.INFO Registrations Reflect Interest in ‘Swine flu’
This spring, the world was captivated by news surrounding the outbreak of the novel H1N1 flu virus, otherwise known as “Swine Flu.” Media attention about this health incident peaked at the end of April 2009 as an official state of emergency was declared and as US cases and casualties climbed.
Interestingly, registrations of .INFO names tracked closely with interest in the flu. In total, between April 1 and May 30, nearly a thousand domains containing the string ‘swine flu’, ‘flu’ or ‘h1n1’ were registered in the .INFO registry. 600 of these domains, or 61%, were registered in the United States. The top states registering these domains were Arizona (31% of US registrations), California (17%), Texas (8%), Florida (6%), and New York (6%).
| State | #domains | % of total | # of US reported H1N1 cases* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | 184 | 31% | 547 |
| California | 100 | 17% | 973 |
| Texas | 46 | 8% | 1670 |
| Florida | 37 | 6% | 247 |
| New York | 34 | 6% | 858 |
*cases current as of 6/8/09 (1)
Registration of .INFO domains containing the strings ‘flu’ ‘swine flu’ or ‘h1n1’ picked up April 25, the day when : 1) the World Health Organization called an emergency meeting to discuss the outbreak; and 2) a single New York City school reported over 100 students with flu symptoms. After this date, registrations continue to climb peaking on April 29th, the day the first US casualty was reported. (2)
Some interesting .INFO sites that have been put online since the H1N1 outbreak include:
coldfluvirus.info
swineflu.info
h1n1map.info
swineflusurvival.info
This trend underscores the interest that the domain name industry experiences with new captivating events. It echoes that as people increasingly turning to the Internet for information, .INFO is the natural place for users to put their information to make it easy to find.
References:
(1) Statistics of US cases of H1N1 flu
(2) Timeline of Swine Flu outbreak
