New Yorkers have always been famous for their supposed aloofness. Now, the city’s residents have a new way of emphasising how they stand apart from the rest of the US: by ditching the generic “.com” at the end of their web addresses in favour of the far more sophisticated “.nyc”.
In a sponsored post on Gothamist, .NYC, the City Hall-led group behind the initiative, described the move as a “significant milestone in the history of the city and the internet”:
New York is one of the first cities with its own city-wide domain, and it is the only city to limit the purchase to locals. It takes a little something extra to make it here, and that’s why the City wanted to make sure the web address was reserved exclusively for New Yorkers.
Only residents or organisations with addresses in the five boroughs can purchase the new addresses, which, as of this week, can be purchased here.
More than anything, though, the “locals only” rule seems like a marketing ploy, in order to set the .NYC campaign apart from the crowd: the first city-specific domain name was snapped up by Berlin (.berlin) in March of this year, with Paris (.paris) and London (oh, you know the drill) following quickly behind.
Mayor Bill de Blasio described the launch as a chance for residents to “claim their piece of the City’s high-demand digital real estate”. Whether the online real estate will become as pricy as the city’s housing remains to be seen.
