Author: Comunicació

The .barcelona domain connects with the city’s digital sector

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We had the chance to take part in the E-Show Barcelona on 7 and 8 March, one of the biggest and most important fairs for the digital and tech sector, held every year in the city. We were there with the .barcelona domain and the registration company DonDominio, the perfect occasion for us to advise visitors on registering domains for their businesses.

At the E-Show we were able to connect with other professionals and companies in this sector, discover new trends and innovation and present the .barcelona domain to visitors at the fair. It was an enriching and exciting experience, where we had the chance to share ideas and exchange knowledge with experts in this sector.

Various companies and entrepreneurs in the city took advantage of the presence of the .barcelona domain at the E-Show to ask for advice and register their domain. All of them pointed to the importance of linking their activity with the city, in terms of sharing values and the importance of having a domain that puts them on the map. In this respect, we identified plenty of interest in the domain from international professionals active in the city.

It was a unique opportunity for us to demonstrate our commitment to the city’s digital and tech sector and the development of innovative products. In short, our participation at the E-Show Barcelona was a very positive and enriching experience which allowed us to connect with other professionals in this sector, discover new trends and innovation and introduce the .barcelona domain to a broader audience.

survey.barcelona: the photographic vision of transformations in the city

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Ten photographers have been working in parallel to portray Barcelona, each from their own particular perspective, and document the transformation the city has undergone since 2015. Discover this photographic project at survey.barcelona to understand how the urban landscape has changed and the scope of work carried out in recent years.

This unique photographic of six hundred images features the following visions:

  • Parks (Milena Villalba): general organisation and new green areas.
  • Uses (Andrés Flajszer): elements of public space and how they engage people.
  • Surfaces (Pedro Pegenaute): reurbanisation of streets and added vegetation in more mineral areas.
  • Night (Aitor Estévez): public space during these hours.
  • Air (Jon Tugores): the city seen from above.
  • Life (Xavi Bou and Joan Diví): Barcelona’s biodiversity.
  • Architecture (Adrià Goula): new public housing and facilities and their relationship with the city.
  • Housing (Maite Caramés): personalisation of the inside of public housing by users.
  • Insides(Pol Viladoms): the inside of facilities as new public spaces.
  • Vegetation (Simona Rota): greenery in detail.

The goal of this first photographic survey was to generate a combined vision of the work carried out and shared in numerous projects of different types and dimensions: from major projects in public space to new facilities, public housing and minor works in streets and squares.

.barcelona is a city of women

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Streets, squares and parks are named after men in most cities in the world. So what’s the story with women? US artist and writer Rebecca Solnit pondered this and came up with the “City of Women” project in 2019, symbolically renaming all the subway stations in New York. London followed suit in 2022 and Barcelona is doing the same to mark 8M, International Women’s Day, with ciutatdedones.barcelona.

The project “Barcelona, ciutat de dones” highlights the extraordinary contribution of many women who have left their mark in different spheres in our city and society. Writers, activists, teachers, singers, actresses, doctors and others have all symbolically given their names to stations on the metro network and urban stops on the FGC train network.

We’ve also given women a greater presence among the city’s street names in all districts. Barcelona now has Plaça de Valerie Powles, Carrer de Lola Iturbe and the Jardins de Carme Claramunt.At ciutatdedones.barcelona you can retrace the history of these women and read their biographies. Are you familiar with Josefa Vilaret, Dolors Aleu or Pilar Aymerich? Discover their stories. Start your journey around the City of Women #CiutatdeDones.

Start-ups come to Barcelona

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Barcelona is organising 4 Years From Now (4YFN), the most important fair for innovative tech start-ups, to be held during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) from 27 February to 2 March. The fair brings together start-ups, investors, companies and public institutions to establish connections and work together on new projects and businesses.

Held at Fira Barcelona, 4YFN will feature over 700 exhibitors, more than 300 speakers and over 1,000 investors. The programme is based around different themes, for example:

  • Health: how this sector benefits from digital innovation to improve medical assistance on a global scale.
  • Education: how the latest advances revolutionise learning with disruptive technology,emerging learning models and the impact on talent worldwide.
  • Climate change: how to use the power of digital innovation to create positive results for new companies, investors and the planet.

The fair also features activities such as discovering new immersive experiences through the innovative tech enabled by the metaverse.The fair wouldn’t be complete without the .barcelona domain, which will be represented at the Barcelona Activa stand. You’ll find the full range of personalised services, training activities and other resources to be able to launch a new start-up or turn yours into a feasible and successful business.

The .barcelona domain at the E-Show Barcelona

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The .barcelona domain will be taking part in the E-Show Barcelona on 7 and 8 March, alongside the .cat domain and the domain registration company DonDominio. The show is one of the biggest e-commerce and digital marketing events.

The event is an ideal place to connectwith business and enterprise in the city and introduce the opportunities for growth and the values offered by the .barcelona domain.

In addition, people visiting our stand can request personalised advice for creating a digital presence which suits each project best and enjoy a special offer for registering a .barcelona domain.

E-Show Barcelona 7 and 8 March Fira Barcelona (Montjuïc site) Admission free with advance registration

What are we going to do in 2023?

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As you know, the .barcelona domain forms part of the GeoTLD Group, an international non-profit organisation which represents the interests of top-level geographical domains identifying a city, a region, a language or a culture. This helps us work together with other domains with similar needs and characteristics and achieve improvements for our users.

Through the GeoTLD Group we’ll be working in 2023 to include domains such as .barcelona in the domains offered by WordPress, enabling websites created with this platform to use the domain which suits them best, according to their characteristics.

At the same time, Fundació.cat, the organisation which manages the .barcelona domain, forms part of the negotiating team with ICANN to include legal provisions in the contracts between domain registers and the domain registration companies that sell these domain, to be able to adopt measures against DNS abuse and ensure better security for users.

Finally, action is also planned through the GeoTLD Group this year to improve the universal acceptance of domains. At present there are still many e-commerce sites which don’t accept characters outside of the ASCII alphabet (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). This means that some websites still don’t accept non-English characters such as the Ç or the L·L. Similarly, these sites do not recognise domains with more than five letters. This issue directly affects domains such as .barcelona, .madrid, .amsterdam and others. In order to improve universal acceptance for domains, the GeoTLD Group are planning a series of promotional measures in this area and some meetings and technical training days for these websites.

How to use ChatGPT for your internet business?

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If you haven’t used it yet, you’re likely to have heard talk of it at some point. We’re talking about ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence system developed by OpenAI which can generate texts and conversations and obtain answers for just about anything you ask it.

The tool is currently open-access and free to use. All you need to do is register, type in your question and in a matter of seconds ChatGPT will start generating your answer.

How can ChatGPT be of use to me?

It is important to bear in mind we’re talking about an artificial intelligence tool which builds its answers from an extensive source of data. Consequently, its response will be approximate, but we can’t take it to be 100% correct.

Even so, the tool can be very useful for complementing our work and getting a first draft of the material we want to work with.

The most common uses of ChatGPT are:

  • Creation of texts: you can ask the tool to write any sort of text, establishing a specific number of characters, type of text, language, style, tone and more. You can use it to describe a product on your website, to generate an email with information for your customers, as a presentation text and more.
  • Content generation: the tool can help you produce a first version of an article on any topic, or you can even ask it to suggest tweets for a text you have already published. This can be very useful for keeping an active profile on social media and getting visitors to your website. It won’t do all the work for you, but it can save you a lot of time.
  • Resolving doubts: the tool can help you in many ways here, not just in resolving doubts you may have, but for example by creating a Q & A section for your customers or users. Similarly, with SEO, as you can ask it to give you keywords to work with in your sector or in relation to the product or type of service you offer.

From here on you can let your imagination take over. This AI tool (and many of those which will spring up in the future) can help you develop anything which involves generating a text. That said, it’s always necessary to check that the data make sense and it’s a good idea to adapt the information to give it a more personal and authentic touch.

The third City and Science Biennial is here

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The City and Science Biennial is set to turn the city into a space for debate and reflection from 21 to 26 February, with a programme based around living: on the planet, in the city, human life in general and the scientific community in particular. You’ll find all the activities to be enjoyed on the website biennalciutaticiencia.barcelona.

Round tables, debates, lectures, theatre, art installations and more make up the programme for this edition, which is grouped into four topic areas:

  • Living in the city: at a time when over half the global population lives in urban environments.
  • Living in equity: with options for moving forward in equal rights and opportunities in all spheres.
  • Living with science: to explore and understand the daily work of scientists.
  • Living creativity: the points where art and science meet open up new doors for us to find solutions for today’s needs.

Activities for the biennalciutaticiencia.barcelona are being held around ten spaces close to each other in the Raval neighbourhood in Ciutat Vella. In addition, and as with previous editions, the event is complemented by the activities in the +Biennal, organised by local municipal facilities, cultural centres and other organisations and institutions promoting scientific knowledge and reflection among the general public.

Resolutions for 2023: more visibility, more security, more .barcelona

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We move into the New Year with a list of resolutions (which really will hold true this year). Typically, these might include doing more sport, learning a language or plenty of other things. When it comes to going digital, there will also be those determined to gain greater internet presence or create a website for their project, whether a business, an organisation or a personal project.

But before creating the website, we need to think properly about the domain. It’s important to choose one that identifies us and which can stick with our project for a long time. If you’re unsure, it’s best to think it through than to launch with a domain you know will be provisional. All domains have two parts, the name you choose and the domain extension. Did you know that Barcelona is one of just over 30 world cities with its own domain extension? And that a .barcelona domain can help you stand out on Google Maps? In addition, besides launching a new website, with .barcelona you’re linking your digital identity to the city and forming part of the .barcelona digital community.

“And what if I’ve already got a domain that isn’t .barcelona? How can I link it to the city?” One way of gaining visibility on the internet and forming part of the .barcelona community is to register a .barcelona domain as a secondary domain. In other words, to redirect the .barcelona domain you register with your usual .barcelona domain. This way you can increase the possibilities of people finding you on the internet and promote your business by linking it to your city.

SSL certificate: what it is and why you need it

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The SSL certificate is a communication protocol which guarantees the secure transmission of information on the internet through data encryption.

Without a certificate it wouldn’t be possible to establish a secure connection between the server and the user, and data would be exposed. This means sensitive data such as users, passwords and bank details.

How to know if a website has got an SSL certificate?

The easiest way to quickly know if a website has got an SSL certificate is by looking at the URL that appears in the browser. If we see it starts with ‘https://’ that final ‘s’ tells us that this website has got an SSL certificate and is therefore a secure site. In contrast, if the URL starts with ‘http://’, without the final ‘s’, this tells us that the website hasn’t got an SSL certificate and any data transmitted through it could be accessed by third parties and misused.

There are also tools such as ssl.cat and sslchecker, which tell us if a website has got an SSL certificate and consequently whether it’s safe. These types of tools are highly recommended for checking URLs which are unfamiliar to us or which might take us to websites with malware or infected with some virus.

How to get the SSL certificate for my website

The most advisable way to install an SSL certificate on your website is to do so via your registration company. Many of these offer free certificates when you get a domain. Whether they are free or they have a cost, bear in mind that they all guarantee the security of your website. The difference between a free certificate and one with a cost lies in the additional features and usability.

If you see that your registration company offers various options, it’s best to contact them so they can help you choose the one that most suits your needs.