Happy Cinco de Mayo! Today is a day when many – at least in the US – drop down to their local pub and have a Mexican beer or drink. Or 5. However many may not know the real meaning of the day, which is celebrated in some parts of Mexico for the country’s defeat of the French army in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Ok, I’ll admit I had to look it up myself as I didn’t know either.

Isn’t it interesting how people accept something for a particular meaning when the reality is different, and in a good way? It’s almost perfect timing that I received a box from Don Cenobio of his recently rebranded Tres Generaciones (or 3G) premium tequila. As it came in an attractive wooden box, I thought it would be great to make an unboxing video. Though they’re typically done for electronics, why not tequila? You can see the video below, or watch the 3G unboxing video here.

Late last year I was invited to a 3G tasting at Chicago’s Frontera Grill. There I met people from the brand, as well as others in social media to try 3G and talk about tequila, among other things. In the presentation by the brand ambassador, stereotypes of tequila – mostly negative ones - were brought up, and this was something discussed afterwards. The idea of premium tequila, one that can have a taste similar to vodka or even a single malt scotch, breaks some of those stereotypes. In other words, revealing the true definition of what tequila is.

Enjoy the video, and now I am going to enjoy what I unboxed. Responsibly, of course.

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The International Olympics Committee is now touring the candidate cities for the 2016 Summer Olympics, and their first stop was Chicago a few weeks ago. Everywhere you looked throughout the Windy City, there were signs promoting the games coming here in 7 years. There were also a few signs against it, but that’s a topic for another time.

The signage was branded with the Chicago 2016 logo and imagery, as shown in the accompanying picture, which is at the corner of State and Madison Streets. It also features the recently changed tag line, “Let Friendship Shine,” which replaced the former one, “Stir The Soul.” Apparently the old tag line did not translate well into other languages. As someone who thinks about domain names as much as I do, I wondered if the Chicago Olympics Committee registered the domain names for the new tag line. From the looks of the registration data and registered domain names, it is not 100% clear if they did or not.

Searches of the WHOIS database using DomainTools show registrations for letfriendshipshine.com, .net, .org and .us. There was no registration for the other “primary” TLDs of .biz and .info. I did not extend the search beyond these TLDs. Looking at the registrants of these domain names, the .com and .org have private registration on them, which is a service to mask the true owner of the domain name. The .net is registered to a company in Chicago, and the .us is registered to an individual in Chicago. All 4 domain names point to parked pages which display advertising.

I then looked up the registration of the main Chicago Olympics Committee domain name, chicago2016.org, and its registrant was also masked by private registration, and the same one as letfriendshipshine.com and .org. It can be inferred these 2 domain names are owned by the Committee. I did not contact them to ask. As for the others, it can be inferred they are not.

Part of the reason for being inquisitive surrounds the registration of chicago2016.com, which was registered prior to the .org by an individual in Chicago. It is tied to a Web site offering a fair and balanced economic discussion about the Olympics coming to Chicago. The Chicago Olympics Committee filed a case to win back the name, but lost. Perhaps they did their diligence this time and got the domain names before the new tag line was announced.

If they do own the domain names, 2 questions come to mind. Why not register all available TLDs? In the grand scheme of things, domain names are cheap! Also, why not use them? A quick Google search found zero results for the official Chicago Olympics Web site for “let friendship shine.” Where getting the name to protect the brand is smart, actually using it can return great results in your investment.

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Business • Domain Names • (1) Comments • Permalink

I will finally be heading west to the next Silicon Prairie Social, which will be held this Tuesday, April 28 at Arrowhead Golf Club in Wheaton, IL.

For someone who works and lives in Chicago, I rarely get out to the ‘burbs, unless I am looking to do some shopping to pay less sales tax! There are, however, quality business and tech networking events outside of the city which easily rival those within the city limits, and this is one of them. And I know I will not be alone, as many others will be trekking west as well as some event sponsors that are from Chicago. Plus I promised Tim Courtney of XNet, who organizes the event, I would make it out there one day, and now I am.

Will I see you there?

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What is a TLD and why should you care? If you have anything to do with the Internet or are a businessperson, you should know what it is.

TLD stands for “top-level domain” and is the last part of a domain name. For example, in the domain name thehotiron.com, the TLD is “com.” Where those who register and manage domain names use the acronym frequently, many others do not. As I plan on using it in many future blog posts on domain names, I wanted to define it ahead of time.

The acronym is sometimes used by itself or it can be prefixed by other letters to further quality a type of TLD. A gTLD is a “generic” top-level domain, and generic means anyone can register a domain name with a gTLD. Examples are .com, .net and .org. A ccTLD is a “country-code” TLD, and are ideally for entities which reside in a specific country. Examples are .us, .au (for Australia) and .dk (for Denmark). An sTLD is a “sponsored” TLD and they are only available to certain groups or classifications. Examples are .aero (for the air transport industry), .coop (for cooperative associations) and .museum (for museums). For a complete list of TLDs, view the list from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for all global TLDs.

Knowing about other TLDs is helpful in choosing domain names to register or in analysis of a URL with a TLD you may not be familiar with. Each TLD is managed by an organization which sets the rules for registrations. For example, some ccTLDs require the registrant to be based in that country, and others do not. If you are a business and have operations or sales in a country, it may be of interest to register the name of your business or brand with a specific ccTLD or sTLD as appropriate.

TLDs of all forms are approved and assigned by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). There have been cases where a TLD was requested but not approved, and a notable example is .xxx and .sex. Some TLDs have been retired, such as .cs (for Czechoslovakia), which were replaced by .cz (for Czech Republic) and .sk (for Slovak Republic).

Of interest to many is a move by ICANN to open the floodgates on any gTLD. For example, .pizza, .beer or .gum. This has been met with much controversy, as it would require an effort for a company to register its name and brands with all new gTLDs, and the opportunity for violation of trademarks by entities who may register domain names with their brand for some random gTLD. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is a staunch defender of its brand for the word “Olympics” globally, has already contacted ICANN with its concern over open gTLDs and to “take action” as required. My guess is the IOC would have an issue with a name like olympics.beer?

In the future, I will reference this document on TLDs in other posts here at The Hot Iron as well as follow-up on news and activities surrounding TLDs, especially the opening of gTLDs.

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Business • Domain Names • Technology • (1) Comments • Permalink

The next likemind will be Friday, April 17, 2009 in dozens of cities around the world.

In Chicago, it will be at Argo Tea, 140 S Dearborn St. at the corner of Dearborn & Adams in the Loop at 8:00 am. Note this is a new location! The previous location, The Spa Cafe, closed and rebranded itself as a sandwich shop opening at 10 am, thus we needed to find a new place.

I call likemind a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines including Internet, advertising, art, social media, et. al. For more information on likemind, you can read this great article on likemind from the New York Times.

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