We’re wrapping up 2019 with the fourth installment of our “How To Get Online” series: Expand Your Business or Project. Last quarter we shared how to expertly grow your audience, and now you can learn how to take your business or project to the next level by expanding it.
Q4 of the XYZ Quarterly outlines how to grow your brand within your current market, and how to extend into new markets. Learn four key ways to ramp up your business or project and meet the .xyz community members who have gone on to expand in exciting ways after their brand’s initial success. Also, catch up with all things XYZ as we share our many accomplishments from 2019.
BigBlueDot.xyz – Network Solutions customer (Canada)
As our regular readers probably know, personal websites can be great tools to promote your portfolio of work, attract clients for your freelance business, or share your opinions and expertise. They are also great for documenting milestones and life events so that you can look back on them yourself or share them with family and friends around the world. If you’ve ever considered launching a personal website of your own on which you plan to share your unique life experiences, then be sure to make it the best it can be with some inspiration from this week’s #WebsiteWednesday, BigBlueDot.xyz.
BigBlueDot.xyz chronicles the global adventures of the Colebrook 5, a family from Red Deer Canada who traveled to 21 countries across an 18-month journey. Throughout their trip, the family kept a running blog of their stops and recounted stories of the amazing things they were able to do in each new place. The site’s navigation bar includes a map to follow the family around the world, as well as a countries tab to find what they saw in each amazing new place. Clicking the “About” section will give you an introduction to the family, display their trip itinerary, and explain the Carl Sagan-inspired meaning of BigBlueDot.xyz.
At the outset of both the blog and the Colebrook’s quest, the three children of the family shared which countries they were most eager to visit, what they were excited and nervous about, and what they would and would not miss from home. The posts evolved to become a personal blog which each child kept updated on BigBlueDot.xyz, serving as a unique teacher for their earliest experiences publishing content on the web.
The family was able to visit many beautiful places and landmarks, and to share that experience they managed an Instagram page, @bigbluedot.xyz. Their handle exactly matches their domain, and promotes their full website’s URL so their Instagram followers know where to visit to get the full experience. You can also view their Instagram photos, along with each post’s comments and likes, directly on the BigBlueDot.xyz website.
The Colebrooks’ trip covered thousands of miles, dozens of countries, and innumerable unforgettable experiences. BigBlueDot.xyz impressively covers that ground and serves as an inspiration to anyone looking to launch a personal blog. Chronicle your next big adventure, just like the Colebrook family did, with your own .xyz domain.
JJDelgado.xyz – GoDaddy customer (United Kingdom)
The way people shop has changed drastically thanks to the explosion of ecommerce. The convenience of shopping online is quickly making that the preferred method of purchasing almost anything that you can buy. Everything from your clothing, home furnishings, and even groceries can be ordered online and shipped directly to your doorstep, making it increasingly important for companies to keep up with the growing demand for an excellent online user experience. For this reason, the subject of today’s #WebsiteWednesday has one of today’s most sought after areas of expertise.
JJDelgado.xyz is the website of esteemed business professional and author Juan José Delgado. With a PhD in Digital Economy and Online Human Behavior, JJ is known to be an expert in digital strategy and has over 12 years of business experience at well-known brands across Europe and Latin America. His impressive resume includes serving as Head of Amazon Marketing Services South Europe up until 2017, where he’s known to have led the biggest international sales day in Amazon history.
JJ has written two books on marketing strategy, including Think Video: Smart Video Marketing & Video Influencing and The New Digital Consumer: The Cube NORISO. He has been a keynote speaker at marketing, corporate, and networking events around the world, covering topics on the new digital ecosystem and customer, digital transformation explained, and leadership skills for the digital era.
JJ now works as the Chief Digital Officer of popular Spanish brewery Hijos de Rivera, and describes his role as “in charge of making the company embrace and manage the current digital disruption.” He is also on the Board of Directors for TheHop.xyz, a collaborative entrepreneurship program backed by Hijos de Rivera that provides selected startups who have a clear social or environmental impact with training and mentoring by experts, investors, and executives from the company. If that weren’t enough, JJ also shares his expertise as a professor at The London School of Economics, where he teaches classes on topics like Digital Transformation, Leadership Skills for the Digital Era, and the Digital Economy.
As a digital professional, scholar, and professor, JJ puts his trust into .xyz to establish his personal website on a short and memorable domain. If you would like to connect with JJ, then you may want to follow him on LinkedIn at /juanjosedelgado, as he was named one of the top 15 unofficial LinkedIn influencers you should follow in 2018. Also check him out on Instagram @jjdelgado.xyz and Twitter @realJJDelgado.
GitHistory.xyz – Namecheap customer (Argentina)
Github is among the most popular places for developers to share their projects, making it home to some of the coolest tech projects and most useful apps. The platform is built on a system called Git, which is designed for programmers to coordinate work on a project by tracking changes in the source code. Today’s #WebsiteWednesday is a unique tool that has been praised by developers for its ability to make searching your Git history fast and easy; GitHistory.xyz.
Created by Github user Rodrigo Pombo, GitHistory.xyz is a tool built to allow developers to search the history of a Git repository in two simple steps. The first step is to find the file in GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket that you want to see the history for. The second step is to replace “TLD” (.com, .org, etc.) in the URL with “.githistory.xyz”. This will bring you to a GitHistory.xyz URL that shows the full history of changes made to a git repository and allows you to look back through it one change at a time. GitHistory.xyz is also available to be used as a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox, as well as an extension for GitHub and VisualStudio.
Users of GitHistory.xyz are fans of the tool’s visually appealing and organized UI. Popular design community page CSS-Tricks praise the ease of use provided thanks to its ability to be used through a simple change in the URL. The list of notable GitHistory.xyz users includes Google Chrome Engineering Manager Addy Osmani, and it has drawn similar plaudits from developer publication Smashing Magazine. GitHub itself featured the tool in their release radar, calling it “a beautiful way to tour the history of a file in a GitHub repo.” If you want to use GitHistory.xyz and have a private Git repo, note that signing into the app will give GitHistory.xyz access to your private repo.
GitHistory.xyz serves as a great example of just one of the many creative ways domain names can be utilized. Because GitHistory.xyz’s tool works by making a simple change in the URL bar of a web browser rather than requiring an app to download or software to install, it is able to be used by virtually anyone.
GitHistory.xyz shows just how much versatility domain names have and their ability to serve as solutions to modern tech problems. Try the tool yourself at GitHistory.xyz or by adding their extensions for your preferred browser. Got a great idea for how to use a domain to solve a tech problem you see? Get your .xyz domain and take it on just like GitHistory.xyz!
Argent.xyz – Gandi customer
2019 may be winding to a close, but the blockchain boom happening in tech is showing no signs of slowing down. Those who are curious about using blockchain to trade cryptocurrency might be intimidated by long wallet hash IDs or worried about security when trying to choose a trading platform. This week’s #WebsiteWednesday, Argent.xyz, is aiming to address those issues with the goal of making blockchain trading simpler and safer.
Argent.xyz is a decentralized cryptocurrency wallet that combines a simple interface with leading security features, designed to offer a better overall experience for crypto traders. With your Argent.xyz wallet you can choose a custom ID (i.e. YourName.Argent.xyz), allowing you to send funds to readable names rather than long, cryptic hashes, and picking a name is completely free.
Normally crypto wallets require the owner to save a paper backup of their wallet ID for security purposes, but Argent.xyz claims their complete security service will allow you to lock your wallet from anywhere and recover it with ease if you lose your device. In addition, Argent.xyz says you’ll never give up your privacy when using their service, thanks to the decentralized nature that allows their customers to remain anonymous and keep their assets secure. If you have questions or need any help using the service, Argent.xyz’s team has a helpful support page and provides personal assistance with issues.
The team behind Argent.xyz are incredibly experienced. Argent.xyz CTO Gerald Goldstein (holder of a PhD in nuclear physics) and CEO Itamar Lesuisse’s (holder of a Masters in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) last venture was a cognitive training startup that reached over 50,000,000 users, and CSO Julien Niset (holder of a PhD in quantum information and quantum cryptography) sold his previous business to the world’s leading quantum security hardware business prior to joining Argent.xyz’s team. Their combined startup expertise is one factor that helped them secure $4.2 million in funding, which they’ve used to grow the scale of their service and onboard new users more quickly.
As new technologies are introduced to the masses, true innovators find what users need most, and then create solutions for them. Just as .xyz introduced a solution for internet users to brand on memorable domains, Argent.xyz has worked to develop a simple and secure wallet to help make crypto trading easier. You can download Argent.xyz’s wallet app for iOS or Android, or stay up to date on the latest news via their blog and Twitter page.
