i❤️.ws: New Emoji Domain Marketplace Beta

[Jon Roig]

Hey guys... I'm Jon, the creator of .ws. I'm back with a new project and I'd love your feedback:

Emoji Domain Marketplace BETA: i.ws/marketplace

Still very much a work in progress, so forgive the fact that it's kind of a mess!

It turns out that there were already a ton of Emoji Domains listed in the GoDaddy Aftermarket system, but there wasn't an easy way to view or sort them. This is a step in the right direction, hopefully.

If you're a GoDaddy Auctions user already, there's no fee to include your domains -- they should get automatically listed by my app when it updates every 24 hours.

Anyway, it definitely needs work, but I thought I'd check in with you guys, see what features and whatnot you want. I'm already looking at more frequent updates... you can filter right now by single / double chars as well as the new mix of Emoji + ASCII...

Comments... suggestions?

 

[Page Howe]

John and Jon and others, i think we all benefit from promoting use, share in facebook and linkedin groups the potential and posibilities, share ownership of this wonderful idea and Jon's easy to use web interface with others and let them use.

Share and introduce to social media forums, boards and linked in groups, the availability. Track and report real use in the marketplace.

One way is you can search on google with this at the front site:.ws then type in a word like site:.ws and beer and look 1-3-5 pages deep for any instances of emoji domain names.

Than like those pages, ask and inquire on social networks etc.

Page

 

[Page Howe]

or pm me the idns and ill try to help, are they 2017's

page

 

[john rtc]

Interesting stats re: brand adoption of emoji's and a 20X higher CTR - as seen on emojibid.com:
Brands Effectively Use Emojis in their Marketing Strategies
Since the start of 2015, Brands have increased their usage of Emojis by 777%.

Since the start of 2016, the inclusion of Emojis in Marketing messages has grown (month-over-month) by 20%.

Emoji enabled Ads generate approximately 20X Higher Click-Through Rates than the Industry Standard.

 

[Jon Roig]

Oh... sure. I can do search for the marketplace. I'm doing my big public launch on Monday morning, got a whole bunch of domain sales oriented things to get done before then... It'll be a little while before I revisit the marketplace.

I spent the day building some demo sites to showcase different uses of Emoji Domains:
i❤tacos.ws
PHX.ws
brad❤jennifer.ws
SF :dog .ws (the forum munched it, but it looks good on twitter and whatnot)

 

[Jon Roig]

Just GoDaddy for now. Once I sort out some of the details and whatnot, I'll start to look at other providers. There are issues to be sorted out there, like: what if a domain is listed on both? How should I display that?

 

[Page Howe]

"Not to rain on your parade but you're building a platform for stuff for which there is no market. My advice would be not to waste too much time and energy. Treat it like should be: a hobby or a development experiment."

i understand the spirit this was intended.. and as your tag says your thinking inside the box.

But i think Jon is driving innovation, making real and advancing the method billions of people use to communicate and bringing youthful, global, mobile innovation to what is a pretty staid business right now.

Even new gtlds were a 1999 idea that took 15 years to develop....

Thank you Jon for your time and energy and spirit.

Page Howe

 

[Jon Roig]

The truth is somewhere in between, probably...

In a way, certainly, you're right Kate. The market for Emoji Domains is relatively small -- although, it's big enough that any of the new gTLDs would be thrilled to have our registration numbers. Partly, though, that's because no market has existed before.

Our challenge is to get people using Emoji Domains, get them out in the public. We're making some progress there. Like, Budlight Peach-a-Rita is using .ws on emojiyourpeach.com.

I see this as the beginning of a journey. Given the international nature of Emoji Domains, combined with the growing ubiquity of mobile devices, they seem inevitable?

And yeah, this is very much a side project for me... and as far as projects go, it's been pretty interesting trying to get Emoji Domains off the ground. (Full disclosure: I work as a Developer for GoDaddy, but not on anything related to Domains. I do a variety of things for our Office 365 provisioning platform.)

 

[Page Howe]

hey smack, we need a smack emoji.....

 

[Page Howe]

Just GoDaddy for now. Once I sort out some of the details and whatnot, I'll start to look at other providers. There are issues to be sorted out there, like: what if a domain is listed on both? How should I display that?

so i appreciate the challenge, because sometimes pricing can be different, so options would be

1- columns - but adds effort
2- show range with link to see detail
3- maybe amazon like, list first one, than second listing simple produces, this domain may be available on other platforms.

but for now id say list first one and if secondary market listing matches existing listing, bounces it.

Page Howe

 

[Page Howe]

Awesome work Jon! I really appreciate the new filters that can limit searches to single or double character emoji!

wow i hadnt seen that, i thought filters would be a dream. cant wait to see.

other attribute might also be to identify if emoji is gender or skin tone variation

still valuable, but ripe for phishing as hard to know your supposed to be looking for neutral yellow skin, instead of white, pale etc and in a small bike rider or golfer its hard to tell.

same with gender, especially when gender matches main emoji. Another way might be number of chracters as most true i chracters are 3-4 letters after the --, but the gender IDN are longer.

overall great job, props my man.

Page Howe

 

[Page Howe]

new game show

26 Year old, youngest game show host in TV History - hes from AwesomenessTV

http://www.avclub.com/article/emoji-game-show-test-players-their-ability-underst-254811

or play at home test your emoji knowledge

https://guessemoji.org/


Page

 

[john rtc]

Congrats Jon! I have seen so many i__ products, shirts, mugs, etc. in my commercial printing and apparel / screenprinting / embroidery business and think we will see more and more use of Emoji + ASCII names, especially the i__ in CPG, sports, product, geo, brands and categories. Any suggestions on what can be done to increase the exposure, acceptance and use of i___ domains?

 

[CJ6]

Dammit. I had to pick up a few more.
1 & Find❤ is probably my favorites.
But, I'm now using a new one to forward to my domain marketplace.

 

[Kuffy]

That link takes me to i.ws - am I missing something with these names?

 

[Cryptghost]

Great Platform, nice work,

How do I even get my .ws on auction, it currently says its unavailable to my .ws emoji domains?

 

[Page Howe]

i think you just need to list at godaddy auctions, and wait about 24 hours for Jons magic to kick in.

Page

 

[john rtc]

I am trying to put a bid in on two i❤.ws sport and food domains on godaddy auctions, but the interface doesn't seem to be working at this moment......

 

[amirp]

I own

.ws and it is for sale

 

[Jon Roig]

I am trying to put a bid in on two i❤.ws sport and food domains on godaddy auctions, but the interface doesn't seem to be working at this moment......

What's it doing?

I had the chance to meet with some of the Aftermarket Devs at GoDaddy's annual Techfest today, so I have better contacts there now. (I'd never met those guys before.) Actually, we had an interesting session: it was kind of a roundtable discussion about the aftermarket with two groups of big AZ domain auctions users. I'm afraid that I didn't catch their names -- I'm, like, not the best at that -- but it was interesting discussion nonetheless between active customers and the dev group which serves them.

 

[Jon Roig]

Hundreds of millions of text messages were sent with emoji last year, Kate.

 

[Page Howe]

"Of course, displaying emojis is no problem.
The problem is to get consumers to type emoji domains in. That won't work. You might as well display Chinese IDNs to Americans. How do they navigate to that URL, other than clicking on a properly formatted link."


Kate your spot on on why the opportunity is there, i had to ask myself, why am i liking this and no one else is...

its becuase i am a dinoasaur and most of you reading this at a domain company in front of a windows computer, have no idea how the rest of the world can hit keyboard, and just like you switch to numbers, you switch to emojis and type away

i believe no other IDN supported language has the type of penetration on smartphones as the emoji keyboard

so yes even typing an emoji in this board is cut and paste for me..... for now.

so again, your spot on for the present.

so i liken it to, as again this could be wishful thinking because i own some, when they have announced an area code, but you can dial it yet.

so is this rick schwartz in 1995, or rick schwartz in 2008 ( ,mobi) ? no way to tell. you pays your money and take your chances.


Page


ps ober 11000 domain names have the word iheart in them, so im just sayin.....

 

[smack]

I think it is genius - GoDaddy is going to make some serious $$$ on an otherwise boring domain suffix for a long time to come, it is trendy and attracts the younger crowd, and it's so fantastic on so many marketing levels I'm wetting myself over the possibilities. To me, this is the new # tag - the biggest challenge is getting all the platforms aligned to integrate it into their software to make it easier to use AND display.

 

[Page Howe]

so great dsy..i updated my sasung os.and now i csn do emoji on mobole keyboard..

so i can type .ws withot cut and psste...well see if it shows up.

 

[Page Howe]

nope no globe...lightning bolts made it..