Tag: domain

Resolutions for 2023: more visibility, more security, more .barcelona

Posted on by Comunicació

We move into the New Year with a list of resolutions (which really will hold true this year). Typically, these might include doing more sport, learning a language or plenty of other things. When it comes to going digital, there will also be those determined to gain greater internet presence or create a website for their project, whether a business, an organisation or a personal project.

But before creating the website, we need to think properly about the domain. It’s important to choose one that identifies us and which can stick with our project for a long time. If you’re unsure, it’s best to think it through than to launch with a domain you know will be provisional. All domains have two parts, the name you choose and the domain extension. Did you know that Barcelona is one of just over 30 world cities with its own domain extension? And that a .barcelona domain can help you stand out on Google Maps? In addition, besides launching a new website, with .barcelona you’re linking your digital identity to the city and forming part of the .barcelona digital community.

“And what if I’ve already got a domain that isn’t .barcelona? How can I link it to the city?” One way of gaining visibility on the internet and forming part of the .barcelona community is to register a .barcelona domain as a secondary domain. In other words, to redirect the .barcelona domain you register with your usual .barcelona domain. This way you can increase the possibilities of people finding you on the internet and promote your business by linking it to your city.

Neighbourhood commerce in Barcelona goes digital with .barcelona

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Here at the .barcelona domain we’re working to help small shops and businesses in Barcelona go digital. From the end of May to mid-November we promoted the project “El meu comerç .barcelona”, where establishments were able to get a professional website with a .barcelona domain in a fast and simple free process.

The initiative meant that besides getting a new website, commercial establishments were able to link their digital identity with the city and form part of the .barcelona digital community.

“The digital environment is everywhere today, and for all ages”, notes Noelia Setó, the owner of noeliasllar.barcelona in the Sants neighbourhood. “I’ve got one because Victor, who’s about to turn four, sometimes says to me: ‘Mummy, search Google to see what Ladybug’s friend is called’, for instance. Amazing! So even if you’re a business with on-street premises, you need to move with the times and use all the resources which allow people to know about you and your product”.

As a society we’re experiencing a digital transformation. The arrival of the internet on our phones and in our homes means the way we consume and find information has changed, not just among the younger generations but even among people who are not digital natives.

A Google search is usually the first thing we do when we need something, as Noelia remarked. That’s also the case when we look for a shop or business, even in our own neighbourhood. “On the website, simple though it is, there’s valuable information about the business: where we are, the products we have, some images, opening times…all that means that people who don’t know me are comfortable enough to come and look around! Young or old, there are more and more ‘mature’ people gradually getting into the internet and the digital environment, and they surprise you!”, adds Noelia.

At lambicus.barcelona, an establishment specialising in Belgian beer and located in the neighbourhood of Sant Antoni, they were also clear on how having a website would give their business added value. “It helps bring us new customers, young and not-so-young. On the website we can tell people about the activities we have (tastings, presentations, festivals etc.) and the latest news. They can also contact us and it’s a quick way to know where our bar and shop are located”.

The last campaign for the project “El meu comerç .barcelona” saw fourteen commercial establishments in different Barcelona neighbourhoods sign up, all of which opted for a .barcelona domain. “Barcelona is a brand. It’s an identity. It nourishes collective activity. It makes you part of something. Puts you under its wing. So, everything linked to Barcelona is a plus for a business in the city. It’s like an exchange. We build all the values it conveys into Noelia’s llar.”

The application period for “El meu comerç .barcelona” is over for the moment. You can find more information about the project on the information page.

These are some of the websites created with the programme:

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

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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

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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

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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.

La Mercè is back!

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Music, tradition, street arts and plenty of festive fun are in store in the city from 23 to 26 September with La Mercè 2022. The festival regains a wholly face-to-face format, with no bookings required. At lamerce.barcelona you’ll find the full programme for a decentralised and diverse event offering hundreds of activities, with Rome as this year’s guest city.

 Highlights in this year’s programme include:

  • The opening speech. Film director Carla Simón has marked a before and an after in Catalan film and will be giving the opening speech this year.
  • Popular culture. In addition to the traditional opening ceremony, there will be human towers meetings, music, dance and film linked to tradition. This year’s festival also sees the return of the Nit de la Vigília after an absence of three decades.
  • The music and fireworks spectacular. The show returns to Av.Reina Maria Cristina, with a display combining light, colour and sound, and blending Italian and Roman melodies with music from a feminist perspective, opera to mark the 175th anniversary of the Gran Teatre del Liceu and music against war around the world, in a finale packed with energy and optimism.
  • Concerts. Consecrated artists, new talent and new types of creation form part of the programme, which consists of three music sections: the BAM, Música Mercè and Acció Cultura Viva.
  • Street shows. The MAC street arts festival offers innovative projects and new technological formats, with genres as diverse as integrated dance, contemporary dance, urban dance, street theatre, installations, workshops, circus, games, puppets, music and clowning.

You can find full details on this eagerly awaited edition of La Mercè on the website lamerce.barcelona.

The poster for La Mercè 2022

The author of the poster, David de las Heras, has brought together three generations of Barcelona women, representing a Mercè which transcends the passing of time and brings traditional and artistic creation together in the same celebration, remembering its roots and reiterating the city’s commitment to justice and peace.

If you wish, you can pick up a copy of the poster while stocks last at the Sala Ciutat (C/ Ciutat, 2), or download it here.

Around the world in five domains

Posted on by Comunicació

GeoTLDs promote local identities on the internet thanks to geographical domains. This makes them the perfect way of getting to know cities all around the world without leaving your home. We’re proposing a trip around the world by visiting five city domains. Are you coming along?

Our journey begins with .barcelona, a domain which has been operating for six years now and has more than five thousand registered addresses. Browsing the various types of .barcelona domains offers us a first-hand look at some of the city’s most typical and iconic sectors. For instance, through cultural domains such as the one used by Park Güell; gastronomy, such as the domain used by La Boqueria, or meet.barcelona, as a way of getting to know the city and what’s going on there. In just a few clicks you can tap into the city’s heartbeat. But we already knew about this domain, so let’s pack our bags and move on!

Our next stop is .stockholm, one of the most singular city domains in that it is limited only to websites relating to the City Council in this city. A good example is start.stockholm, where we can find general information about the city and a clutch of .stockholm websites for the various services which the City Council offers its citizens.

Changing continent, we visit the geographica domain with the most registered websites in the world, at over 302,000! This is .tokyo, the domain for the Japanese capital. Here we can find the website marathon.tokyo, for international runners, along with visit-chiyoda.tokyo and visit-minato-city.tokyo to discover neighbourhoods in Tokyo, or japanfreak.tokyo, for those interested in curious aspects of Japanese culture.

From here we hop over to one of Australia’s cities with its own domain, which is .sydney (the other is .melbourne if you’re wondering). This city domain has over seven thousand registered sites, including cycleways.sydney, a website with maps and routes for getting around the city by bike.

Our journey continues with one of the most visited cities in the world, as we stop off at .nyc. The city that never sleeps has over 68,000 registered domains. We can find sites such as greenwichvillage.nyc, with everything that’s going on in the neighbourhood, and newyearseve.nyc, for those wishing to recreate the legendary New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square, so often seen in films.

Finally, the last stage of our journey takes us to .capetown. The domain for the South African capital has over four thousand registered domains. These include wanderer.capetown, to discover various routes around the city, iseeyou.capetown, a project seeking to give visibility to different collectives and fight to eradicate the discrimination and inequalities that still exist in a city as complex as Cape Town.

Renewal rates for local domains stand at over 80%

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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.

“Barcelona has got an international reputation in the world of graphic design, which we wanted to link to our website”

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Minsk is a graphic design studio which started life eight years ago. The studio has evolved over time, its members have recycled their knowledge, and little by little Minsk has become specialised in audio-visual projects using video, animated graphics and digital design. With the creation of the domain minsk.barcelona the studio has been able to link its website with its values and those of its clients. We spoke to Pere Gómez Gavaldà, a member of Minsk, about design and the .barcelona domain.

What sets you aside from other graphic design and audio-visual studios?

Even though we’re a small studio (there are five of us), the thing that specifically sets us aside is that we are multi-disciplinary and flexible, meaning we can take on all types of projects with the advantages of working with a small studio, offering personalised service and dealing with clients directly.

How important is it for a company in the graphic design sector to have a website?

In our case it’s essential, as precisely one of the services we offer is the design and layout of websites, so we need a website which meets the expectations of what we offer our clients.

Of course, it also acts as a showcase where we can publish our outstanding projects and create our own discourse (you can get the idea if you read the texts on the website). That said, and as people know, when you get on with things your own website sometimes ends up at the back of the queue, and admittedly we often don’t have the site as up-to-date as we’d like to.

How do clients relate to you when they discover you through your website? What differences are there when dealing with them personally?

In our case the website tends to be a tool we direct clients towards when they want to see examples of what we do, as the site features some of our most notable projects. We’ve also got clients who contact us for the first time because they’ve found our website (the truth is that without being experts in SEO, we’ve got it well positioned), and with these clients the advantage is that they’ve actually seen what we do and they’ve actively contacted us, meaning part of the work is already done.

Even so, personal treatment for a small studio like ours gives added value, and once we get a mail from a client who contacts us via the website we try to get together or call them to be able to speak to them directly, as that’s what enables us to work in a more agile and personalised way.

Why did you choose a .barcelona domain?

One of the main reasons for changing the domain is that although the .es domain is shorter, we felt that as a brand we preferred the idea of linking our company to Barcelona, which ultimately is our city and has an international reputation we wanted to link to our company.

What differences did you notice in the everyday activity of the company after launching the website minsk.barcelona?

Most of all, the fact of linking the brand to new values which are much closer to us, our values and those of our clients. It mainly helped us to avoid misunderstandings. We opted for a change in strategy and communications, leaving behind Minsk Disseny (our commercial name up until that point) and becoming Minsk.barcelona. On the one hand, because design is now just a small part of our work, and on the other, because we wanted to link our main name (Minsk, the capital of Belorussia and the imaginary world we associated our brand with) to Barcelona (our real city, with values which we sincerely identify with much more at present).

As a graphic design company, what do you get out of linking yourselves with the city of Barcelona?

A lot. Barcelona has long been associated with design in general (not just graphic). It was important for us to be able to link these ideas. In addition, the contraposition between Minsk and Barcelona also helped us create a friendly word combination which has been useful for playing with the dissociation we usually use as a communication value in our branding.

How much clout does the name of Barcelona have in the world of graphic design and audio-visuals?

A lot. I think on an international level people continue to see Barcelona as the national leader when it comes to design. The same applies with audio-visuals, although here it’s more spread out.

Model Barcelona Architectures Festival’s got the dot!

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The first edition of the Model Barcelona Architectures Festival is set to turn the city into an experimental lab from 5 to 15 May, the goal being to rethink urban environments and build new perceptions to move towards the cities of the future. The recently launched website model.barcelona offers full information on the festival.

The first edition of the Model Barcelona Architectures Festival gets under way with the theme of “Regrowth”, the aim being to explore new perspectives, lines of thought and values that will help refocus the growth of the city.

The ten-day event sees the city host a global dialogue on the conflicts, challenges and opportunities that converge in urban environments, with international experts offering their vision of the cities of the future.

Over a hundred activities

Jointly organised by Barcelona City Council and the Architects’ Association of Catalonia (COAC), the festival is to offer a series of debates in iconic spaces in Barcelona, as well as a tribute to Oriol Bohigas at the Ateneu Barcelonès and over a hundred activities organised by independent bodies. These include open days, workshops for people of all ages, physical installations and augmented reality, communal meals, routes, debates, exhibitions, book fairs and even a film cycle.

Participants in the Model festival include key figures in architecture, philosophy and anthropology, along with emerging thinkers. Notable names include Rotor, Carolyn Steel, Rafael Moneo and Carme Pinós.

This first edition of the festival represents a first major event ahead of the city becoming the UIA-UNESCO Word Capital of Architecture 2026.