Category: News

Start-ups come to Barcelona

Posted on by Comunicació

Barcelona is organising 4 Years From Now (4YFN), the most important fair for innovative tech start-ups, to be held during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) from 27 February to 2 March. The fair brings together start-ups, investors, companies and public institutions to establish connections and work together on new projects and businesses.

Held at Fira Barcelona, 4YFN will feature over 700 exhibitors, more than 300 speakers and over 1,000 investors. The programme is based around different themes, for example:

  • Health: how this sector benefits from digital innovation to improve medical assistance on a global scale.
  • Education: how the latest advances revolutionise learning with disruptive technology,emerging learning models and the impact on talent worldwide.
  • Climate change: how to use the power of digital innovation to create positive results for new companies, investors and the planet.

The fair also features activities such as discovering new immersive experiences through the innovative tech enabled by the metaverse.The fair wouldn’t be complete without the .barcelona domain, which will be represented at the Barcelona Activa stand. You’ll find the full range of personalised services, training activities and other resources to be able to launch a new start-up or turn yours into a feasible and successful business.

The .barcelona domain at the E-Show Barcelona

Posted on by Comunicació

The .barcelona domain will be taking part in the E-Show Barcelona on 7 and 8 March, alongside the .cat domain and the domain registration company DonDominio. The show is one of the biggest e-commerce and digital marketing events.

The event is an ideal place to connectwith business and enterprise in the city and introduce the opportunities for growth and the values offered by the .barcelona domain.

In addition, people visiting our stand can request personalised advice for creating a digital presence which suits each project best and enjoy a special offer for registering a .barcelona domain.

E-Show Barcelona 7 and 8 March Fira Barcelona (Montjuïc site) Admission free with advance registration

What are we going to do in 2023?

Posted on by Comunicació

As you know, the .barcelona domain forms part of the GeoTLD Group, an international non-profit organisation which represents the interests of top-level geographical domains identifying a city, a region, a language or a culture. This helps us work together with other domains with similar needs and characteristics and achieve improvements for our users.

Through the GeoTLD Group we’ll be working in 2023 to include domains such as .barcelona in the domains offered by WordPress, enabling websites created with this platform to use the domain which suits them best, according to their characteristics.

At the same time, Fundació.cat, the organisation which manages the .barcelona domain, forms part of the negotiating team with ICANN to include legal provisions in the contracts between domain registers and the domain registration companies that sell these domain, to be able to adopt measures against DNS abuse and ensure better security for users.

Finally, action is also planned through the GeoTLD Group this year to improve the universal acceptance of domains. At present there are still many e-commerce sites which don’t accept characters outside of the ASCII alphabet (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). This means that some websites still don’t accept non-English characters such as the Ç or the L·L. Similarly, these sites do not recognise domains with more than five letters. This issue directly affects domains such as .barcelona, .madrid, .amsterdam and others. In order to improve universal acceptance for domains, the GeoTLD Group are planning a series of promotional measures in this area and some meetings and technical training days for these websites.

The .barcelona domain takes part in the ICANN summit for registers and registration companies in Los Angeles

Posted on by Comunicació

The .barcelona domain travelled to Los Angeles to take part in the ICANN Contracted Parties Summit. The ICANN is a non-profit organization responsible for hosting IP addresses, managing generic and territorial domains and allocating protocol identifiers. Their events offer a meeting point between domain registers and registration companies, giving them the chance to continue their collaboration and find new synergies.

One of the key points for this summit was DNS (Domain Name System) abuse and how to tackle it. This is an issue which affects everybody, and at .barcelona we feel these sessions are important for working together with other registers and continuing to improve the security of our domains.

Another key point was the future of technology. We attended a debate on emerging technologies and the future of alternative domains such as the ENS (Ethereum Name Service), a domain system similar to DNS created by users of Ethereum cryptocurrency and blockchain, a new data organisation technology which gathers information in a shared and decentralised way, and which has provided the base for growth in cryptocurrency in recent years. The session analysed threats and opportunities in relation to the current domain system, a topic where many questions remain and which for the moment is being approached with a certain scepticism.

Finally, the geoTLD.group, which the .barcelona domain belongs to, met with WordPress to further the negotiations which will enable the content manager to include languages such as Catalan and register websites with the .barcelona domain etc. WordPress confirmed their interest in incorporating geoTLDs and hopes to start this process in the first quarter of 2023 with a first groups of TLDs.

The .barcelona domain renews as chair of the geoTLD.group

Posted on by Comunicació

The geoTLD.group held its annual general meeting and elections for its Executive Committee on 28 September, with members unanimously re-electing the outgoing Executive Committee for a new mandate of three years:

  • Chair: Mr Nacho Amadoz (Fundació .cat, the organisation which manages the domains of .cat and .barcelona)
  • Vice chair: Mr Josu Waliño (Puntueus Fundazioa, the organisation which manages the domain .eus)
  • Treasurer: Mr Ronald Schwärzler (Domainworx Service & Management GmbH, the organisation which manages the domains of .wien, .koeln and .cologne)

The geoTLD.group currently has 28 members (23 full members and 5 observer members), managing 35 geoTLDs:

  • Europe: .alsace .amsterdam .barcelona .bayern .berlin .brussels .bzh .cat .cologne .eus .frl .gal .hamburg .koeln .london .madrid .nrw .paris .ruhr .saarland .scot .swiss .stockholm . tirol .vlaanderen .wien
  • Africa: .africa .capetown .durban .joburg 
  • America: .boston .miami .nyc .quebec 
  • Asia (Pacific): .melbourne .sydney .tokyo

GeoTLD.group is an international non-profit association made up of government bodies, businesses and organisations which represent the interests of top-level geographical domains identifying a city, region, language or culture.

Geographical top-level domains are shaping the internet of tomorrow and creating digital identities for locations and communities. The group works to develop the potential of geoTLDs to benefit cities, regions, cultures and languages.

Barcelona hosts a new meeting on top-level domains

Posted on by Comunicació

Barcelona is hosting the 50th meeting of the Administrative Workshop on 6 and 7 October. Organised by CENTR, the European association of top-level domain registries, the meeting provides a platform for debate on political matters which affect country code top-level domains (ccTLD) and acts as a communication channel for internet governance bodies and other internet organisations.

This is the third time the CENTR has chosen Barcelona to host one of its meetings, on this occasion the first face-to-face meeting to be held since the start of the pandemic. Fundació .cat, which manages .cat and .barcelona domains, will be the host organisation for this CENTR meeting.

During the 50th CENTR Administrative Workshop, organisations responsible for various domains all around Europe will be exploring various topics such as abuse relating to DNS domains and the creation of new products to add value to domains, as well as an assessment of new projects to integrate and improve the relationship with registration companies. On this occasion, Tucows and Openprovider are to be the guest registration companies, to learn about their perspective and share their experiences.

Renewal rates for local domains stand at over 80%

Posted on by Comunicació

The GeoTLD Group met in the Breton city of Quimper on 2 and 3 June, in a meeting organised by .bzh, the domain representing the Breton community on the internet.

Headed by the Fundació .cat, and with the .barcelona domain as one of its members, the goal of the group is to promote local identities on the internet using geographical domains.

During the meeting, the GeoTLD Group presented a comparative study, highlighting the high renewal rate among a very large number of geographical domains, standing at between 80% and 90%. In some cases, renewals even topped 90%. Of all the geoTLD domains, .tokyo enjoys the highest number of registrations, with 302,574 to be precise. Besides .tokyo, the only domain with more than 100,000 registrations is .cat, the domain representing the Catalan-speaking community. Most geoTLDs have between 5,000 and 25,000 registrations, as is the case with the .barcelona domain. If we look at the number of domains per inhabitant, .barcelona comes out above domains such as .madrid, .paris, .sydney and others. Specifically, there are 3.23 .barcelona domains registered per 1,000 inhabitants.

The geoTLD meeting also covered various other topics such as the campaign for the emoji with the Breton flag, marketing practices geared towards specific solutions for the communities these organisations serve, and the evolution of the European regulatory framework for the internet.

Finally, Stockholm City Council presented its experience in transferring all the services in the city to its own domain, start.stockholm.

The .barcelona domain turns six with 5,000 active domains

Posted on by Comunicació

Since opening up its public register in March 2016, the .barcelona domain has generated a volume of active domains comparable to other large cities. With 5,228 domains in all, the number of domains per inhabitant puts .barcelona on a par with other city domains such as .paris, .london and .tokyo.

Besides the overall figures, the .barcelona domain stands out from the rest of geoTLDs for its permeability in Barcelona’s society. The domain reflects the city’s social and commercial make-up and is used across multiple sectors.

Browsing the different types of .barcelona domains gives us a first-hand look at the city’s most typical and iconic sectors. Staring with cultural domains such as those used by the MACBA or Park Güell, and moving onto gastronomic ones such as the one for La Boqueria, in just a few clicks we can get a feel for the city.

We can also find .barcelona domains relating to sports, such as the ones for the firefighters’ run or La Mercè, which represent the city so well. There are domains for shopping too, such as the recently launched BCNMarket, the city’s official online shop.

The Catalan capital has an exceptional showcase on the internet thanks to the .barcelona domain, which brings together the diversity of activities and services offered by the city.

The domain turned six on 21 March, celebrating the opening of the domain register to all projects wishing to sign up to it. Even so, the domain officially started life in July 2015, when it started being used for municipal projects. A year later came the formal contact with the ICANN, the main regulating body for this sector.

A stronger position for .barcelona as a city domain in 2021

Posted on by Comunicació

Last year meant a year of consolidation for the .barcelona domain, with the figure of 4,175 renewals similar to previous years. In contrast, the number of new domain registrations reached 786. The overall number of .barcelona domains stands at 5,183, with a renewal rate of 83.06%.

Various new registrations stand out in 2021. For instance, the virtual shop window for neighbourhood commerce bcnmarket.barcelona, sportshub.barcelona and alimentaciosostenible.barcelona.  These three sites provide support for commerce, sustainable food and sport.

Having a .barcelona domain helps get projects off the ground which are beneficial to the city. The income from .barcelona is also reinvested to create projects such as elmeucomerç.barcelona, which has the goal of helping neighbourhood shops and businesses go digital. The establishments that signed up to the programme got a new .barcelona domain through a simple free process. This is a way for shops and businesses to link their digital identity with the city.

A domain open to all

Barcelona became the latest city to set up its own domain in March 2016, when it launched .barcelona. All organisations, companies, individuals and administrations with ties to the city of Barcelona and its catchment area, or who engage in activity there, can register using the city’s domain.

The .barcelona domain is part of the international association geoTLD, which provides it with greater representation within the sector. The community is made up of over a million active top-level geographical domains, such as those using .berlin, .paris, .london and .tokyo. The geoTLD Group works in the interest of geographical domains to promote local identities and disseminate their values.

The idea of a link with a large city such as Barcelona is a key part of the goals of the .barcelona domain, as is backing for city projects and getting on the Catalan capital’s digital map. Users value the fact they can be identified with Barcelona, whether this is for others to find them of because they are identified with the city’s attributes.

Main topics for the GeoTLD meeting

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Frankfurt hosted a meeting for the members of the GeoTLD group on 9 September, adopting a hybrid virtual and on-site format due to the pandemic.

The meeting was used to present and discuss the latest on the next round of GeoTDL requests, as well as to exchange opinions on the relationship and cooperation between registers and different departments of the ICANN. The meeting concluded with a session on the abuse of DNS (Domain Name Systems) and cybersecurity.

These meetings are fundamental for members of the GeoTLD group to be able to exchange impressions in an enriching way, particularly on their goals and on the point where each of them is at.

A geoTLD is a top-level domain which represents communities of a cultural, linguistic or social nature with a strong and specific geographical presence. Members include the domain .scot, .cat, .eus and .gal, as well as city domains such as .sydney, .stockholm and .barcelona.