

Ask HN: Why the recent flurry of .io domains? - Jeremy1026

I have noticed over the past 3 months or so a bunch of new websites being announced. Is there a particular reason that .io domains are becoming popular as of late? It's not their affordability, seeing as the cheapest registrar I've found was about $75.
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argonaut
One big reason is that if you're making a B2D product (business to developer),
adding a .io to your name is pretty acceptable.

See: segment.io, filepicker.io, etc.

These companies have adopted the ".io" as part of their company name, all in
order to get a cheap domain. If you tried to buy a domain name like
segment.com, that would be around $100k (ballpark). (Segment.com is probably
not actually for sale, since an actual business is using it right now!)

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moonboots
I chose an io domain my site <http://typing.io> because of the input/output
programming reference. It's also more difficult to find a reasonable .com
domain related to typing practice.

The registrar I'm using is about $48/year [1] with no price bumps for
renewals.

[1] <http://en.gandi.net/domaine/prix/detail/io/>

~~~
JayNeely
Try LeanDomainSearch: <http://www.leandomainsearch.com/search?q=type> \--
right now shows TypeBuddy, TypeRate, TypeLearning, TypeRocket, TypeNinja... a
bunch of others, but those seem relevant to typing practice; all available
.com's.

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birchbird
It's usually because the ".com" version of the domain is taken and the sites
cater to a more tech savvy audience. I'm not sure I've seen examples of medium
or large companies/services using .io domains. (Exception would be survey.io,
but it's a few years old)

As psycr says, it's also a reference to I/O and could also represent 1 and 0.

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blazing_grey
As everyone else is saying, it's still a pretty uncrowded namespace and the
'IO as in input/output' thing is great for B2D or D2D sites. More concretely,
it's a way for me to have a personal site whose domain is 6 characters, all of
which mean something (<http://lsh.io>, my initials and "input/output").

Thread derail: I just bought that domain recently. What's the MVP for an
engineer's personal site?

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roryreiff
For us (Splash.io), it was a matter of not having the ability to purchase
splash.com, and that our URL is not really that important (we are a mobile
app, App store ranking and searchability is a way bigger issue). Plus, .io
seemed reasonably acceptable for our product. We also nabbed getsplashapp.com,
but splash.io is shorter, and I think easier to remember.

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RileyJames
We chose to use .io as opposed to .com because io seems to be accepted within
the development / tech community. Rather than come up with a web 2.0 domain
name we'd prefer to use the name we like. <http://theoria.io>. If the product
didn't have a tech / dev audience I'd probably go with something else.

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uladzislau
I'm happy about .co domain zone as well. An average $20 year for one domain
vs. $8,000 asking price for the same domain in the .com zone. I really hate
domain squatters.

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fakeer
It's like real estate. You found a company or whatever and have good money -
you buy a land or house in a suburban area(not yet developed). You leave that
land just marked or fenced for years and when the area develops your land is
worth several times the price you actually paid for it. I need land there, I
am buying it from you at the current prices and not the one you bought it for.
Am I angry and find it unfair? I don't think so. People take advantage of
opportunity. It's normal and natural. Domain hoarders are good investors IMHO.
Domain hoarders, not squatters.

I think domain squatting is illegal anyway, isn't it? The difference being
squatter purchases the domain after you register your trademark/product(which
you should have bought) and hoarder has already done that in the past (betting
on good name/term/phrase) so you need it buy it from him/her if you want that
domain that bad (e.g. fb.com).

~~~
18pfsmt
I'm pretty sure your parent was referring to people that purchase domains
without any purpose other than selling it to someone that actually wants to
use legitimately. I don't think he/she is trying to figure out why people buy
domains and park advertising on them.

~~~
fakeer
That is exactly why I told him that it is perfectly fine and legit to do that.
I didn't mean to sound anything else, if at all you heard so. Though it was
not clear whether he actually meant a squatter or a hoarder.

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psycr
It doubles as a reference to the computing term I/O:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input/output>

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bmelton
I think it's mostly just due to the fact that a $75 .io domain is still many
times cheaper than having to purchase an already-registered domain from
somebody outright. Plus, it's short, and there are still tons of domains
available on it.

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fakeer
It's because of "I/O - Input Out". Gives a nerdy touch to the URL.

Maybe also because it's one of those easy sounding, feels real short and quick
like some other domains i.e. .in, .co and .ly. Nth beats a .com yet.

Anyway reason you think, we might start getting single character TLDs? As in
_.a_ , _.k_ , _.z_ &c?

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ed56
Because Stone Cold said so.

