.SCOT is leading the way for cultural New Domains

Last week Dot Scot Registry reached a deal ensuring the release of .SCOT in the summer of 2014, a year earlier than previously expected. .SCOT has been getting a lot of attention since the announcement and it’s easy to see why: This New Domain perfectly illustrates the amazing capacity of cultural domains to create a Web identity for diasporas, cultures, and countries that didn’t have their own webspace before.

.SCOT has also had a lot of public support from within the Scottish community during the entire application process, including from First Minister Alex Salmond. So why is the land of haggis, Robert Burns, Scotch, golf and most importantly, Sir Sean Connery (who has been at the head of the decade-long campaign for .SCOT), so excited for this New Domain?  

Because .SCOT allows Scots all over the world to create a global digital identity and to promote the language, culture, arts, and business of this region. You don’t have to live in Scotland to become a part of the .SCOT community — if you have ties to this northern country, either personally or professionally, you’re in, so to speak (or spaek, in Scots).

.SCOT isn’t alone in its quest to provide specific name space for global communities, and it’s not the first either—the release of .CAT in 2005 allowed Catalonians an option in addition to the .ES country code domain assigned to Spain. And there’s more highly-anticipated cultural domains on the way. Here are just a few:

.CYMRU

Looks like Scotland isn’t the only country eager to carve out a cultural identity independent of the United Kingdom—Wales will gain two New Domains, .WALES and .CYMRU. But .CYMRU sets itself apart from .WALES by identifying itself as the Welsh-language alternative. Like .SCOT, the personalized nickname TLD allows the Welsh community to easily identify the extension, create a stronger digital community and promote the language and culture that sets it apart from Britain as a whole.

.FRL

This New Domain moniker will serve the Frisian community all over the world. Friesland, or Fryslân, is a Dutch province in the north of the Netherlands. Like Wales and Scotland, the Frisians maintain a separate cultural and linguistic identity from their greater geographic region. With .FRL, Frisians either in the Netherlands or in other places in the world have the opportunity to register domain names with a New Domain specific to their community, and while using the characters used in the Frisian language—something that couldn’t be done before.

.KIWI

.KIWI was introduced by a New Zealand ex-patriate and is meant to use the self-identifying cultural nickname “Kiwi” to bring New Zealanders together, from all over the globe. The .KIWI registry hopes to facilitate business and personal connections and digital relationships with a more memorable and fun option than .NZ.

.LATINO

“Latino” defines any person of Latin American ancestry, and it’s used specifically within the United States to loosely define the Spanish-speaking community. Within the U.S., there are 53 million Hispanics and Latinos, making the Spanish-speaking population in the U.S. the second largest in the world, next to Mexico. A culture this influential and prominent needs it’s own space on the Web, outside of the .US domain, and luckily they’re getting more than one, with .UNO, .TIENDA, .VIAJES, and .LAT.

To follow any of these cultural New Domains, sign up for our free watcher service. To pre-register for .UNO, or to register a trademark domain, click here.