In this XYZ Quarterly we’ll cover five technological features to consider for your online presence to inspire, delight, and excite your customers. We’ll also provide a recap of XYZ’s Q2 2021 activity.
Today’s online shoppers engage with countless brands every day. Utilizing technology and adding special features to your online presence can help make your brand cut through the clutter and create a lasting impression in the minds of your audience. Enhancements to your online presence can make your brand’s personality shine through, help you communicate your offerings, and create a memorably enjoyable user experience. Delight your audience and they may even choose to spread the word about your brand or business with friends and family.
In today’s digital landscape, using the latest technology is one of the best ways to stay ahead of your customers’ needs. That’s the reason we’re sharing how to stay ahead of the curve by enhancing your online presence with technological features, as part of this year’s XYZ Quarterly theme of Staying Ahead of the Curve with .XYZ. We’ll offer you five helpful technological ideas that you can use to create a lasting impression on potential customers, as well as five .xyz websites that serve as prime examples of these tips.
Read on for Part 1: “Five uses of new technology to make your online presence more memorable and modern.”
Or jump down to Part 2: “XYZ’s Q2 2021 Recap.”
Brands and businesses in various industries are finding innovative ways to utilize blockchain technology, including creating digital assets for fans and customers interested in growing a collection of NFT badges. Blockchain platforms like Ethereum create a verifiable public database that can be used for tracking event attendance. You can create an event or product launch that provides attendees with a collectible NFT badge that tracks participation and provides an opportunity for your customers to start, or add to, their collection. This NFT badge can serve as a unique and branded digital promotional product that your customer can have forever. Promotional products can also generate increased brand awareness and recognition of your business. A custom NFT can spark curiosity and drive new customers to your website to learn more.
POAP.xyz is an example of a platform that can help your organization provide unique collectible NFTs to delight your customers. The platform is a decentralized application, also known as a dApp, which helps clients create NFT badges to be collected for attending activities and events. POAP.xyz claims that a collection of their custom NFTs is the best way to keep a visual diary of your life events. You can use POAP.xyz to create a memorable and technologically advanced experience for your customers by allowing them to earn a POAP badge at your next event. Collectors can store their branded badges online to be viewed and admired, potentially introducing viewers to the branded organizations. We found a POAP collector who has obtained over 500 badges by participating in virtual events such as Pride parades, reggae dance parties, art releases, and even the launch of xDollar, a new cross-chain cryptocurrency lending platform. POAP.xyz uses blockchain technology and NFTs to help enhance their client’s event and generate more brand awareness.
Using blockchain technology to create collectible NFT badges for your events can provide your customers with a truly unique and modern memorable experience.
As our desire for new and exciting entertainment options continues to grow, the podcast format is still becoming increasingly popular. A podcast is an episodic audio program that listeners can stream or download to their computer or preferred device for easy listening. This type of audio content can allow your customers to listen to interviews from your founder, the story behind your latest launch, or discussions about your events while they’re at the gym or driving to and from the office. Starting a podcast for your business can reach your customers in a new, more intimate way. As traditional marketing channels are carefully curated, podcasts can be incredibly casual and spiked with real personality. Customers can opt in to listen to your podcast regularly, which can educate your customers about your products and services and keep your brand and your website at top of mind.
SpiritGuideSociety.xyz is an example of a brand that created a podcast to extend their educational and entertainment value to a larger audience, and forge a more intimate connection with their followers. The Spirit Guide Society is a community developed by the Seven Grand bar group of Los Angeles, CA. For nearly a decade, popular global spirit brands have been visiting the bar group (Seven Grand, Caña Rum Bar, Las Perlas) to teach whiskey, rum, tequila, and mezcal enthusiasts about the drinks that they love. In 2018, SpiritGuideSociety.xyz began sharing that knowledge in podcast form. Episode topics include discussions with representatives of leading liquor brands, mixology lessons from their own roster of bartenders, and recordings of the group’s live tasting events. Since its debut, their podcast’s Instagram following has grown to nearly 11,000 followers! Comments from followers range from positive reviews of their events, questions about their featured spirits, and shared excitement about upcoming episodes. SpiritGuideSociety.xyz’s podcast listeners can learn more about their favorite spirits directly from brand representatives and gain increased awareness of the Seven Grand, Caña Rum Bar, and Las Perlas bars in Los Angeles.
By extending your educational offerings to a larger audience with the creation of a podcast, your customers can learn more about your brand’s backstory and gain a stronger understanding about your products and services.
The engaging addition of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology can fascinate your audience and take their user experience to an interactive new level. AR is the use of text, graphics, audio, and other virtual enhancements integrated with real-world objects, like the appearance of a new table in your dining room when looking through your phone’s camera. VR, on the other hand, is the technology that uses software to produce images and sounds to create a virtual landscape. AR can place virtual items in your customer’s actual surroundings, and VR can place your customer in virtual surroundings. AR and VR can be especially helpful for businesses and brands that conduct a fair amount of online sales. With AR and VR additions like interactive dressing rooms, virtual color renderings, online customer support, and 3D details of your product, your customers can better understand how a product is going to look and feel in their space. Providing this increased understanding of your product to your customers can inspire them to make a purchase with confidence.
Lune.xyz is a Poland-based digital marketing agency that helps their clients apply this technique to their websites. They specialize in the use of interactive, cutting-edge AR and VR technology to connect consumers with products. Their clients can delight their website visitors with interactive applications and games, pyramid holographic visualizations, interactive mappings, and more AR and VR tools to build consumer trust and promote their ideas. When a brand’s customer is shopping online for a chair and AR technology can show them how it will look in their living room simply by aiming their phone’s camera, it can increase customer confidence in the purchase and leave minimal room for disappointment. When a virtual tour of a brand’s showroom is available through VR technology, a customer can be inclined to see more of what you have to offer from the comfort of their own living room. AR and VR technology like this create a highly interactive and engaging experience for customers that can leave a lasting impression and generate a lot of discussion. In fact, global consumers listed AR/VR as the top technology they’re seeking to assist, amplify, and augment their daily lives, according to a Nielson IQ Global Survey
Utilizing interactive AR and VR technology on your website can enhance a visitor’s experience, extend their stay on your site, and increase your chances of earning a loyal customer.
Customers today are paying more attention to the environment and sustainability. Your company or organization may already be making sustainable efforts in your business model, but you can take those efforts a step further with a low carbon website. With electricity powering data centers, computers and smartphones, energy consumption and emissions from the internet are rather sizable. Approximately 1.6 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions are produced in the manufacturing and running of digital technologies. Developing a low carbon website can reduce your website’s carbon footprint. A low carbon website is one that uses limited energy-consuming resources, including typefaces, logos, and high-resolution images. Your efforts may leave a lasting positive impression with your environmentally conscious customers.
MADC.xyz is an example of a sustainability-minded business that furthered their efforts with the development of a low-carbon website, hosted by a green hosting company. Miguel Ángel Díaz Camacho (MADC) & Partners is an international architecture firm established in Madrid, Spain who assert they operate under a succinct philosophy: “Design without sustainability is no longer design.” To extend their sustainability efforts, they designed their website using energy-reducing efforts with the intent of low environmental impact. They chose a green hosting company that uses renewable energy to power the data centers it uses. To limit their use of energy-consuming resources, MADC.xyz’s website is absent of custom typefaces. Visitors of MADC.xyz will instead see the default typefaces of their browser, a sans serif and a serif font. MADC.xyz also limits the usage of high-resolution color imagery on their website. Their website features black and white imagery, with an interactive option that lets visitors temporarily view full-color versions. MADC.xyz is demonstrating their commitment to sustainability and have positioned themselves to leave a lasting impression on visitors of their website.
Aligning your online presence with your brand’s sustainability efforts through a low carbon website can intrigue, impress, and inspire your customers, as well as better serve our planet.
Social media marketing can help increase brand awareness, brand loyalty, and increased traffic to your website. Customers also enjoy the engagement aspects of social media, and can respond favorably to personalized responses to their comments and messages. Embracing the latest social media platforms that most resonate with your target audience can excite your viewers and demonstrate your adaptability as a brand. One new platform is TikTok, a video-sharing social networking service. Another example, Clubhouse, is an audio-only social media app where users can communicate in chat rooms that can accommodate thousands of people. Sharing content that is entertaining, educational, and engaging on the newest social media platforms can help spread your brand’s message and route your audience back to your website.
ForceofNature.xyz is an example of an organization that has embraced the latest social media platform aligned with the interests of their target audience. This youth-led non-profit organization is dedicated to helping fellow young people realize their change-making potential in the face of climate change. Initially sharing their informative climate change posts on Instagram and Twitter, ForceofNature.xyz has created a TikTok account to stay on top of the latest popular social media platform enjoyed by their target audience. In the months they’ve been active they’ve even used the platform to launch efforts to recruit a climate-minded content creator. They have shared clips of speeches from their founder, Clover Hogan, focusing on topics such as intersectionality when promoting environmentalism as well as clips of discussions they’ve had with featured guests, such as environmental lawyer Farhana Yamin. Joining this new, widely-adapted social media platform to share an inside look at their organization can inspire viewers and drive them to ForceofNature.xyz to learn more.
Using the latest technology in social media can help you reach and engage with your target audience.
Businesses that stay ahead of the curve recognize the importance of providing a stellar experience to their customers. It is helpful for your brand affinity to have an online presence that gives your customers something to be impressed with or excited about. Enhancing your website or app with creative and entertaining technological features, whether big or small, can encourage them to stay on your website, become a loyal customer, and even become a brand advocate. Adding a feature to inspire, delight, and excite your customers can help to ensure that they will stay. Take advantage of the latest technology to increase your website’s offerings and reach, including blockchain technology, podcasts, AR/VR technology, low-carbon websites, and the newest social media platforms.
Following the example of these users and making use of these technological features on your website or app can help to create a unique and memorable experience for your customers which can extend the success of your brand.
Believe it or not, we are already halfway through 2021. For XYZ, Q2 was filled with many awesome ways to help the new generation of internet users to get online. From our 7th anniversary celebration, to five more exciting domains to help anyone design their online presence, and the support of 19 hackathons and their inspiring student participants, it’s been a terrific quarter. Here’s what we accomplished during this groundbreaking year.
In June we celebrated the 7th anniversary of .xyz’s launch! XYZ proudly honored and celebrated our .xyz community of innovators, creators, and makers achieving their dreams with .xyz domains. We’re especially proud of the many .xyz community members creating breakthrough technologies, influential works of art and entertainment, and inspiring projects aimed at making a positive impact on the world.
We shared our thanks to our global network of registrar partners and their customers across the globe. Thanks to their support, worldwide adoption has made .xyz a top choice with 3 million domains and counting.
In our continued effort to help the next generation of internet users make their mark online, on June 14, 2021 we relaunched .Homes, .Autos, .Motorcycles, .Boats, and .Yachts – five powerful domain names perfect for anyone looking to design a standout place online. To make these more affordable and accessible than ever before, we significantly dropped .Homes, .Autos, .Motorcycles, .Boats, and .Yachts registration prices by up to 80%. The cost to register these domains is now only $19.99/year MSRP for all standard domains. We also delivered premier access to tens of thousands of domain names available to the public for the very first time. Businesses, brands, professionals, and industry enthusiasts now have more options to register top-notch domains they can use to build standout websites with.
With the versatile .Homes domain you can promote property listings, communicate with potential clients, and make it incredibly easy for home buyers, sellers, and owners to find and remember your website. Reach a worldwide audience with .Autos, the domain name that transcends languages across Latin America and Europe. Lead your website’s branding with the memorable .Motorcycles domain name. Propel your brand forward with .Boats and .Yachts – two powerful domains that will make a splash online.
Take a look at some of the early registrations of these relaunched domains:
XYZ helped support attendees at 19 hackathons in the second quarter of 2021!
Participants received .xyz domains to help them launch their ideas and projects online.
The hackathons each celebrated technology with workshops and mentors that helped participants learn and develop their skills. While some of the hackathons were held virtually, like Covitech Challenge, Helyx Hacks III, PitchTeen 2.0, and Summer School ’21, the others were located throughout the United States, Canada, and India. The hackathons in the United States included health{hacks}, HighTech Hacks, Hydrangea Hacks , BioHack, Citrus Hack, and Women/Hacks 3.0. The hackathons in Canada included Northern Dehacks, MasseyHacks VII, and Expand Youth Society. The hackathons in India included Hack The Crisis, Code Warriors, COMPESA Hackathon 2021, Questival, Robust Routine, and HackBMU 4.0. XYZ is incredibly grateful to help participants share their ideas and solutions with a global audience via their new .xyz domains.
2021 has much more excitement to bring, and XYZ has continued plans for the rest of the year ahead. Stay tuned by subscribing to our newsletter, and following us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
XYZ is proud to share about the many incredible members that make up the XYZ community! We encourage you to do your own research before using the products and services of the websites we feature. The information about products and services contained in this blog post does not constitute endorsement or recommendation by XYZ.
