Ask HN: Why are lots of startups using the .io domain?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4358913

by Nick5a1 • 14 years ago

8 7 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

It seems lots of recent startups are using the .io domain. What are the reasons behind this? It must be more than just domain availability, as there are lots of domain extensions to choose from with lots more availability that .com and .net.

otoburb• 14 years ago

Appeals to the HN audience obsession with technology, due to the similarity and oblique reference to input/output (i/o).

irunbackwards• 14 years ago

I'm not sure, but the only one that makes sense so far is filepicker.io

drstewart• 14 years ago

firehose.io

yolesaber• 14 years ago

Domain name availability.

Mitchella• 14 years ago

Agreed. Domain name availability is very hard sometimes. For others it might just make sense. Example: if I created a webapp and for some reason wanted to call it Sendio, sendio.com is taken but I can always get send.io and run my app from there with a cool url

edwinyzh• 14 years ago

I guess,

1 - It implies IT tech related, IO = input/output, as pointed out by otoburb;

2 - Domain name availability, as pointed out by yolesaber;

3 - Google named its developer conference 'Google IO', just a guess.

wilfra• 14 years ago

This is the correct answer.

Ask HN: Why are lots of startups using the .io domain?

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