Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries (RIL) has decided to move away from “.com” to the new gTLD .JIO to be used across the Reliance empire.
Reliance now uses the three-letter domain name RIL.com
Affinity Names Inc, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries (RIL), has applied for multiple gTLDs, including the .Jio brand domain.
According to the Indiatimes.com, the company plans to use up to 200 second-level domains for its different businesses and departments such as Retail.JIO, Petroleum.JIO, Polymers.JIO within the first year.
This number will increase to 400 second-level domains in the second year and around 600 in the third year.
“RIL acquired the gTLD .Jio and plans to use it actively as part of our corporate branding strategy, to make it easier for people to reach us on the internet. A few of our corporate websites, including those of different businesses and departments, will be housed under the “.JIO” gTLD,” said the source, adding that the decision to apply for “.JIO” gTLD was made by the group’s top management.
Currently, RIL group owns over 1,100 domain names to protect its brand name in the web arena.
The ability to choose a preferred second-level domain has a direct impact on the marketing strategy and customer experience. The marketing strategy is largely dependent on brand recall and driving customers to the preferred destination, which in this case is a particular website. By having a URL that is relevant and is truly representative of the information and products on the website, there is a higher chance of the customer being satisfied with the web experience and returning again. With social media being one of the biggest marketing tools, a positive customer experience goes a long way in establishing a loyal following and attracting new customers.
With more than 180 million internet users, and a projected year-on-year growth of 30%, India is expected to supersede the US as the second largest internet user base in the world by 2018.
With the huge potential in India that is ripe for the new age of technology and is looking for new ways to compete with the developed markets on every platform, RIL group through .JIO will be able to associate this brand with the new age and digitization.
Interesting Mike, sent you my post last night. Some errors in the original article includes an estimated 180 Million Users versus verified reality of over 300 Million users…here is my post again:http://dotdotblog.com/reliance-india-to-move-from-com-to-jio-as-group-domain/
to validate my point in comments
typical indian cheap smartness, but doesn’t work EVERY TIME
+
‘myntra.com has gone app only….flipkart.com will go app only
both sites became popular being COPIED indian version of Amazon.com ( which didn’t dare to go app only being pioneer )’
PLS spot the difference between
http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/reliance-jio-ril-to-move-from-com-to-jio-as-group-domain/48013494
and
http://dotdotblog.com/reliance-india-to-move-from-com-to-jio-as-group-domain/
The public in India are very aspirational and very aware of the (dot) com brand. The RIL have been badly advised and will pay the price of devaluing the Reliance Industries brands. (Not a snipe at the new GLTD’s) they should have nailed the domains to the national flag dot (in)
Hello Jonathan ,reliance industries is India largest and the most transformational private company , jio is ril upcoming 4th generation(4G) telecom service company ,whose services is set to be launched in the month of December this year ,it is believed that the launch of reliance jio will change the Indian telecom industry and provides a world class broadband internet experience to its users .The people of India are eagerly waiting to use jio’s high speed 4G Digital services .Jio is not just only a Telecom service provider ,they will offer a bouquet of services which will create a transformation in the Indian telecom industry, by using the .jio as its domain name they know what they are doing . It will position RIL as a unique corporate entity and it helps JIO to promote it’s services and in creating a strong web presence .
Hi Neeraj k, I did not know “jio is ril” or rjil – ril.com. IMO you have leveled the playing field for all JIO competitors. It would interesting to note the future cognitive type in stats from RIL com JIO.com / (in).
Without the dot = direct “jio” then your on the yellow brick road until then you will meet a little chap with a large megaphone.
Would be an interesting case study for sure.
I’m assuming they know something we don’t.
typical indian cheap smartness, but doesn’t work EVERY TIME
myntra.com has gone app only….flipkart.com will go app only
both sites became popular being copied indian version of Amazon.com ( which didn’t dare to go app only being pioneer )
Chairman of mukesh ambani ‘s personal name match domain ‘mukeshambani.com’ has not been acquired by reliance yet.
Top indian corporate companies are yet top in india only because of indian govt. favoritism and corrupt practice of stealing stupid public’s tax money. A great example is ‘tata motors’ decline among tough competition from foreign car makers like ‘Hyundai’..’Chevrolet’ etc.
the new brand of reliance ‘jio’s success is also linked to indian govt. favoritism directly linked to ‘digital india’ drive and corrupt practice of stealing stupid public’s tax money.
I had credited the original source (times group) and PTI who reported this on the wires just past midnight IST yesterday. I got a call first thing alerting me to the article and felt it was important to share this with the global domain name community with some insights and corrections via my blog.
There were errors in the original post and this was the first India based major enterprise validation of my “dot brand” movement predicted earlier in the year.
This is significant at many levels, nTLD adoption is just one of the factors. This is not COM versus nTLD like most COM fans would like to turn this into. This is creation of an ecosystem of sites on a new brand extension along with their existing COM properties. The left of the dot , second level domain options become unlimited for a business as wide and large as Reliance. The right of the dot helps reinforce a brand.
Sridhar Raj @ Thanks 4 sharing the source post. “This is not COM versus nTLD like most COM fans would like to turn this into” Agreed, however this creation of an ecosystem of sites should have seamless synergy with the RIL historic (wide & large) brand. The com & dot (in) are India centric. jio is will wither on the vine.
Reliance is using JIO as brand only for its 4G internet services. Renaming / re-directing Reliance Petroleum, Reliance Polymer to .JIO for example: petroleum.jio will lead to a confusion among common non-net savvy customer, as he will be searching/seeking info of Reliance Petroleum, and instead will be shown Petroleum.JIO site!!!
@Jonathan and @Harish, the challenge is for most brand to get EMDs in COM. What is “COM” after all, the first to the party with most recall, supposedly representing “Commercial” ya ya I know been buying them since early 90s.
All things considered this is experimental lets say or assume, nothing wrong in going down this path for multi billion dollar enterprises after all it gives them options, control and great flexibility. This is a better choice than brand-name+keyword+COM which is not in their control/annual renewals etc.
I am closely watching Phillips, Sandvik and CERN’s investment in dot brand nTLDs. Most have done a very poor job so far spreading awareness of their use beyond local OOH ads in Europe specifically.
Let us wait and watch, the news for the most part is from 2014, the only thing new about this is the official confirmation that they will be using (JIO) i.e. one of the 3 dot brands they bought into paying ICANN vast sums of monies 🙂
“What is “COM” after all, the first to the party with most recall, supposedly representing “Commercial” ya ya I know been buying them since early 90s.” ? Actually it represent almost all FT 500 global company brands. Any idea of the price paid for JIO.com ?
“the challenge is for most brand to get EMDs in COM” The challenge for most companies is to become a brand name name.
It is not a COM versus nTLD – this is a paradigm shift few understand and it will take its course and time, to establish itself, maybe not 3 decades unlike COMs!
Despite a couple of comments here .com does not represent or mean “Commercial” it means or stand for commerce
Don’t feel bad I have been at a conference on domain names and most those in the crowd incorrectly guessed what .com stood for
Mike – This is probably way before your time, been at this since the birth of COMs, respectfully here is a primer for you from 1984 (see the last link):
WIKI Says:
dot-com
dɒtˈkɒm/Submit
noun
noun: dot-com; plural noun: dot-coms; noun: dotcom; plural noun: dotcoms; noun: dot.com; plural noun: dot.coms
a company that conducts its business on the Internet.
“tons of dot-coms went out of business”
Origin
1990s: from ‘.com’ in an Internet address, indicating a commercial site.
http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/c/f/What-Does-Dot-Com-Stand-For.htm
http://www.tucowsdomains.com/domaininfo/what-is-a-com-or-net-domain-name/
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc920#page-2
Categories
GOV = Government, any government related domains meeting the
second level requirements.
EDU = Education, any education related domains meeting the
second level requirements.
COM = Commercial, any commercial related domains meeting the
second level requirements.
MIL = Military, any military related domains meeting the
second level requirements.
ORG = Organization, any other domains meeting the second
level requirements.
Mike, Don’t feel bad I have been on blogs about domain names and most of those following incorrectly guessed what .WTF stood for : )
they aquired lot of JIO tlds 🙂 around jan 2013 itself 🙂