ElectricCafe.xyz – Tucows customer (United Kingdom)
A catchy soundtrack is one of the most important parts in creating a memorable video game. Even humming a few notes from your favorite old game can bring back fond memories that make you want to play it again and again. Our #WebsiteWednesday this week is behind some of those tunes and is trusted by Disney, Sony, Nintendo, and Square Enix to make soundtracks for their digital content: ElectricCafe.xyz.
Electric Cafe is a music and sound design studio that has composed soundtracks for popular video game releases like Diner Dash and Championship Manager, as well as for indie games like Aqua Kitty. The latter’s soundtrack was listed among TwoDashStash’s “Top Ten Best Indie Game Soundtracks of All Time“. Electric Cafe’s soundtrack productions are not limited to one specific gaming platform. They have shown versatility in developing music for games on Xbox 360 & Xbox One, PS3 & PS4, Nintendo DS & Nintendo Wii, PC & Mac, and even iOS and Android.
Beyond video game soundtracks, ElectricCafe.xyz has also developed tracks used in some of television’s most watched shows, like BBC’s Top Gear, Sky Sports’ Sky Sports Football, and iTV’s Jeremy Kyle Show. Securing huge clients like these in a highly competitive industry is no easy feat, but Electric Cafe rose to work with the best thanks to their capability to produce highly popular and memorable music.
“My website acts as my calling card or showreel. I decided having a new .xyz domain would help to represent me and the company as a contemporary business in the field of audio.” – Mark Day, Owner of ElectricCafe.xyz
Securing the industry’s biggest players as clients is a dream for all creative businesses, and Electric Cafe succeeded in doing so. Standing out from the crowd with a cool domain extension is a common trait of #GenXYZ members, and ElectricCafe.xyz is an inspiring model for any startup or business to follow.
Today, XYZ announced the acquisition of .Storage, the tenth domain extension to be added to our growing portfolio. We will be launching .Storage this fall as an unrestricted premium namespace for the physical storage and data storage industries.
.Storage will give all businesses and individuals the opportunity to secure short and brandable industry-specific domains to establish their online presence, much like .xyz gives the next generation of internet users the opportunity to brand themselves on a memorable and global domain.
And, like XYZ’s other domain extensions, .Security, Protection, .Theatre, .Cars, .Car, and .Auto, all .Storage domains will be available for one flat price. So one-character domains, two-character domains, premium keyword names, and even URLs like Data.Storage and Cloud.Storage, which were previously priced as premiums for $100,000 each, will now be made available for hand registration for the same price as any other .Storage domain.
Here’s what Daniel had to say about the .Storage acquisition in his blog post:
“The success of the entire XYZ portfolio, anchored by .xyz, has led to an excess of cash flow for us to further our mission of bringing choice and innovation to the internet. Thanks to the end users who have adopted .xyz in over 230 countries, our registration and renewal rates have exceeded even my own expectations. We have reinvested these funds to grow .xyz further: through hackathon sponsorships for underprivileged youth, meetings with startups and press outlets at events like TechDay LA, and website design contests with General Assembly and GoDaddy.” – Daniel Negari, CEO, XYZ
We also have some BIG plans ahead as we near our 3rd anniversary in just over a month. Be sure to mark June 1st on your calendars, and check www.gen.xyz/AYDACFU to find out all the details!
Be sure to check out Daniel’s blog post at www.ceo.xyz/storage and the official XYZ announcement. Visit www.go.storage to learn more about .Storage.
Q1 2017 flew by and Team XYZ hasn’t slowed the mission to further spread the word about the world’s #1 new domain extension .xyz. We went to three events in our hometown of LA and also made a trip to the Rockies to attend one of the biggest automotive industry events in the country!
Earlier this month, the LA Convention Center hosted the final Global HostingCon event. As part of the festivities surrounding the event, XYZ was invited to attend our partner DreamHost’s VIP Industry Party at one of LA’s hippest locations, Bar Thirteen in downtown.
The XYZ team met lots of new and familiar faces and we got to share the great success of .xyz with industry veterans, like Dave Koston from Help.com (top picture, first person from the right). The event ended sweetly for the entire XYZ office as the team brought back some gourmet chocolate bars courtesy of our friends at Dreamhost!
In between events in the warm SoCal sun, the team flew east to a very snowy Denver to attend the Innovative Dealer Summit, which was held at the Colorado Convention Center right in the middle of downtown. The summit hosts 40+ industry experts from around the country who educate dealership owners and dealership groups about the newest marketing trends and strategies in the automotive industry.
Dealers attended sessions on using innovative marketing tools and were excited to talk with our team about .Cars, .Car, and .Auto domain names for their businesses. Attendees lined up at our booth to get info on the SEO benefits of .Cars/.Car/.Auto URLs and to learn how to register their own valuable names. Even the President of the Innovative Dealer Summit, Tim Jackson, knew about the unbeatable value of these automotive domains as his own dealership uses the URL Colorado.Auto.
As April wound to a close Team XYZ was back in our Santa Monica home base, and we closed out the month by attending back to back tech industry happy hours along with hundreds of hungry entrepreneurs. First up was the Santa Monica New Tech April Happy Hour, where the team spoke with dozens of app developers, startups, and coders looking to get their businesses off the ground. After checking gen.xyz to see that the domains they wanted were available, the attendees could register them for just $1 for the first year by using the promo code on the XYZ 3D glasses. We can’t wait to see what they’ll built on these .xyz domains!
The second night of the XYZ happy hour double brought the team to the luxurious Viceroy Hotel, overlooking the famous Santa Monica Pier for the Silicon Beach Young Professionals Mixer. Our team met with movers and shakers from hot new industries like VR, as well as LA-original firms from TV & Film. Everyone we spoke to was excited to hear about .xyz and positively surprised by the huge amount of household name use-cases. We loved being able to spread the word about some of our favorite .xyz end users like Hooli.xyz. Many of the young professionals in attendance left inspired to build their next big thing on a .xyz domain.
We’ve got some big event plans for May already and are looking to add even more. You can stay tuned to see where in the world Team XYZ will be going to next by following us on Twitter and Instagram @XYZ!
Vierkant.xyz – DomainFactory customer (Germany)
In today’s world, we have grown accustomed to the advent of digital screens. Whether it’s a billboard, ad at a bus stop, or even to check the time, chances are that you are looking at an electronic screen to get your information. This week’s #WebsiteWednesday is a German design firm and Red Dot award winner that is blending modern technologies with vintage looks to create something new.
Vierkant recently upgraded their domain from Vierkant-Design.de to Vierkant.xyz, shortening their web address to a more memorable one, while also ensuring that their designs reach a global audience. Vierkant, which means ‘square’ or ‘rectangle’ in German, is a design firm that specializes in recreating classic looks while still incorporating today’s tech into their timepieces.
Vierkant’s flagship design is the Fallblatt CGN (meaning Split Flap Cologne-Bonn), which won them the prestigious Red Dot design award in 2016, beating out a record 5,200 submissions from 57 countries. To build the Fallblatt CGN, Vierkant utilized pieces of the decommissioned flip-board at the Cologne-Bonn (CGN) airport. They then put these pieces into a corian housing, and integrated the whole unit with Outlook calendars. The final result is a unique display that’s programmable through a computer or smartphone to reveal custom messages or events.
Other products by Vierkant include the Kantuhr (Square Clock) and Blockuhr (Cubicle Clock), which are elegantly simple clocks in exactly the shape you’d expect. Both are made from authentic train station clocks, which are then restored while keeping as many original parts as possible. The history alone of these timepieces is quite impressive!
“Vierkant is becoming the brand for the combination of modern technology, good design and historic components. The XYZ in Vierkant.xyz for us stands for the three coordinates in space, that we often use as designers and engineers as we make our drawings.” – George Moser, CEO of Vierkant.xyz
Vierkant is just another example of the innovation taking place across .xyz domains. Not only is Vierkant looking towards the future, but they are using the charm of the past to help shape it.
Do you have an idea for a unique project? Register your .xyz domain today and share it with the world!
March was an extremely event-full month for the XYZ Team. Our travels and initiatives spanned 3 continents and landed us some great coverage at one of the most recognized festivals in the world. See what we were up to last month in our March event recap!
Early in March, we had the pleasure of sponsoring ANova Hacks held at the University of California, Berkeley. ANova Hacks is a student-run hackathon that brings together high school students from across the Bay area for a 10-hour coding event.
Not only is ANova Hacks a programming competition, but it features workshops throughout the day to teach students how to code. In fact, several participants had no prior coding experience, but still turned in completed projects at the end of the day. You know the XYZ movement is in full-force when the next generation is building their first-ever website with a .xyz domain instead of a .com! We couldn’t be more proud of ANova Hacks mission, and we’re glad each participant was able to come away from the experience with a .xyz domain, XYZ swag, and invaluable coding skills. We look forward to sponsoring their next event!
Next up was ICANN 58, where our Global Director, Shayan Rostam, headed off to Copenhagen, Denmark to meet with our registrar partners about upcoming marketing initiatives and to share some big news. We can’t say anything publicly yet, but if your registrar didn’t have a chance to meet with XYZ at ICANN, be sure to contact us ASAP – you’ll definitely want to hear this!
The standout event of March was by far the South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Austin, Texas. This was our 3rd time in attendance, and this year the #XYZsquad did it bigger and better than ever before!
If you were at SXSW, chances are you ran into the #XYZsquad parkouring, breakdancing, and taking thousands of pictures with attendees throughout the streets of Austin. You probably also saw our infamous 3D glasses in the crowds, with people checking out the XYZ 3D Lab on their phones. In fact, the #XYZsquad was such a hit that they were covered by Fox 7 Austin, Spectrum Reach’s Kernel, Comcast, and the official SXSW and Bravo Network Snapchat accounts. They were even the main highlight of our Scavenger Hunt! The #XYZsquad has now become a mainstay of SXSW, and they are already gearing up for next year! Be sure to check out the full blog post here.
SXSW wasn’t the last that we saw of the #XYZsquad in March. Shortly afterward, the #XYZsquad was off across the ocean to Wuxi, China to participate in the Wuxi Marathon.
The Wuxi Marathon consisted of 30,000 runners and attracted over 170,000 spectators from all over the world. The #XYZsquad participated in the event, running the entire 42km (26 miles), all while raising awareness for .xyz in China. We want to tip our hats to all the runners at the event, and congratulate everyone who participated for their perseverance. Check out our full write up about the marathon here.
Despite our global popularity, we like to stay involved in the local tech scene throughout Los Angeles, which is why we attended the TechX & Expo in Studio City, CA.
TechX brought together local tech startups and businesses to showcase their products and services. It was a great opportunity to learn about the newest technologies coming out of our backyard, and also encourage them to share their ideas with the world on their very own .xyz website. Thanks for having us TechX!
After an incredibly busy March, Team XYZ wrapped up the month by hosting an event of our own – The SoCal Domainers & Cybersecurity Professionals meetup!
This was our third time hosting the event, and it’s something we now look forward to hosting at least once a year. This was the first meetup to also host local leaders from the cybersecurity industry, which meant we could not only talk about domains, but also share some the proactive measures XYZ is taking to mitigate abuse. We always enjoy catching up with old friends, and we’re so glad we could make new ones too! We hope everyone had as great of a time as we did.
The XYZ Team was all over the world in March, but as always, we are already planning our itineraries for next month! Are you attending an event that you think that #XYZsquad should be at? Let us know on Twitter @XYZ!
