| Go to Boston online, and land wherever
By Patrick Gerard Healy GLOBE CORRESPONDENT It’s all in the name If you turn off at any of the Boston exits on the information superhighway, you might end up in unexpected places. The Boston.com portal takes you to the web companion for this very newspaper, but plug Boston.org into your browser, and you’ll find the homepage for the classic rock group Boston. And when you plug in Boston.edu, you might expect to find either Boston College or Boston University. Which one was able to secure the URL first? The answer: neither. What you’ll find instead at Boston.edu is the homepage of Boston Baptist College. “We registered it two years ago,” says Sean Sears, a professor of youth ministries for Boston Baptist. “We were just checking names online and we couldn’t believe that nobody had taken it.” Sears says although the school has not received any offers to purchase the URL, they do occasionally receive e-mail meant for BC and BU (whose online addresses are BC.edu and BU.edu.) Boston Baptist College was founded in New York in 1976, moved to Hyde Park, Mass. in 1981, and as the only accredited Bible college in the state, counts a student body of 135. Sears says he sometimes gets a kick out of the fact that a school so small owns a domain so big. “It’s all about the importance of branding,” he says. Troy Bartlett, a Utah resident who maintains the Boston.org site, says he has had a few offers to sell the site, which he has run since 1996, but for now it belongs to the fans of the band that named itself after this city. “We’re not out to make any money off of this,” he says. “It’s going to just stay where it’s at.” Bartlett says he did consider one proposition, which was from somebody who wanted to distribute @boston.org e-mail addresses. But the person never followed up. “I ought to give Mitt a call and see if he needs it for anything,” says Bartlett, joking that he is on a first-name basis with the Massachusetts Governor. Although the band Boston does not have any direct involvement with the content of the Boston.org site, Bartlett says that group founder, guitarist and songwriter Tom Scholz fronts the money for the registration of the domain and the server space. “They’re the nicest group of guys you’ll ever meet,” he says. “There’s an address on the site that you can send album covers to or whatever, and they’ll sign them, free of charge.” There are over 40 different extensions available for each domain name on the Worldwide Web, ranging from dot com and dot gov to less popular extensions like dot as. At www.Boston.as you will find a Web site for an obscure 1980’s cult hit independent film called, The Alien. There are also country-specific extensions like dot ca and dot dk for Canada and Denmark, respectively. Incidentally, www.boston.ca will take you to a Boston, Ontario-based tourist site and www.Boston.dk will take you to a Denmark-based audio company. Other international sites with the Boston domain include Boston.be, a consulting group in Brussels, and Boston.co.nz, a New Zealand-based wardrobe company called Boston Wardrobes, which boasts to have everything “from the smallest linen cupboard to the largest walk-in wardrobe.” Boston.de will take you to the European site for piano manufacturer Steinway & Sons. “Willkommen bei Steinway & Sons,” reads the top of the page. Many of the other Boston exits from the Internet, like Boston.cc, Boston.us, Boston.sh and Boston.fm will lead you to dead ends, where Web squatters squander the domain names simply holding out for buyers. Not all of these squatters seem to be in it just for the money though. The owner of the Boston.org.uk domain is only willing to sell to the right buyer. “The question of what to do with the Boston.org.uk now is to be thought about carefully,” writes the proud owner. “It should ideally be something public-spirited to do with the town of Boston, Lincolnshire, UK …Convince me you have a good idea for a good, well-intentioned project, and offer me good money.” Bartlett says he wants to keep Boston.org belonging to one of his favorite bands, and is not considering selling it any time soon. “It would be nice if you could get rich off something like that,” says Bartlett, who is a legal consultant when he’s not the Webmaster for the site. “This site is just a place for fans to congregate online.” Back |
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