The 1990s were considered the (dot)COM age, but are we about to move into the (dot)ART age? Recent tech news emerging this week suggests we might be on the brink of a new artistic age in the domain world.
On February 14, 2017, the .art web domain announced its first successful attempts to make the domain available across the art world. “Firstly, .art is about identity” Ulvi Kasimov, chairman and founder of .Art, suggested. “A .art address says, ‘I firmly belong in the art world.’ Our ambition is for .art to be a signifier of community, of belonging to, and identifying with, the art universe.”
Things haven’t run smoothly at the outset — not because of technical issues, but rather due to an overwhelming volume of name requests. The overload temporarily shutdown the domain to increase its capacity. To say .Art has hit the ground running would be an understatement, as they have already sold hundreds of .art addresses in well over 38 countries worldwide. Among the newest additions are several museums, brands, artists, and galleries. “One major category is organizations that have the word ‘art’ in a current domain name with another major zone (e.g.: .com, .org, .fr) and they shorten their domain from galleryart.com to gallery.art as an example,” the company states.
Among the notable institutions moving to the .art domain include the Louvre Museum with Louvre.art, ArtMarket.art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts with NMWA.art, and Sotheby’s with Sothebys.art. Many more are on the way!
If you’re interested in exploring acquisition of an .art domain, visit art.art.
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