No double-speak, just something neat. Option V is a cool way for Macintosh users to get to this web site. All they have to do is to type "option v" (plus ".com" of course) into their Safari Browser's address bar -- a single character domain name. How cool is that?
This domain is an ideal name to promote Macintosh products. Macintosh software developers, hardware manufacturers, product distributors can easily advertise their site by showing Macintosh customers they can access their site by just entering option v. It can't get much simpler that that!
No more wondering if a potential customer can remember your domain name, or not. A single character is very easy to remember. Also, if the customer can't remember if the character was a lower case or an upper case character, not to worry, we have both option v and option V covered -- each takes the user to this exact site. Neat. huh?
The tech stuff. This domain name is simply a single character multilingual domain name with a dot com top level domain (TLD). It is a perfectly legal and totally genuine domain name. There is no server-side wizardry or tricks to get people here. The single character (code point) of this domain is simply the radical sign from the Mathematical Operators char-set section from the Unicode multilingual database. The code point value for this character is Unicode 221A and the PUNYCODE value is xn--19g. However, even though the technical stuff is.. ah, technical, the domain name is easily accessible from Macintosh keyboards by entering option v -- a single character.
One final note. While this domain is neat, the technical foundation that this is built on is only the tip of the ice berg. The IDNS has incorporated the Unicode's database into the works to allow and welcome the entire world to the net and in their own respective native language.
Keep in mind that the population of the planet whose native language is English is less than 5 percent. The remaining 95 percent of the world's population is logging on to the Internet in record numbers in their own languages (i.e., something other than the typical a-z and 0-9 characters you typically see in domain names). These new potential customers will not only be able to see their domains in their respective languages, but will be able to view this domain as Mac users do.
This domain works for all current English users, and is already scaled for the rest of the world. Now how many additional potential Mac customers will that be? Good question.
The goal simply is to find a Macintosh company with vision. One who realizes the enormous potential of having a simple single character domain name that Macintosh users can easily remember and find. In fact, they can get to this site easier than any other web site on the net -- all they have to do is to enter option v into the address bar and hit return -- how much easier can it be?
As such, I'm offering this domain and technique for sale (please, serious inquiries only -- read this ).
Granted, the single character names re the above link are accessible to Windows users, but so is this one if Windows users work at it -- and who knows perhaps someday Microsoft will finally get one of their browsers to be fully compliant with Unicode code points, like Safari does.
But, the point isn't how many Windows users may have problems accessing this site, but rather how easily Mac users can. And in that, no site can claim easier access than this one.
Ever wonder just "How many" Macintosh users there are? Apple occasionally provides us with an update -- while dated, Steve Jobs quoted 19 million OS-X users in August 2006 at the Worldwide Developers Conference.
More recently Keith Bachman, an analyst at Bank of America Securities, quoted a higher number in an AppleInsider article: 22 million users of all versions of Mac OS X.
Bank of America Securities estimates an increase of 6 million Mac users since the release of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in June 2005. That was when Apple claimed a 5% market share. In 2007, Apple claimed a 7.8% market share and that was a 2.8% increase over 2005, which brought the number of Mac users to over 34 million. But between 2007 and 2009, with the introduction of the iPhone, the number of Mac users tripled and now surpasses 75 million.
According to statistics compiled by Net Applications, Mac OS X is the second most popular general-purpose operating system in use with a 9.6% market share.
As such, Apple holds around a 10.6% of market share and if that ratio holds for the remainder of the world, the increase in the actual number of Mac users could far exceed the number of people living in the US. The numbers are absolutely staggering.
So, if your company is interested in selling their Macintosh product to the entire world and not just English speaking people, then this is probably the most significant domain name your company could buy.
Hey, 75 million potential customers isn't shabby. But how many Macintosh users are actually getting to this site currently? Well... lets examine that:
Apple, Apple Logo, and Macintosh copyright Apple Computer.