easyDNS, Toronto-based Internet domain name registrar and DNS provider with over 100,000 domains under management, is announcing that “Toronto’s new internet name is here now.”
That’s right, the domain “.TO” is the new hot domain, says the company, and people should “forget the new Top Level Domains.” To enable the hot new domain, easyDNS has partnered up with Tonic, the .TO registry operator, to provide Web.to.
According to easyDNS, while ICANN “plods along to usher out hundreds of new Top Level Domains, someday, somehow,” Toronto businesses can take comfort that there is already a namespace they can use immediately to promote themselves with a hyper-local web presence. ICANN is the “Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers”, a non-profit organization created in 1998 to oversee several Internet-based tasks overseen by the US government.
easyDNS thinks that rather than wait for ICANN to issue new “.com” Top Level Domains, startups, particularly Toronto-based ones, should go ahead and buy up .TO domains. It’s kind of like someone predicting something will be cool, but without actually knowing whether it will be. Oh, and easyDNS sells “.TO” domains, so there’s something in it for them.
“Comparatively speaking, .TO is wide open,” said Eric Lyons of Tonic. “There are thousands of generic keywords and highly brandable names available for registration that are already taken under .COM or .CA”
EasyDNS and Tonic paired up to offer Web.to, launched on November 4th, offering .TO domain names, email and web hosting to “those businesses looking to emphasize their Toronto roots and target the Toronto market.”
“It’s basically a one-stop shop for getting a business, a portal or a call-to-action page online,” said 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.
