Lifestyle Domain Holdings, Inc. part of the Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc., and Scripps Networks, LLC (“Scripps”) won the rights to operate the new domain extension .DIY beating Google who withdrew its application.
The company operates the The DIY Network.com, as well as many other Television networks including the Food Network, and the Cooking Channel, HGTV and the Travel Channel.
Of course DIY stands for Do It Yourself.
Scripps originally applied to operate 13 new gTLD and with the exception of .Glean which it withdrew early in the process, and .Home which got killed off by ICANN for the risk of collision, Scripps have now won the rights to operate 11 new gTLD’s.
Here is what Scripps said in the application about their plans for the new .DIY gTLD:
The mission of .DIY is to provide diverse internet users an enhanced online experience through high quality programming, content, information and authentic connected experiences centered on design, home improvement, self-help, lifestyle, and other related concepts, topics and activities.
.DIY will be a Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc., (“SNI”) DIY Network branded top level domain and intends to function, per the ICANN-Registry Operator Registry Agreement, as a Specification 9 exempt system that will seek to provide internet users with the confidence that all of the programming, information, social media, shopping and lifestyle opportunities found on the .DIY branded top level domain is authentic, genuine, safe and secure and affiliated with SNI’s family of lifestyle brands and specifically the DIY Network brand.
18B. How do you expect that your proposed gTLD will benefit registrants, Internet users, and others?
The goal of .DIY is to provide high quality, authentic programming, information and online experiences for individuals interested in design, home improvement, self-help, lifestyle, and other related concepts, topics and activities. The reputation of SNI’s family of lifestyle brands and DIY Network are well recognized as a single source for high quality entertainment, instruction, do-it-yourself education, design, self-help, and lifestyle tips and tools to better enjoy life, make improvements inside and out of the home, and enjoy new experiences in an ever increasing connected world. The level of service to its customers is highly regarded as the single most trusted source for fun and interesting edutainment for do-it-yourself lifestyle related activities.
Internet users will benefit because .DIY will provide an enhanced online experience from the existing family of SNI’s lifestyle branded .coms and diynetwork.com through its ability to build more personalized experiences for internet users and provide greater control over the domain as a registry operator.
.DIY will provide users, who navigate within .DIY, privacy protection similar to what is currently provided on SNI’s family of brand .coms. The Applicant will annually review and audit these policies to ensure that all best practices are being utilized to protect the safety, security and confidentiality of its users.
.DIY will further benefit internet users by creating additional opportunities to strengthen the consistency of the delivery of the lifestyle brand. It will enhance the lifestyle brand and the DIY Network brand consistency by creating numerous subdomains under the .DIY TLD that have not been available under the existing top level domain namespace. Further, the .DIY TLD creates the possibility that these to-be-created subdomains will be more precisely targeted to internet users that will use them, more focused on content associated with the TLD under which they will reside, and more relevant to the TLD (i.e., there will be an increased nexus between the TLD utilized and the content, information and experiences associated with SNI’s family of lifestyle brands.
Google’s strategy appears to have pivoted to at first embracing/controlling a multitude of new gtlds and potentially watering down the strength of .com as the primary commercial domain for websites to focusing almost exclusively on the .app gtld.
If this is the case there is logic. Apps currently don’t have an identifiable address or domain extension that is solely dedicated to applications. For instance, in marketing an app a company must always use the slogan “download our app”. .App could potentially be used as a widescale “shortener” for marketing purposes such as “Google.app” instead of “Download the Google app” if there is a lot of money put behind it and their clients embrace the .app extension as effective and functional for marketing purposes.
And by default, this could be construed as Google reinforcing .com as the reputable, respected, and internationally recognizable domain name for commercial website ventures on the Internet. Now there was an argument a couple of years ago that everything would be apps in the future and domain names would be irrelevant. Interestingly that argument against domain names hasn’t been brought up in some time as it appears those prognosticators will be proven incorrect. People will always need an Internet address, it doesn’t matter how the technology supporting the Internet evolves.
I can say as a fact that many e-commerce companies are abandoning their mobile focus on developing applications for consumers to shop/purchase and instead focusing on improving their mobile website experiences. In most cases, especially for retailers, consumer behavior has shown they prefer shopping through websites vs applications.
As far as Google’s true intentions and strategy around new gtlds, I really dont know, this is just pure speculation on my part
One of the TLDs that Scripps had applied for in their 13 applications is .food which I believe is still in contention. If you deduct .glean, .home and .food, the number of TLDs that they have won the right to operate would be 10 and not 11.