In Calif. and Laos they sing, ‘We love dot-la’
I visited Laomusic.la a couple of days back and thought Darly has gone mad in changing her websites name. I knew in the back of my mind that Dot-la stands for our country, Laos. I’m wondering how many different Lao websites will be switching over to Dot-la, and if this is going to be the new trend for Lao websites.
It looks like Darly is leading the way, as always, making us unique in our own way on the internet. How important is it for us to switch over to Dot-la? The answer is up to the individual, in my opinion, switching or not, we’re still unique in our own way because our goal is the same, to promote our tradition and culture, but Dot-la does look cool for Lao websites.
For some of us that don’t know how Dot-la came about, below is an article that Dot-la was originally assigned to our country, Laos.
From Philadelphia Business Journal: Those who claim Los Angeles is in a different country than the rest of the United States have some new ammunition to back them up. And an Irish firm that has its U.S. operations in Horsham is helping provide it.
Afilias Ltd. is providing technological support to the LA Names Corp., which, since May (2003), has been marketing Internet addresses that end in dot-la to folks who want their Web sites to be associated with the City of Angels.
Dot-la is a country code, meaning that it’s used to designate a country. The country is not Los Angeles, however; the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers assigned dot-la to Laos, or, as it calls itself, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
Laos is a communist nation — as you might guess from its name — and, like its few remaining brethren, not exactly an economic powerhouse. So, to bring in some money, the Laotian government struck a deal with LA Names to make dot-la available to anyone who wants to use it. In addition to marketing dot-la to real and wanna-be Angelenos, LA Names also plans to market it to folks who want people to associate their Web sites with Latin America. Read the rest of the article HERE.
The change to .la can be confusing to many, initially. But with more western
websites using the extension people will begin realize that it has no complete bearing
the country Laos.
I think their intention of Dot-La is not to have it associated with Laos at all; they have the right because they bought this exclusive domain address from Laos, which meant that the Lao government sold their rights on the internet, like anything else, so what is new. My domain name, Nyenoona.com is expiring soon; I’ll see if I’ve the urge to change it to Nyenoona.la.
This is what they want people to think of what it stands for; DOT-LA (.LA) is the new domain name for Los Angeles, Louisiana and Latin America. Any business, organization, or individual interested in taking advantage of this vast marketing opportunity can now easily register a web address within this exclusive domain space!
I actually thought of Los Angeles and then Latin America when I first saw ".la" I think .lao would be more clear for Laos, but that's probably too many letters.
Taiwan is .tw. It's good that this happen. Go .la!!!!