What is .philly?
As the Pawz O’Neill LOL Cat once said, “All Internetz iz local.” And the way human beings surf the web might be following that piece of advice sooner than we think. Last week, according to CBS, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, who are in charge of Internet addresses, released its list of proposed new web suffixes. Similar to the .XXX for porn idea of yesteryear, the new Internet may provide users with access to localized, subject-ivized Internet searching and web access. For instance, some proposed web suffixes include .yoga, .hockey and .kindle, according to the Niemen Journalism Lab, for websites related to those subjects. There’s been an application for both .boston and .nyc, as well—but, oddly, no .philly.
The city says owning the domain name wouldn’t necessarily provide a better web presence than they’ve already got. It’s also pretty expensive. As in, $185,000 expensive, plus a 5-digit sum each year, for maintenance.
Although no one is going after .philly, the Boston Globe newspaper has gone after .boston, notes Nieman Lab. If successful, they could begin selling local websites, such as police.boston or mayor.boston or (gags) redsox.boston—even though localized suffix websites have yet to catch on. But if it does, it would be a nice source of revenue for that newspaper. Imagine that.



