Happy 1st Birthday .blog!

A big week in the history of Knock Knock WHOIS There: it’s our birthday! A year ago, .blog domains became available to anyone. With the help of our registrar partners, we’ve already registered over 130,000 .blogs — and more than 60% of them are used by bloggers as the primary domain for their blogs!

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Last year, we celebrated the launch of .blog with a memorable party at ICANN57 in Hyderbad, India. While the majority of the week was focused on business and policy, we cherish the relationships built and memories created on that eventful night. (If you missed out on the action, check out our recap and photos from the event.)

Since last year’s launch, we’ve helped more than 80,000 bloggers get set up with their own .blog domains. That includes dotbloggers like Tim Ferriss (tim.blog), author of The Four-Hour Work Week and host of the most popular podcast on iTunes, The Tim Ferriss Show; Om Malik (om.blog), one of the most influential voices on the internet; and professional photographers like Emily Polar (emilypolar.blog) and Kirsten Alana (kirstenalana.blog). It also includes organizational blogs from a range of corporations, non-profits, and governments, from fashion retailer simplybeusa.blog to California’s Department of Consumer Affairs (thedcapage.blog), to travel sites like triplog.blog.

A big part of the .blog vision is democratizing publishing on the web. Bloggers have completely changed the way we understand writing and consume information. Blogs give everyone the opportunity to share their stories and raise their voices.

As Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and our parent company, has said, “It’s almost like if 500 years ago, everyone in the world had their own printing press. They could publish as much as they want. That is the opportunity we have today.”

The beauty of .blog is that it’s accessible to everyone, from corporations to professional authors to individual hobbyists and every writer in between. We’re grateful for each and every single .blog domain and all the partners and end users who built .blog into what it is today. Thank you for all the ways you share!

 

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