Starting today, you can apply for a domain name using .みんな (minna, “mee-n-nuh”), the first open top-level domain in hiragana. We hope that .みんな will make it easier for Japanese people and companies to create more recognizable website names that better suit their businesses or personalities and are easier to understand and remember in Japanese.

“みんな” means “everyone” in Japanese and suggests multiple people doing things together. Our vision is for .みんな to be a collaborative space, where folks can build online communities — something along the lines of “Cook, everybody!” or “Run, everybody!” But that’s just a thought. We can’t wait to see what new ideas the new domain will help make possible.

The number of generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, has remained relatively static in comparison to the growth of the Internet. In the last 30 years, the domain space has been limited to about two dozen domains (think .net, .org. and .gov). More than half of all website addresses have .com at the end. New domains such as .みんな, the first gTLD we’re able to offer, open more real estate for the Web to grow and make the Web feel more like the diverse world that creates it.

You can read more about our plans for expanding the Internet domain space here, including the other domains we’re interested in and what else we think they might be useful for. And if you’ve already thought of the name of a website you’d like to create on .みんな, you can go ahead and register it by visiting one of our registrar partners’ websites.

Posted by Vishal Jain, Business Product Manager