for the biggest shit-hole city in the USA right? Who the f*ck cares?
Uber Fail.
email and subdomains.
I think there are plenty of guys name michael in Chicago that would love to have a mike@chicago.com email address rather than mike232103945@aol.com
But to each his own
From the article:
“We see tremendous opportunity in offering Chicago.com’s innovative products to our loyal readers and users,” says Bill Adee, Vice President of Digital Development and Operations at Chicago Tribune Media Group.”
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Again, we’re talking about vanity EMAIL ADDRESSES. What, exactly, is innovative about hosting email addresses? Chicago.tl is unregistered…I could go pick that domain up for $40 and do the SAME THING as these guys are attempting to do.
Utter, Massive, Uber, Epic Fail.
You can do subdomains on Chicago.tl too.
The .com isn’t that hot anymore.
Remember……Tom@Chicago.tl …….will leak to…… Tom@Chicago.com
Just ‘cos it not an original concept, don’t make it a bad idea…
As a business model, it has legs, imo…
Apart from the capital cost of the domain, itself (which are sunk funds), they are essentially creating a repeat-value, renewable, income stream, that costs them very little to provide – Just rented Hosting server space, that’s all + a little admin.
Once folks/customers have all their business/personal contacts using their personalised ‘mike@chicago.com’ email address, they will want/need to keep that email address – and, therefore, continually renew that address….A repeating revenue stream for the owners.
Teaming with the Chicago Tribune group to promote the auction to Chicago audiences + Using Pool.com to run the backend auction mechanics & process, is great marketing. It’ll create pizzaz, get the word out, and make it cool for Chicagoans to have their own personalised email address – and probably sell a lot of packages.
The price points will be important. If they ask too much, they could kill it…The workable alternatives (hotmail, gmail, free emails via ISP’s etc) are free….But, get that right, and they could make a genuine successful business here.
I like it.
.
Fantastic to see this, i have talked about for years, well done guys