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Comment by k3n | Hacker News Reader

Not sure yet how I feel about the .io bandwagon that seems to be going around; I think I mainly don't like taking a TLD that is specifically designated for a country and attempting to attach a different meaning to it. I just don't know if my pedantry is justified... Yes, I know it's been happening forever, but that doesn't make it right.

I do like the delineation between official Github content and user-content, but there definitely other ways to go about the problem without buying into the latest TLD fad.

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There's very little reason for .io to be used as designated: .io is the TLD for the British Indian Ocean Territory which has been depopulated since the 60s and 70s. It now consists of a nature preserve and a joint British-American naval base.

Now, there is an issue with the Chagossians being forcibly removed from the islands, but should they ever resettle and gain sovereignty, it seems unlikely they'll continue to call themselves the British Indian Ocean Territory, necessitating a TLD change anyway (a la .su, .tp, and .an).

We own a lot of TLD's for GitHub, but we just settled on this one for no real reason other than it sounded nice (i.e., not because it's hip).

We also considered http://github.me and a few others, but thought this one worked well and was short without sounding like we were trying to make a mid-90's Personal Home Page Product™.

FWIW, I have git.to if you're interested in taking it.

Awesome, GitHub can make their own URL shortening service and replace all links in every README/Issue/Pull Request with short urls!

They already have http://git.io

URL shortener for rednecks?

You guys should file to have a 'hub' TLD added, then you'd have the ultimate domain - git.hub

That doesn't look aesthetically pleasing to me..

Then you might as well buy the .github TLD and give everyone their own yourpagename.github url.

Interesting that .me is already considered as being old-fashioned. It only launched a few years ago... :)

Now if we could only get Google to see .io as a "generic" TLD: https://iwantmyname.com/blog/2012/08/dear-google-please-add-...

Agreed, this seems like a weird shortcoming on their part. Not clear how best to get the message to Google, though.

Google heard the message but apparently their data suggests otherwise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q... – which is really hard to believe in regards to .io domains.

Yeah, that's goofy. Nothing that Matt Cutts is saying in that video makes any sense at all with respect to .io.

Interesting, I wasn't aware of this.

I have to admit, .io is probably one of the best geeky TLD's out there, so I can't fault you really. It just seems kind of trendy is all.

> without sounding like we were trying to make a mid-90's Personal Home Page Product™

That's not a dig on PHP is it? :)

I like that the pricing keeps out a lot of the squatting riff-raff you see in com/net/org/info etc... I like .info too, but it's been abused.

It's also easier to find a relatively short/applicable tld.

It's strange that I've never heard of .io until github.io. What else am I missing out on? :(

http://crashlog.io a real time exception handler for one.

For the past year or 2 I've been seeing more and more of them. However, I don't have any bookmarked, at least not yet. I found a pretty good time-waster[3] where I may end up with some. I found one here on HN[2] too....might be more. Also found a relevant question on a StackExchange[3] site.

1. http://domaintyper.com/top-websites/most-popular-websites-wi...

2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4920233

3. http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/18209/whats-with-sta...

Thanks!

I can't comment about github.io, but to address your larger concern, this is in part due to the vast amount of cybersquatting. It's now very difficult to get meaningful domain names in the top TLDs, so companies and projects are being pushed to other TLDs. It's easier for techs to move to non-mainstream TLDs than for consumer-oriented companies, b/c we're comfortable with using them, whereas the average consumer will be confused or hesitant to click.

The trend will eventually be that, except for established historical domains (.co.uk, and a few dozen more), most TLDs won't signinfy anything. That's already happened with .ly, and is happening now with .io and .co.

Isn't the Columbian government intentionally doing this to .co?

May I interest you in the .src project instead then? ;o) http://dot-src.info

Hardly anyone uses .info but I much prefer it vs. going to any country tld.

I think that no one uses because it sounds spammy. Maybe because spammers rushed to buy a lot of .info domains and stuff with trash content.

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