My adventures exploring the world of .AR domain names

As we all know .AI has seen one heck of a run over the last few years as more and more startups are branding around this TLD. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised by companies using a .AI domain name and Expert.ai sold for over $100,000 this summer.

While AI is one of the hottest trends in the world (not just the tech world) right now, AR (Augmented Reality) is heating up as companies like Apple begin to discuss their entrance into the space with their own dedicated hardware.

A recent report from The Information says new AR lenses are entering a trial production phase for Apple’s AR hardware (9to5Mac also breaks the report down). These lenses aren’t for an immediate product yet, but the lenses sound much closer to normal glasses than current AR headsets allow.

From there, Apple could add AR features and let newcomers settle into the experience. Augmented reality is weird and potentially off-putting, and people will need to feel out how much of it is right for them. The original Apple Watch was designed to be glanced at for five seconds at a time. Maybe the same idea is in the works for Apple AR features.

“Apple Glass” was one purported name for the glasses. Not surprising, since the watch is the Apple Watch, the TV box is the Apple TV. Apple could have gone the “Air” route like “AirFrames,” but I wonder if these things will end up being tethered some of the time.(Source – CNET)

I’m hearing more and more about AR lately from friends and I personally am pretty darn excited about Apple’s new AR glasses that are liekly going to come out in a year or two. So I thought, maybe now could be a good time to pick up a few .AR domains?

In the past when I’ve bought .AI, .ML or just about any other ccTLD I tend to go to 101Domains first, so I did the same here and fifteen minutes later I had spent around $400 on some nice one word .AR names. Then I got an email – there was an error and every single was actually unavailable to register.

Now I wasn’t completely surprised, I had cherry picked what I thought would be some of the best one-word names to couple with .AR and since it’s not a brand new extension, I’m not surprised someone got to them before me. I asked around and it turns out that all registrars seem to have some issues with .AR and their availability API.

I did a little poking around to see if I could find any sales data on .AR names and the only one I could find in NameBio was Betway.ar which sold for $1,500 on Sedo in late November. Of course, like any new unproven domain extension, I only put money in that I’m okay losing and I don’t buy too many names, just enough to test the market.

What I do like about .AR is that it’s definitely an emerging trend that only going to get bigger once players like Apple are in the game with their own dedicated hardware, and it has a much lower holding cost than .AI. As for how to get my hands on some? Well it looks like I’ll be trying my luck again at 101Domains until I manage to get a few names, then up goes an Efty landing page and we’ll see what happens 🤷‍♂️

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton