Top Level Design LLC, the company behind the new gTLD, .Wiki announced today that leading global brands including Apple, Ericsson, Hallmark, the Weather Channel, and Chanel were among the first to take advantage of the opportunity to obtain their .wiki domain names through the “TheirTrademark.wiki” program.
The world’s best-known online collaboration tool thanks to Wikipedia.org, “wikis” are a specific type of Internet content that is rapidly becoming an essential asset for brands worldwide.”
“Under the .wiki namespace companies can finally locate their organizational hubs somewhere intuitive and memorable (such as apple.wiki or chanel.wiki), facilitating quick and easy access for worldwide staff and ensuring optimum use and participation.”
“The unique .wiki offering also enables the creation of publicly accessible areas that can be used to educate consumers and obtain valuable customer feedback and interaction.
The CEO of the company behind .wiki, Top Level Design, Raymond King, is a recognized entrepreneur and wiki-evangelist, having founded major wiki projects such as WikiIndex, AboutUs.org, and ICANNWiki.
Commenting on the launch, Raymond said: “What’s exciting about wikis is that they further the original goal of the Internet — to be an open medium for the exchange of ideas. A .wiki domain name clearly invites like-minded individuals to become teachers, creators and collaborators. A team, company or the whole world can write and learn together. Every effective company should have theirname.wiki to amplify their teamwork”.
Other groups that stand to benefit from a .wiki domain include enthusiasts, hobbyists, developers, communities and academics as well as individuals who wish to create a public wiki profile. Such groups will have the opportunity to secure first choice names from May 8, 2014.
Top Level Design LLC, the company behind .wiki, initially applied to run 10 new TLDs, though .wiki will be its first new TLD to go live.
Top Level Design’s next TLD to launch will be .ink, which is aimed at tattooists, writers, artists and other creative types.
.Wiki will enter Sunrise March 31st and be generally available in mid-June.
The company remains involved in an additional 7 TLD applications.
The .wiki registry already has agreements in place with over 122 registrars to retail.wiki domain names.
.WIKI is one TLD where I think some positive benefit to the information economy is actually being delivered.
Whereas most company-name registrations in the new vanity extensions tend to be defensive, .WIKI can be leveraged by companies for internal employee use. Yes, of course, they could build wikis on any kind of domain; but Amazon.wiki or Microsoft.wiki will be conveniently intelligible to people who work at Amazon or Microsoft. And that small advantage might boost engagement a bit. Wikis, after all, are only useful if contributed to.
Reminds me of a point paper I read back in 2007 give or take … about the benefits of creating a wiki for U.S. Navy personnel. I’m guessing that the idea was ultimately rejected for security reasons. But few companies guard their secrets as jealously as the military must; so wikis will probably be a good idea for many of them.