Google’s new Parent Company, Alphabet, opts for new tld: abc.xyz

This week Google announced that it will now be operating under a newly created parent company, named Alphabet.  Alphabet will be run by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin – Page as CEO and Brin as president.  And Google’s new CEO will be Sundar Pichai. In this restructuring, Alphabet will consist of a variety of companies that have been previously all run by Google, and Google will focus on the core Internet products, i.e. Android, YouTube, Google search, Google ads, Google Maps.

So what’s Alphabet’s new website?  It’s not alphabet.com.  Apparently they don’t own that – BMW does.  Also BMW has the alphabet username on Facebook.

Google’s Alphabet also doesn’t have the Twitter username, @Alphabet.  “Dad, Husband, Self-proclaimed geek who fires off regular gibberish, gobblety-gook about sports, tech, CLE…”, Chris Andrikanich, registered it on Twitter in April 2007, from Cleveland Ohio.

Most PR and web development companies typically advise individuals and companies to choose a domain name that is available in .com so people will remember it and won’t go to someone else’s website instead, and also to choose a name where you can get the name on the big social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.  But that didn’t stop Alphabet from choosing Alphabet.  They liked the name and went for it.  Given the huge reach of Alphabet/Google, it shouldn’t be an issue getting the name or domain name known.  Choosing the road less traveled, they opted for a new tld, and the domain name abc.xyz.  The first 3 letters / the last 3 letters of the English alphabet.  You can check out Larry Page’s Alphabet announcement there now, and also on their blogspot, titled “G is for Google“.  Hello Sesame Street!  The first line is a good explanation of the choice:

As Sergey and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.”   As part of that, we also said that you could expect us to make “smaller bets in areas that might seem very speculative or even strange when compared to our current businesses.” From the start, we’ve always strived to do more, and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have.

But if you need more…

We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search! We also like that it means alpha-bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for! I should add that we are not intending for this to be a big consumer brand with related products–the whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands.

Alphabet’s domain registration abc.xyz has put the new tld .xyz in the spotlight, and given some credence to opting for a domain name other than the most widely accepted tld, the original .com.

XYZ’s founder, Daniel Negari, applied for the new tld after ICANN opened up the registrations in 2011, paying $185,000.  He opened up .xyz registrations in 2014.  Interesting side fact, Google paid $25 million for the tld .app in February this year – that tld went to auction, whereas xyz did not.

On Wednesday, in his interview on Bloomberg, Negari said there has been a spike in .xyz domain registrations since Alphabet’s announcement – from around 3,000 new registrations/day to up to 20,000/day, with over 1 million domains registered.  A very excited Negari touts xyz is the future, the domain name ending for the next generation internet user, with Google’s endorsement.  Google is paying XYZ $8/year for its domain. 

By the way, unlike TechCrunch posted in their article August 10th, Google’s Alphabet does not have the Twitter username @alphabetInc, registered hours after the Alphabet announcement according to a poster’s comment, or @alphabetinc – following the link twitter.com/alphabetInc today showed an “Account Suspended” message, and now it just redirects to @alphabetinc as it should (which also is not owned by Google’s Alphabet).

Now you know your abc’s!