Get Up on the World Stage
The benefits of a city TLD are many. They include:
- Global branding and marketing for tourism, overseas business, and other economic activities
- Memorable, accessible domain names for the businesses and residents of the city
- Revenue for the city
- Advertising for the city with every web site and email address that uses the city’s TLD
- Platform for the dissemination of e-government city services
- Platform for encouraging public-private initiatives, such as block association and parent-teacher interaction.
- Civic pride
- Upholding local community standards
Branding, Marketing and Tourism. At present nine cities, all of them of the first rank, have projects to apply for a TLD. Joining this elite club would signal to the world your city’s intention to join them as the first Internet cities. As a branding exercise alone, a TLD is valuable. Creating a TLD cannot fail to raise your city’s profile, and the associated economic benefits.
Good Domain Names for Businesses and Residents. A city TLD opens up an entirely new source of domain names for the residents of that city. Domain names in .com have become increasingly hard to find, to the point where a decent domain name may cost thousands of dollars on the aftermarket. Local businesses especially will benefit from city domain names — it’s better for a local plumbing service to be “plumber.city” than “plumber.com”. Creating a top level domain for your city lets your city’s residents obtain quality domain names at minimal cost, while enriching the city and the community in the process.
Revenues. At a minimum, a city TLD should be self-sustaining. With sufficient population and the right marketing, it will turn a profit. Large cities such as London and New York are expected to realize millions of dollars annually. Over time, this public resource should generate substantial revenues.
Advertising the City. Each time any domain name holder send an email, the city is advertised. For instance, if Tom Brown is a Dallas resident, his email might be tom@brown.dallas, and every email he sends will notify the recipient that he is a Dallas resident, or a fan of Dallas. With hundreds of thousands of domain names registered, and users sending out a normal amount of email, the City of Dallas will have millions of positive impressions per day globally. Similarly, web sites using a city TLD will signal to visitors that they are dealing with a person or business who lives and works in that city.
City Services over the Internet. From online tax payments to city bus schedules, a city TLD is a great way to authoritatively provide information to residents. The city TLD immediately signals to the user that the information they are reading is official and trustworthy.
Public-private initiatives. A TLD carrying the city’s imprimatur can provide legitimacy to online initiatives where the city seeks to engage its residents. For instance, the city could set up or facilitate neighborhood associations, neighborhood chambers of commerce, parent-teacher interactions, and a host of other online websites or forums.
Civic Pride. Most people in your city are proud to live there. Let them show it on the Internet. Make your TLD part of the community and let city residents flaunt it.
Community Standards. Right now, you have no control over the policy set by .com, .net, .org, or any of the TLDs your residents use and view each day. With your own city TLD, you can set and enforce policies for intellectual property protection, prevention of malware, phishing, pharming, warehousing, spam, obscenity and other Internet ills.
