NSW govt predicts 'online real estate' boom for .sydney

The new .sydney Internet domain will fuel an "online real estate boom" for NSW's capital according to the state's finance and services minister, Dominic Perrottet.

.sydney will be added to the list of 'top-level' Internet domains as an alternative to the standard suffixes such as .com or .org and country code suffixes such as .au.

.sydney will launch in early 2015, Perrottet said.

"Only a handful of the world's biggest cities have applied for their online name which means these web addresses have a competitive edge in digital branding," the minister said.

"We expect that .sydney will transform the digital economy of the city. These domains will give businesses a new and highly targeted channel to communicate to their Sydney-based customers."

"Advertisers, digital marketers and major brands embracing .sydney will soon be able to target consumers in a way never before possible," said Adrian Kinderis, CEO of ARI Registry Services, which is managing the .sydney domain as well as Victoria's .melbourne.

"Navigating the Internet via .sydney domain names will be the easiest way to identify products and organisations serving the Sydney and New South Wales communities online."

Melbourne is the only other Australian city to get its own domain suffix.

A "conservative" estimate by ARI indicated more than 27,000 applications for .melbourne domain names are likely to be lodged. Applications for .melbourne domain names open in November.

More than 30 Australian businesses, universities and other organisations applied for domains through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the Internet's domain name system.

The organisations include banks (.anz for ANZ; .nab and .ubank for the NAB; and .netbank, .commbank and .cba for the Commonwealth Bank); universities, including Bond University, LatTrobe University, Monash and RMIT; SBS; Australia Post; the AFL; and Internet service provider iiNet.

Registrations for .sydney are yet to open.