You Can Now Buy a New Emoji-Enabled Domain
I used to think that I could get rich by switching domains. Casino.com sold for $ 5.5 million in 2003 and PrivateJet.com for $ 30.18 million in 2012. I have since ditched this concept, choosing to spend my time buying domains for internal jokes rather than games with retirement plans. While I’m pretty sure you’re not as lucky as Sex.com (cool $ 13 million), you can still get pretty cool thanks to ?.to , a site created by BetaList founder Mark Kölbrügge that offers an easy way to acquire domain names based on emojis and see which ones have been stolen.
?.to uses the domain name registrar Register.to and the top-level domain .to (this is Tonga ) to process the registration. To get to a domain, you can use the corresponding emoticon or its text representation to get to your domain.
But does that mean that you have to buy your own emoji domain just because you can ? As long as you can type emoji into whatever URL string you use, and don’t spend exorbitant money or expect a big return on investment, making a purchase doesn’t hurt. If you’re using Windows 10, look for the touch keyboard icon in the lower right corner of your screen. Mac users can press Command-Control-Space to open the emoji picker.
You can also customize your emoji-friendly domain by adding text. Perhaps you want to convey your insect hatred through your domain? Well, you can register an idontlike?.to for a year for $ 45.
As with the initial introduction of the domain name, enterprising scalpers grab on to all the good things – ☺️.to is fully available if you have $ 9,999. And I obviously can’t get ?.to, and ?.to is long gone too. However, you can grab a few lesser-known emojis for under $ 50, come up with creative combinations to make your own, or try to sell your new domain and make money ? (taken from ?.to).