Thejazzline.com, reports that the organization that operates Jazz at Lincoln Center, recently aand re-branded the organization to Jazz.org from it former address, jalc.org which is owned and operated under since it started in the early 2000’s
Although the story does not say how much the organization paid for the domain, it says that the domain was recently appraised for $40,000 (Estibot.com has the value at $43,000)
Although the story says the organization recently acquired the domain Jazz.org, checking DomainTools.com it seems like Jazz at Lincoln Center has owned the domain name Jazz.org since at least Novmeber 2007.
The last DomainTools.com whois record in which the orgainzation did not own the domain Jazz.org, the domain was owned by “Coffee Can Media” of Springfield Virgina.
“Changing domains is a common occurrence on the internet, and on the surface JALC’s change appears to be a perfectly innocent attempt at Search Engine Optimization.”
“The manager and former Vice President André Guess of the JALC, was so concerned by the move that he started a petition urging JALC to switch back to their old domain and use “jazz.org” as an independent website curated and administered by the broader jazz community, saying that “in making this move, the organization has intentionally or unintentionally branded and positioned itself as the very art form that it was founded to uphold and support. In my discussion with executives at the organization it was explained to me that this move was made to drive more traffic from generic Google searches to their site. These executives also went on to say that their plan was to expand the presence of jazz on their site to be more inclusive so as to give the uninitiated Google searcher an expanded view of the art form.”
“While this is a noble gesture and on one level I applaud it, Jazz at Lincoln’s view of jazz at jazz.org could never be truly inclusive of the art form because they are but one of many organizations and voices in a much larger and broader jazz community. Furthermore by making this bold move Jazz at Lincoln Center is violating it’s own mission statement.”
Sounds like someone arguing against granting a generic new gTLD to one organization which seeks to represent a broad category
According to the story Jazz at Lincoln Center, has over $190 million in assets and $30 million in revenue for the 2012 tax year.
JALC’s rationale makes complete sense, and it’s in their best interests. The rebrand is a good move when it comes to online navigation and self-promotion.
But as someone who values Jazz highly and has often argued against JALC’s perceived pre-eminence among casual U.S. listeners, I’m not happy to see the art form equated with that organization, which has somewhat narrow and (some might say political) taste. I’m glad they put on music (and good music too), but I’d prefer JALC to be perceived as a venue, a series, an idiosyncratic opinion. The center of gravity of the contemporary Jazz scene most certainly isn’t found at Lincoln Center.
This will annoy not some but most jazz musicians.