Earlier this week, Microsoft registered a bunch of domain names, including AppYourSites.com, AppYourSites.net, AppYourSites.info and more of the same with different extensions (including some country TLDs). If you open any of the URLs in your browser today, you’ll simply be forwarded on to the company’s search engine Bing, which makes you none the wiser. So why ‘app your sites’?
Frankly, I don’t know, but I can offer you a few theories.
One is that the domain names were registered to support an upcoming marketing campaign, either for the Windows Phone 7 series of smartphones and the associated Marketplace, or for HTML5 (of which Microsoft appears to be a big fan).
Another possibility is that the Redmond software giant is plotting a new service that lets you easily create Windows Phone 7 (or other smartphone platform) apps from existing websites, or something similar like Google’s App Inventor.
It’s worth noting Microsoft partner Nokia already offers a tool called Ovi app wizard that lets users create a mobile Ovi app from existing web content.
Update: or as Mary Jo Foley says, it could be about the ‘pinning’ feature included in Internet Explorer 9, which kinda sorta turns websites into mini apps.
All would make sense, although it could be just a couple of domain names registered on a whim without a masterplan. Perhaps you have some theories of your own?
Microsoft, founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, is a veteran software company, best known for its Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. Starting in 1980 Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM allowing Microsoft to sell its software package with the computers IBM manufactured. Microsoft is widely used by professionals worldwide and largely dominates the American corporate market. Additionally, the company has ventured into hardware with consumer products such as the Zune and...
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