Beginning Oct. 2, Miami will become the third U.S. city with a dedicated Internet domain name, Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado announced Thursday.
.MIAMI will join New York (.nyc) and Las Vegas (.vegas) in creating a global Internet identity through which the city's businesses, communities and residents can identify themselves with the Magic City and its internationally recognized brand, he said.
"Everyone wants to be a part of Miami and the launch of the .MIAMI domain establishes a unique Internet presence for us," said the mayor, who participated in a press conference, along with City Commissioner Francis Suarez and Chief Information Officer Kevin Burns. "Public departments, local businesses and residents can now demonstrate their passion for Miami with a .MIAMI domain and in doing so, elevate our visibility and reputation on the Internet stage."
The .MIAMI domain is operated by the domain registry Minds + Machines in cooperation with the City of Miami. An undisclosed portion of the revenue from the sale of .MIAMI domain names will be disbursed to the city. Minds + Machines, a British public company, has launched 18 new top-level domains in the past year, including .london. "This is a huge opportunity -- people should be thinking not just about a single name they want, but the full list of names their business, family or community might need," said Antony Van Couvering, CEO of Minds + Machines, who was also at the Thursday morning press conference.
.MIAMI domain names will go on sale starting Oct. 2 on a first-come, first-served basis. Standard domain names such as companyname.miami will typically cost about $20 a year, with premium names such as realestate.miami priced higher. GoDaddy is taking advance orders for discounted domain names at www.GoDaddy.miami. .MIAMI domain names can also be pre-ordered at a discount now (currently $13.99) or purchased beginning Oct. 2 through a Miami-based domain registry service, HelloDotMiami, at www.hellodotmiami.com.
The .MIAMI top-level domain (TLD) was established as a part of the historic expansion of the Internet naming system administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. More than 7 million domain names have now been registered across several hundred new generic top-level domains.
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