Author Archives: Jermaine Robinson

10 sites and apps to help you get ready for the holidays

Here on the Google Registry team, we’re always keeping an eye out for helpful websites and apps on the top-level domains we’ve launched (.app, .new, and .dev, to name a few). This time of year, we’re especially interested in ways to prepare for the holidays. So before the holiday season kicks off, we’re sharing our favorite websites and apps to help you plan your travel, create DIY gifts, stay grounded, and everything else in between.

  1. Give.new: Give back this holiday season by supporting a nonprofit that aligns with a cause you care about.
  2. Flight.new: With 26 member airlines, you’ll have no trouble getting to your holiday or business destinations through Star Alliance.
  3. Knit.new: Take a DIY approach to gift giving this season! Knit your own scarves, sweaters and mittens with Kniterate.
  4. Mercari.new: Out with the old, in with the new. Use Mercari to sell the things you don’t need, and find the things you do.
  5. Form.new: Planning to snail mail out holiday cards? Send a quick form to family and friends to update your address book with everyone’s latest info.
  6. Mindshine.app: Stay present and mindful this holiday season with the help of Mindshine, an all-in-one app for personal development and wellbeing.
  7. Loóna.app: Get proper rest with the help of Loóna, an immersive sleepscape and storytelling app that will lull you into a deep sleep.
  8. Fluz.app: Getting started on holiday shopping? Earn cash back with Fluz while you shop for gifts.
  9. Strong.app: Find creative workouts and exercises to squeeze into even the busiest of seasons with the help of the Strong app.
  10. Tayl.app: Give your eyes a rest by turning articles, blogs, reports, and more into a podcast, and listening to them while you’re on the go.

Whether you need gift ideas or just a reminder to take a breather in the busy days ahead, we hope these sites can help you stay focused and present through the end of the year and into 2022. For a behind-the-scenes look at two of the apps we’ve highlighted, check out the videos below. Wishing you a healthy holiday season!

Video of Charlie Inman, Creative Director at Mindshine, sharing how their .app domain helped the company gain international appeal and discussing the importance of being authentic to your audience.
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Video of Natalie Portier, COO Loóna, sharing the story behind their app name and how the team uses storytelling when communicating with their users.
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These Black tech creators are changing the domain

It’s been two years since the Google Registry team launched its #MyDomain video series, which highlights creators in tech. While we’re proud of the initiatives we’ve featured so far, we want to do a better job of representing all voices. In honor of Black History Month, we’re featuring six Black creators who are making waves in the digital space. 

Dairien Boyd

Dairien Boyd is a founding member and principal designer at All Turtles, a mission-driven product studio. He’s responsible for building experiences that are both fun and useful within mmhmm.app — a project born out of the COVID-19 pandemic. The new reality of working remotely set Dairien and his team on a path to design a better way to deliver presentations — one that works in an all-video conferencing world. They created a powerful presentation tool that provides immersive backgrounds and visual effects to help add a bit of fun to virtual meetings.

Benjamin Williams

Benjamin Williams also found new sources of inspiration during the pandemic. A software engineer at Google by day, Williams launched floward.app — a journaling and creative writing application that encourages “imperfection” — as a way to cope with the challenges and stresses that come from being stuck at home. By providing daily thought-provoking prompts, users can get their thoughts down on “paper” within a simple UI that intentionally prevents going back and making revisions; this way, they stay in the flow of writing instead of fixating on what they’ve already written.

Rhianna Jones

A writer and model by day, Rhianna Jones started a campaign for “Afrovisibility” as a true passion project. Her campaign, which pushes for more widespread adoption of natural hair emojis within universal keyboards (including Android and iOS), went viral. It wasn’t long before her domain — afrohairmatters.page — helped Jones connect with industry leaders. “The opportunity to collaborate only helps the culture move forward in a direction that better represents the rainbow of tech users,” Jones says. While it might seem small to some, the addition of natural hair emojis is a major step towards promoting Afrovisibility in everyone’s daily digital language and lives — especially for a younger generation that is all about ✊? ? ??‍  ?.

Michael Broughton

Michael Broughton, CEO of Perch, launched his credit-building app after getting denied a loan to cover the remainder of his college tuition while attending the University of Southern California. “I was told to get a credit card in order to build credit, but when I applied for a credit card, they said I needed to build my credit score first,” he says. “This made me realize how difficult it can be for individuals to develop their personal finances without already having a foot in the door.” Instead of feeling defeated, he channeled his frustrations into launching getperch.app, a service that helps others build credit history and boost their credit scores.

Edward Cunningham

Edward Cunningham is cofounder and CTO ofNXSTEP.app, a platform that allows high-school seniors to connect with current college students to get deeper insights into life within the walls of various academic institutions. By connecting with currently-enrolled college students, seniors can better determine the right college for them. It’s like matchmaking for higher education: helping students decide on their future alma mater based on personality, interests, and goals.

Adesina Tyler

Adesina Tyler is our youngest creator in this month’s #MyDomain series. Tyler is a junior in high school, juggling the complexities that come with distance learning, schoolwork and extracurricular activities. As busy as he’s been, he somehow found the time to launch wondershop.page as part of his participation in Google’s technology program, Code Next. He built his website (an online retail store) as a way to better understand the basic building blocks of e-commerce.

Videos of everyone featured above are available at goo.gle/mydomain. Ensuring proper representation of all groups is crucial for everyone in tech. We all benefit and learn from hearing the full spectrum of voices — especially the voices of those who’ve been underrepresented for far too long. 

We want to actively do our part in moving the industry in the right direction by celebrating all entrepreneurs, founders and creators. If you have a unique story to share about an .app. ,dev, or .page domain and would like to be considered for our next series, please fill out this short application form and help us produce and share content that better represents all of us in an industry that still has a long way to go.