.ORG Community Websites Now 7 Million Strong
Internet Community at the Forefront of Online Collaboration, Social Issues, Advocacy, and Social Networking Reaches
Significant Milestone
RESTON, VA--(Marketwire - August 21, 2008) - .ORG, The Public Interest Registry, the registry behind the global .ORG
domain name, announced today that more than 7 million domain names are now registered as .ORG, making it the third
largest generic domain (after .com and .net). Since management of the registry was assumed by Public Interest Registry
in 2003, .ORG registrations have increased more than 250%.
"This is a significant milestone for .ORG, as it has consistently grown 20% percent year over year since its management
by Public Interest Registry," says Alexa Raad, CEO. ".ORG continues to be the domain of choice for individuals and
organizations who seek to brand their efforts under a globally trusted and respected address."
The growth in .ORG registrations has been driven by internet and societal trends such as social networking, issue
awareness, online collaboration and advocacy, all of which have accelerated since 2003. Some notable examples include:
-- the increasing number of for-profit organizations who choose .ORG addresses to emphasize their service missions and
as Craigslist puts it, their "non-corporate culture";
-- the launch of community sites such as freecycle.org;
-- increasing number of wikis for collaborative content, made popular by wikipedia.org;
-- the growth in online political organizing;
-- empowered bloggers who start their own websites to further their passions or causes such as takebackthefilter.org;
and
-- the growth of the "green" movement as shown by sites like sustainablog.org.
The individuals and organizations that are precipitating these trends have found a strong sense of community within the
.ORG domain. This has fueled the phenomenal growth of not only .ORG domains, but also the quality content and the sense
of trust associated with the ".ORG"brand.
"We can't imagine Wikipedia as a .com -- .ORG is a core part of our identity," says Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia
and member of the Board of Trustees of The Wikimedia Foundation. ".ORG is available to anyone in the world, and it is a
great way for an organization to signal an ambition to be inclusive and global."
To learn more about the .ORG Community, visit http://www.pir.org/orgadvantage.
About .ORG, The Public Interest Registry
Trusted across all ages, backgrounds and nationalities, .ORG is where people turn to find credible information, get
involved, fund causes and support advocacy. .ORG, The Public Interest Registry empowers the global noncommercial
community to use the Internet more effectively and, concurrently, takes a leadership position among Internet
stakeholders on policy and related issues. The .ORG domain is the Internet's third largest "generic" or non-country
specific top-level domain with more than 7 million domain names registered worldwide. .ORG, The Public Interest
Registry, was founded by the Internet Society in 2002. It is based in Reston, Virginia, USA.
ENDS