New York-based startup Artsy has garnered attention from the media and investors for its Pandora-esque artwork discovery engine, but now issues with its Syrian domain name are causing the company problems. In the midst of the violent conflict in Syria, the company's principle domain name has suffered outages, and on Friday, Artsy announced plans to move operations to Artsy.net.

Founder Carter Cleveland had to endure a lengthy legal and governmental struggle to use the .SY extension, the country code assigned to Syria, to begin with. As detailed by TechCrunch, Cleveland was represented by a Syrian law firm in the country to help him deal with changing regulations and red tape from abroad.

In a press release issued Friday, Artsy explains that the company initially chose Art.sy, "because it is the shortest spellable English language domain that begins with the word 'art.'" The catchy name and simple domain name attracted media attention and helped grow the Artsy brand.

Now, however, Artsy might suffer from having chosen a domain name that was better for branding than operations. The Syrian extension brought Artsy significant attention, but it ultimately proved unreliable. With hundreds of new gTLDs on the horizon this year, reliability will be paramount. New gTLDs will present unprecedented domain name branding opportunities, but that is ultimately moot if they aren't stable.

Interestingly, Artsy.com is currently listed for sale by Domain Brokers, and it seems that it would be a wise investment for a company by the same name that exists solely online, especially after having to shutter Art.sy. Compete data shows that Art.sy hit a high of approximately 21,000 unique visitors in October, while Artsy.net is not even listed on the site. Artsy.com it should be noted, pulled just over 1,500 unique visitors in November, significant for a parked page.

For now, it appears that Artsy will exist solely on Artsy.net, but it will be interesting to see if the company ever purchases Artsy.com. How this situation will affect Artsy's traffic and business, if at all, remains to be seen, but it should at least drive some new traffic to Artsy.net.

Today, FairWinds Managing Partner Josh Bourne published a cover article for iMedia Connection. The article, titled “Your Step-by-Step Guide to Acquiring a gTLD” walks applicants through all the phases of applying for and acquiring a new gTLD – from the initial fact gathering and planning; to preparing the best application possible; to launching a new gTLD registry and making the most of the ongoing relationship with ICANN. Josh also breaks down what applicants need to be thinking about and what questions they need to be asking throughout the new gTLD launch process. This article is a must-read for anyone considering pursuing a new gTLD.

Today, I’m heading off to London for a whirlwind three-day business trip. I’ll be attending a total of 15 meetings while I’m here, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing clients as well as some other business friends. Throughout this summer, we’ve been finding that many people are keenly interested in how FairWinds is working with companies to deal with new gTLDs, and how CADNA is working to improve Internet governance and promote policies that benefit both companies and Internet users, as well as promote cybersecurity.

I’m also really eager to see one of my good friends from college, who also happened to be a member of my wedding party. He’s been living in London with his wife and two children while on assignment for Goldman Sachs. I’m very happy to have been invited to his daughter’s second birthday party today. His sister flew in from Dubai and his parents traveled up from Greece for the occasion.

The forecast is calling for sunshine and a gorgeous 70 degrees – something we haven’t seen for months in Washington – for the party today. This should be a fantastic transition to the next few days in London.

Yesterday I attended the Internet Governance Forum USA (IGF-USA), hosted at the Georgetown University Law Center here in Washington, DC. Specifically, I went to sit in on an afternoon workshop titled “Changing Landscape of the Domain Name System: New gTLDs and their Implications for Users: Opportunities and Risks.”

The IGF-USA is the U.S. branch of the broader IGF, a multi-stakeholder organization that was formed to support the United Nations Secretary-General in carrying out the mandate from the World Summit on the Information Society that it convene a forum for various parties to discuss policy. The IGF does not set policy, but provides discussion that can serve as fodder for policy makers, many of whom participate in IGF forums.

The IGF provides a summary of the Changing Landscape of the Domain Name System workshop, along with the list of panelists who led the discussion, here. In addition to those listed, Jamie Hedlund, ICANN’s Vice President, Government Affairs, also participated. As I mentioned before, the IGF cannot actually set policy, and in the case, the workshop dealt with a policy that is already in place. So at times, when audience members expressed trepidation or even disagreement with aspects of the new gTLD program, there was a sense that it was falling on deaf ears.

One audience member raised the question of whether the “rush” for new gTLDs could mirror the .COM bubble and its subsequent burst. Hedlund responded that whether new gTLDs survive is not the point, but that the point of the program is to increase competition. I then asked what will happen when a new, open-registry gTLD (like .MUSIC or .ECO) fails, as so many of the panelists had indicated will likely happen – some will inevitably fail. He answered by explaining that each new gTLD registry must demonstrate that it is financially stable enough to continue operations for three years in the event that it fails, during which time ICANN will find another party to take over the gTLD. However, the exchange ended there; Hedlund never broached the issue of what would happen when certain gTLD registries end up being a bad investment an no party wants to take them over. How long can gTLDs like .FOOD or .BOISE last if no one wants to run them?

I don’t doubt that the IGF has positively influenced policy since its establishment in 2006. However, in the case of new gTLDs, yesterday’s workshop seemed to only confirm what many have expected for some time: that ICANN followed its own agenda with the New gTLD Program, diverting only very briefly to listen to outside advice.