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Google giving away 5,000 free new gTLD domains
Kevin Murphy,
March 10, 2014, 16:30:49 (UTC),
Domain Registries
Google is giving away free .みんな domains.
According to a company spokesperson, the first 5,000 people to submit a .みんな web site idea via a campaign web site will receive a coupon for a free one-year registration in the new namespace.
The offer expires April 5.
The regular retail price at registrars appears to be about $13 a year.
.みんな means “everyone” in Japanese and is apparently pronounced “.minna”. It’s the second IDN gTLD to go to general availability so far, and currently has roughly 2,500 registered names.
The web site appears to show examples of domains that are being registered under the program, as well as commentary from something called Google+, which appears to be some kind of social network.
Yep this is just the start of G giving away domain names.
There will follow a lot. Make this sense ICANN ?
I tried to register one but found that only the 1st year is free. So I passed.
I did say in the post that it was a free one-year reg.
Seems they are mostly seeding a new market with this promotion. I don’t see Google giving away loads of generic names. Those that are connected to their services, maybe. But they are gearing up to make their domain business profitable on its own.
One thing for sure though, Google really really wants to see New G’s broadly adopted.