Ask HN: Why are lots of startups using the .io domain?

8 points by Nick5a1 13y ago ↗ HN

It seems lots of recent startups are using the .io domain. What are the reasons behind this? It must be more than just domain availability, as there are lots of domain extensions to choose from with lots more availability that .com and .net.

7 comments

[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 23.2 ms ] thread

otoburb 13y ago ↗

Appeals to the HN audience obsession with technology, due to the similarity and oblique reference to input/output (i/o).

irunbackwards 13y ago ↗

I'm not sure, but the only one that makes sense so far is filepicker.io

drstewart 13y ago ↗

firehose.io

yolesaber 13y ago ↗

Domain name availability.

Mitchella 13y ago ↗

Agreed. Domain name availability is very hard sometimes. For others it might just make sense. Example: if I created a webapp and for some reason wanted to call it Sendio, sendio.com is taken but I can always get send.io and run my app from there with a cool url

edwinyzh 13y ago ↗

I guess,

1 - It implies IT tech related, IO = input/output, as pointed out by otoburb;

2 - Domain name availability, as pointed out by yolesaber;

3 - Google named its developer conference 'Google IO', just a guess.

wilfra 13y ago ↗

This is the correct answer.