Julianna
We wrote the following article for Yoyomama, a free weekday email newsletter and website for Vancouver mothers. Yoyomama is the brainchild of of mother-of-two, author and web strategist, Annemarie Tempelman-Kluit and provides helpful, hip info, tips and guides to local events. She asked us to speak to trend of parents registering their children’s name as a domain name, and we had the following to say …
When Angelina left the hospital with twins Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon, her legal team registered more than 50 domain names covering all variations of the newborns’ names. This made many parents wonder how they could stake a claim on some internet real estate for their own (albeit less famous) offspring.
While most parents don’t need to worry about a cybersquatter registering their child’s name with the intention of profiting on it – as was the case when Britney Spears’ son’s name was reported in the press – securing the Internet domain of your newborn’s name is becoming more common for new parents.
As our lives become increasingly interconnected with the Internet, more people are staking out an identity for themselves, families and children online. With over 70 million .COM domains and 100% of the top 10,000 family names already registered, the trend indicates the importance of domain names in establishing one’s future digital identity.
Even if you don’t have a personal blog or website, chances are you already publish, network or communicate with friends and family through Facebook, Flickr or other social utilities. Now fast forward 20 years. What will your kids be doing online? Their personal domain could potentially go to their social networking profile, personal blog, portfolio website, photo album and more. Which is why you might want to set them up with their own little online plot for their future endeavours.
Here are some helpful hints for getting started:
1. If your child’s ‘firstnamelastname’ is already registered as a .COM, try the .CA if you are Canadian. If both the .COM and .CA are available, you are lucky. Get both.
2. Once you have registered your child’s name as a domain, put it to use. Start a photo album on Flickr, create a free blog on WordPress, or build a website with your child in mind. Forward the domain to it and keep your family up to date.
3. When your child is old enough, add an email account to the domain and avoid having an awkward, difficult to remember address like JaneSmith33@hotmail.com.
Remember! – Webnames.ca’s 50% OFF NEW DOMAINS SALE runs until August 31, 2008. Now is a great time to register domain names to secure an online identity for your children or family.