Now you can own a single character emoji too!

Here’s a few up for sale:

⌚.ws 🚢.ws 🚚.ws 🇪🇺.ws 🔞.ws 🔑.ws 🦔.ws 🇸🇬.ws 🇩🇰.ws 🧕.ws 🧘.ws

The Primer

Because we’re at the very early stages of emoji domain usage here’s a brief primer for those new to the emoji naming phenomenon. [Those from last week’s class, skip ahead to the breakdown by social platform]

You can register urls with emoji in them. Head over to i❤️.ws and have a play around. You’ll be quite amazed. Especially when you experience the simplicity and creativity of emoji domains like:

i❤☕.️ws

john❤jenny.ws

💒📷.ws

michael❤colin.ws

🏆.ws

Get creative and come up with something short, memorable and meaningful that will help your business stand out.

The way emoji domains work is via a process called punycoding. Systems and platforms recognise and render the emoji because they can read the code that is associated with it.

Every single emoji has an associated punycode.

For example, ‘🏆’ is punycoded as ‘xn — 3l8h’. When you register your emoji domain, depending how you view your registry account you might see it displayed as the punycode, xn — 3l8h.ws

It’s a little bit like the systems and codes built on the 1s and 0s that make up the internet itself. We happily shop on Amazon without ever needing to know how to read the layers of language at every level that give us this simple User Interface.

The Breakdown

You don’t need to worry about this coding but you do need to understand that we’re still at the early stages of being able to use emoji domains and sometimes knowing about this coding process allows you to understand how and where you can use your new emoji domain.

The remainder of this article will breakdown the possibilities on social media platform by platform. I hope to update the information as it changes and more platforms render the emoji as we’d like to see it.

Note: to keep some form of continuity and so my brain could handle this task I conducted everything using Google Chrome.

🐦 TWITTER

1. BIO

The Twitter bio is one of the best places to use your new emoji domain. The text field automatically renders the emoji when you type it this way:

http://🏰.ws

Twitter drops the http:// leaving a very clean looking ‘🏰.ws’.

The interesting thing here is that the Twitter bio allows multiple links so you could add a more emoji domains, other regular text domains or even multiple sub-domains and url shortened domains.

Imagine being a wedding photographer called Michael Montgomery. You could link out to your regular portfolio with:

📷.ws/mm

and appeal to future wedding clients with:

📷.ws/💍

in the same bio.

2. DEDICATED WEBSITE LINK

What’s more every Twitter profile has a dedicated ‘website’ link which also renders the emoji correctly. This time though you implement the domain using the punycode. To render the emoji successfully just type:

http://www.xn--bn8h.ws

Twitter will automatically understand the punycode to show only the following:

🏰.ws

Here’s a picture of our Emoji Name Twitter account to show you what’s possible:

and behind the scenes you can see how the punycode is entered for the dedicated ‘website’ link:

In the text bio section when you go to edit it again the http:// is removed even though the link still exists.

Something weird happens when viewed through search. All links look terrible! This seems to only affect Android Twitter App users. In iOS they render as the emoji perfectly.

3. NAME FIELD

One last thing you may have spotted regarding the profile section of Twitter is that we’ve elected to add the 🌐.ws to the end of the ‘name’ field.

Now, in this field the emoji domain doesn’t link out but it is a huge opportunity that only extremely short domains can fulfill. Through every engagement, tweet, reweet, comment and like where our name is mentioned the way to access our service and product is present.

The fact that this is a domain and therefore a location on the internet may not at once be obvious to the uninitiated but it’s likely that emoji domains will permeate through society as emoji themselves have done and it won’t be long before the ‘emoji’ + ‘.ws’ formula is recognised as a short, fast and engaging way to reach a business.

4. TWEET

Emoji domains will also render properly in a tweet but there is a trick to get the most engagement from them. Just type:

http://🏰.ws

for the tweet to show:

🏰.ws

But, if you want the actual emoji to show up in the tweet I would advise (at this early juncture) to also use other media in the tweet [eg. image, video, gif etc]

I’ve experienced that the emoji domain disappears becoming replaced by a larger link-out box with details from the linked page which can sometimes show the punycode beneath it depending whether the page is hosted on the punycode or whether the emoji domain forwards to a regular text url.

Here’s an example of a tweet including the emoji domain and additional media.

Some of the best reasons to use emoji are that they initiate engagement. They are new and shiny and people generally like new and shiny. So, to show it in your tweets I would use other media in conjunction to be safe OR check your tweet once posted to make sure the emoji domain renders.

📘 FACEBOOK

Unfortunately there isn’t much you can do with Facebook yet. There are some signs that this could change but be aware that this is only my speculation. I hope to come back to update this post if and when things change.

1. PROFILE STORY FIELD

Using a desktop you can create a hyperlinked punycode but the link goes to an invalid page and not the emoji domain. Interestingly, editing the same part of the profile on a mobile doesn’t allow the punycode to even hyperlink. This is where I see the potential for improvement and better emoji integration and it might take the following form in 3 steps:

1. At the minute a punycode displays and links out but only to an invalid page.
2. The next step would be for the punycode to link out to the correct page.
3. The final step would be for the emoji to render instead of the punycode and link out to the correct page.

(Depending on how Facebook updates you could also jump from step 1 to step 3 but as there are other platforms where step 2 is the current format it makes sense to order them like this in increments)

The way the emoji domain hyperlinks in the ‘story’ profile section is by typing the punycode this way:

www.xn--bn8h.ws

2. DEDICATED WEBSITE LINK

The dedicated website link also is yet to render the emoji successfully. By inputting the emoji in this field Facebook won’t even accept it as a valid domain. They do accept the punycode as a valid domain but once again we’re at step 1 with it linking out to an invalid page. Here is what shows after the punycode is entered in this field:

3. ABOUT FIELD

The ‘about’ field is another text box that doesn’t display the emoji as a link. But, again we can link out, even though its an invalid page, from here by entering the punycode. I think this bodes well for the future if Facebook where to update their platform. Here is the whole ‘About’ section to show all the parts working (or not working in this case!) together:

4. UPDATE

Much is the same with the update post field. Here is a picture to show what the effect of several link styles has:

The regular text domain links out to the correct page. The punycode links out but only to an invalid page and the emoji, although it renders, does not link out.

5. UPDATE COMMENT

The same is true of the comment section to each update. Here’s how it looks played out:

⚡ MESSENGER

Messenger has great potential because it is soon going to become a platform companies will conduct business on. The rise of chatbots and conversation marketing will inevitably utilise emoji domains because they are:

1. Insanely short
2. Emoji are native to messaging platforms
3. Emoji are natural in modern language.

So, how do emoji domains currently fare on Messenger?

1. CHAT

Good news! Emoji domains render and link out properly:

📷 INSTAGRAM

Instagram has always been cautious about linking out from its platform. You get 1 link in your bio and that’s it. But, there is something odd going on and the experience isn’t consistent.

1. BIO

First, the emoji domain renders and it hyperlinks- good news!

Where the experience differs is that on desktop the emoji domain takes you to the correct page, whereas on mobile you get an invalid page. Is it worth keeping the emoji domain as your 1 bio link on Instagram? Right now probably not. Instagram is a mobile first platform and you’ll just annoy people by sending them to a page that doesn’t resolve.

The silver lining is that we can see evidence of integration. If it works on one system it will likely be rolled out to others.

2. POSTS AND COMMENTS

Not even regular links work here so, even though emoji domains are cool, they haven’t got the power to override Instagram linking policies.

🔗 LINKEDIN

Linkedin is one of my favourite social platforms because of its entrepreneurial lean. It’s a great place to do business and so you’ll need to know how to use your emoji domains on this platform to make the most of it.

1. DEDICATED WEBSITE LINK

In the contact section of your Linkedin profile the emoji domain will render and link out as it should:

It’s appealing to see- and informative to those that are yet to discover emoji domains- the word website above the very simple looking 🔧.ws

Other elements of the profile aren’t so link friendly but as ever I’ll add the emoji domains where they seem appropriate so that I get the word out about where to go to buy my product or service.

2. NAME FIELD

Here’s the bulk of my profile:

Although there is no direct opportunity to link out from Linkedin in the bio section you will see that I’ve appended my last name with the emoji domain for Emoji Name. Linkedin is a good example of how this is distributed because look at what happens when you check out my articles:

The same goes for my activity on Linkedin:

All of these tiny touch points add people’s awareness of where to find me, my service and my product.

3. EXPERIENCE

The last place to play around with on the profile section of Linkedin is in the experience field. Against each project that has an affiliated emoji domain, I’ve added it in text form. It doesn’t link out from here but the emoji is such an easy thing to remember that any prospective customer can recall the one character and navigate from their phone.

Here is an example from my profile:

As an additional thought here, I should mention that the ‘.ws’ also needs to be recalled at this point. It’s not yet a part of the natural culture like ‘.com’ is. Either way there isn’t much to remember and if things proceed the way they are, ‘.ws’ will become the de facto extension for emoji domains.

4. SHARED UPDATE

A shared update on Linkedin does accept links. This time though only the punycode links out. The fact that Linkedin accepts the punycode is a great thing for now. We won’t be using our emoji domains this way but we can probably assume that Linkedin will go the way of Twitter and others by letting emoji domains render as emoji in messages.

5. COMMENTS TO UPDATES

No links are permitted here so emoji or no emoji its no-go!

6. ARTICLE

Links are permitted here and are created in the typical way using the Linkedin article toolbar. The good thing here is that the link will render as the emoji. Here’s how they look in an article I wrote:

📝 MEDIUM

Medium is where I like to write all my articles even though I then distribute them on other platforms like the Emoji Name blog or Linkedin. It’s a great place to share stories and information and therefore a great place to link to your product or service.

The reason to mention Medium is that while commenting and engaging with the community you can also be spreading the link to your work.

1. NAME FIELD

Here you can see I’ve appended 2 short emoji domains to my name in my Medium profile:

And now this is what it looks like when I engage with other Medium users:

You can’t link out from this field but it’s such an opportunity to share with the world the destination you’d like them to visit. Furthermore, what you can see at the end of my name are two fully functioning website addresses- I mean, that’s kind of crazy.

My full name + the space between first and second names = 13 characters.

The following 2 domain names with all the spaces and the | = 11 characters.

Each one of them is 4 taps on a keyboard:

1. 🔧
2. .
3. w
4. s

I believe its worth adding the emoji domain to the name field in any platform you can because it gets distributed so well the more you engage on the platform. Even though it doesn’t link out it is highly likely users will remember them.

2. BIO AND COMMENTS

Unfortunately these areas are free from any links at all, rendering emoji domains redundant along with any other type of domain.

3. IN AN ARTICLE

Yes, an emoji domain will render here. Obviously the way to link it out is to hyperlink it using the Medium text toolbar but its good to know that I can show 🚢.ws, use the same text in the linking field and have it work.

📞 WHATSAPP

Why bother figuring out if emoji domains work in WhatsApp? Because we’re spending more time in messaging apps than on social media and we need to be able to interact commercially within these platforms when chatbots pave the way for this opportunity. Let’s test and be ahead of the curve.

So what opportunities does WhatsApp have for emoji domains?

1. CHAT

Since first publishing this article less than 24 hours ago a fellow emoji domain enthusiast pointed out that there is a way to render an emoji domain in WhatsApp chat that links out. I didn’t think this was possible but you can do it by typing the domain this way:

http://www.👾.ws

The caveat is that this only hyperlinks out on iOS, not on Android.

Interestingly, when I send the domain this way from my Android Google Pixel to my girlfriend’s Apple iPhone it does not look hyperlinked from my end but does hyperlink from her end and takes her to the correct page.

Receiving chat to and from Android works only in the punycode format:

But it doesn’t work using the method that works on iOS:

This is good news still because WhatsApp are one of the platforms with a good emoji history. They were one of the first platforms to allow users to display the new English, Scottish and Welsh emoji flags so they may shortly fix how ugly the link looks on the iPhone- The ideal situation for emoji domain holders is to be able to link with 👾.ws rather than http://www.👾.ws. They may also consolidate the experience on Android.

2. NAME FIELD AND ABOUT STATUS

Once again, here is a small opportunity to show your easily memorable link to people by appending it to your name and showing it in the about field. You can’t link out from either but being able to fit two easily memorable domain names into the short name field is an opportunity to take advantage of, especially when people know emoji + .ws = domain

☎️ SKYPE

Similar to WhatsApp, Skype is another platform that has bot capability.

1. CHAT

Good news for Skype chat because the emoji domain renders and links out as we’d like it to:

The chat bubble above the emoji domain was one that self populated when I typed www.emojiname.com

The difference between this and the emoji domain is that the emoji domain did not populate any more information than the url itself.

2. NAME FIELD AND ABOUT STATUS

Again, adding the emoji domain to the end of the name field allows you to distribute your link widely, quickly and in a non-invasive manner.

# SLACK

I’m checking Slack capability because this year it announced a shift to including emoji for status updates. Any time there is the beginnings of an emoji integration I think emoji domain registrants should be aware and test the possibilities on the platform.

1. NAME FIELD

Here’s the obvious one again. Only really useful in slack groups that pull people from across companies, cultures and countries. You probably won’t want to advertise your domain on internal slack groups used by your business or employment.

You can see here in the profile edit that there are several places the emoji domain renders. None of these link out at the front end and you probably don’t want to bombard other slack users with too many instances of your emoji domain but there might be a winner when emoji domain integration progresses.

Note: The ‘@john’ is what shows above slack chats and won’t accept emoji so the name field is sort of redundant here. When someone checks out your profile or hovers above the status speech bubble is when you can show them your emoji domain.

2. CHAT

The better news is that the punycode links out properly from a chat. It’s not the perfect rendered emoji linking out but we know that this type of domain is recognised and its a simple rendering issue that would need integrating for the emoji domain to work in all its intended glory:

💬 WECHAT

I’m going to take a look at WeChat too. It’s the platform I’m least familiar with. However, its user base is so large it makes sense to test what does and does not currently work.

1. CHAT

The chat doesn’t allow the pure emoji domain to link out but it does let the punycode version link out. This bodes well for the future when we expect platforms to correctly render the emoji domain:

2. PROFILE

The profile is much like any other in that its rare to be allowed to link out. So, adding the emoji domain to the name field seems like an appropriate thing to test here:

As you can see from the above post that only my image is viewable on each chat exchange so only if someone takes the time to look at your profile will any of the emoji domain placement be worth it.

I’ve gone a step further to test whether, in time, when the punycode rendering is replaced by the actual emoji my punycode ID also becomes emojified.

📧EMAIL

Lastly, put your newly purchased emoji domain in your email signature. Linking them out is as simple as highlighting and clicking the link icon to leave you with smart email signatures like this:

FINAL THOUGHTS

This article covers the current situation as of 20/07/2017. I will keep checking the various platforms and update this article when things change. There’s many places where we can start to use our emoji domains and excitingly many more to come.

Please feel free to respond to this article if you have further suggestions for testing or if you notice something change before I do.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed the article it would mean the world to me if you hit the ❤️ button below. It will help other people see the story and learn about emoji domains! 🙏

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