The sale of the domain name W.app for $96,000 dollars took place at Sedo. Paying almost $100k for a single letter .app domain, one would think that the buyer is WhatsApp, the popular chat app owned by Meta, Inc.
Except, that wasn’t the case. The domain W.app now resolves to a web site that provides branded shortcuts to your phone. For example, if your number is +1.555.666.7777 and your name is Bob, you can get something like W.app/bob that will then link to your phone.
That’s not all. You can also generate messages that are linked to a URL and can be shared with others, privately or publicly, more or less the way Bit.ly works but for SMS.
The domain W.app appears to have an annual renewal fee of approximately $1,800 dollars so they’d better have a solid business plan for this ultra short domain! On top of that, hopefully WhatsApp will allow this type of connection that also requires people to surrender their phone number and other data in order to get this service.
