There’s no doubt emoji’s have changed the way we communicate online – whether it’s to show a loved one we really heart them, support a politician or give somebody a much-needed thumbs up.
The emoji was first created in Japan in 1999, with around 170 characters. The word emoji – roughly translated – simply means ‘picture’. It’s almost difficult to compose a simple text message without the temptation to include an emoji of a kiss or a smile.
With the evolution of website domain names, it’s not difficult to imagine a world where people can choose a combination of emoji’s when creating a memorable address for their websites.
If you could use an emoji for your website domain name, imagine the possibilities? A television emoji for a TV production company. A coffee cup for your mobile coffee van business. If you owned a sushi train business, perhaps your website could be accessed simply using the sushi and train emojis?
GoDaddy has given us a peek into the future with ❤❤❤.ws, the world’s first Emoji Domain Registration search engine. It means people can search for, and purchase, emoji-based domain names that are available. The search engine was developed by a GoDaddy developer, in the wake of a recent company ‘HackFest’.
Recent regulatory changes have opened up a range of new domain-name extensions to Australian businesses, including city-specific names, such as .sydney and .melbourne. Non-text options for brands will only further allow for creativity.
GoDaddy Product Manager Theresa McGinness Geraghty told Women Love Tech the possibility of emoji domain names in the wild is an intriguing concept.
“But there are many technical and intellectual property hurdles that will need to be overcome to implement them at scale, while preserving the security and integrity of the Internet Domain Name System,” Geraghty said.
“The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has been an industry leader in the development of Internationalised Domain Names solutions which use complex algorithms and rulesets to introduce localised domain names in character sets, such as Chinese and Arabic. The industry is embracing these new names, and at the same time striving to ensure that innovations in domain names are universally accepted by software and systems.
“Down the track, we’re interested to see if non-text options become available, and, if so, we expect that emojis will have a fun role to play in that potential new era of visual website domain names.”
If emoji domain names are released into the mainstream, there’d be a big opportunity for brands to get creative and use emoji shortcuts in their marketing. For a dog grooming business – a dog emoji plus water. For McDonalds – the golden arches plus a burger. A hairdresser? A head-full of hair plus a scissors emoiji…. The possibilities are endless!
Tell us what emoji you would use for your business? We’d love to hear your thoughts.
