The .cafe TLD will provide an online home for the various types of cafes and venues where cafe culture (of all varieties) is enjoyed. The .cafe TLD will allow these entities to register names that are appropriate to their product, business name or service offering. Even though the word “cafe” is related directly to the word “coffee”, its actual use is not limited or restricted to this specific product. The .cafe gTLD is expected to appeal to a wide variety of entities and retail points including but not limited to coffee shops, restaurants, cyber cafes, manga cafes, bars and retail points serving coffee and offering cafe culture. Because the term “cafe” also means or is synonymous with coffee in many languages, it could also appeal to other registrants who identify themselves with the word “cafe”, such as purveyors of coffee-related products and services, associations, equipment producers and suppliers, etc.
The .cafe gTLD will provide innumerable benefits to the entire cafe universe (businesses and consumers alike) by providing simple, easily identifiable, descriptive, and intuitive domain names. It will provide a designated namespace where cafe-related entities can register domain names and where consumers can search for and easily locate them. Its use will include but will not be limited to websites, emails, online applications, online transactions, social media, directories and any new usages of domain names.
The use of the term “cafe” to describe a place where “cafe culture” is enjoyed or coffee and other beverages ⁄ light snacks are sold has spread and is understood worldwide. Most European languages use the term “cafe” to describe such establishments (including but not limited to English, Spanish, French, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Italian, Danish, Dutch, German, Slovenian, Swedish, and Icelandic, with the Norwegian and Turkish terms being very similar). The term “cafe” additionally means “coffee” in French, Spanish, Catalan, Galician, and Portuguese. Moreover, the word “café” is one of the few latin words recognized and used globally. The chosen string is therefore directly related to and descriptive of the gTLD’s intended use and offers maximum usability and flexibility worldwide. It will offer ASCII and extended Latin IDN registrations at the second level in order to accommodate the linguistic requirements of the forecast registrant pool.
The concept of “cafes” and “cafe culture” and ⁄ or the use of the term “cafe” to describe various types of establishments is present worldwide. Typically, cafes denote an establishment where light food and beverages, particularly coffee, are sold. An emphasis on engaging in some form of activity – whether it be social (such as catching up with friends over a beverage, snack or a shisha) or personal (such as using the internet, reading or working), or some combination of the two – is often strongly related to various concepts and interpretations of “cafe culture” worldwide. Cafes of all varieties are increasingly popular: coffee shops make up the fastest growing segment of the restaurant business, with an impressive 7% annual growth rate (Top 100 Espresso Coffee Statistics Report 2012). Snack and non-alcoholic beverage establishments, also commonly referred to as cafes, are expected to grow by 4.1% in 2012 – more than any other type of limited service restaurant (National Restaurant Association (USA) 2012 Restaurant Industry Forecast). Although cyber cafes are declining in number worldwide, they remain incredibly popular in Asia as a venue for multi-player computer games.
As a result of the industry’s demonstrated popularity and growth trends in the market, newly launched cafes of all varieties fight (and often don’t succeed) to obtain an appropriate domain name in the current TLD space. The National Restaurant Association (USA) 2012 Restaurant Industry Forecast revealed the importance of an internet presence for restaurants (including cafes), with 6 out of 10 adults indicating that they have ʺused the internet to visit a restaurant website, view a menu, or find out more about a restaurant they havenʹt been to beforeʺ (p. 31). This same report indicated that 27% have posted or read restaurant reviews on consumer-driven websites. With web presences becoming increasingly important both as business drivers and sources of information about cafes and related products and services – it is crucial that a new domain is launched to address and service this growing and underserved market. Being in possession of a short, appropriate, and easily locatable domain name will not only be crucial for cafes hoping to attract customers in a competitive environment but also provide a vital platform for innovation and key services to a general public that increasingly looks online for information about various types of food and beverage establishments, including cafes.
By offering a zone specifically designed for and dedicated to various types of cafes and the billions of consumers that patronize them, the .cafe gTLD will provide increased consumer choice (opening up new and appropriate domain names both in ASCII and extended Latin IDN scripts), a reduction in the price spent on obtaining domain names (circumventing the exorbitant fees charged for valuable domains on the secondary market in the traditional TLD space), and improved user experience (allowing consumers to easily locate the domain for which they are searching because of the TLD’s intuitive nature and capacity for registration in extended Latin script).
The .cafe gTLD will not only benefit cafe owners and those businesses or individuals associated with the term cafe by allowing them to obtain the most appropriate domain name possible as their web address – currently difficult and ⁄ or expensive in the traditional TLD space where valuable or appropriate names are no longer available on the primary market – but because the TLD is designed specifically for cafes and corollary products and services, it will also direct consumers to the domains they are seeking, thereby improving consumer internet experience and minimizing user confusion. It will assist with the reorganization of the DNS along more intuitive and economical lines and provide a digital signpost directing the public toward cafe-related domains of every variety. |