Master of Your Domain
WSJ featured a fascinating article yesterday about domain names ending in .com. The piece detailed the findings of Dennis Forbes, a fellow who (by some means) obtained the complete listing of all 47 million registered dot-coms.
I've been online for years. I can still remember when you searched the web by typing in domain names directly. Yes...there was a time before Google and Yahoo and MSN... Anyway, I used to be somewhat of a domain squatter myself, buying up small bits of digital real estate as best I could. At one time it was actually possible to type in a common noun (such as 'business') and find that domain available.
It's no surprise that catchy domains are no longer available. All 1000 of the top English words are taken. Every possible two and three character combination is gone (numbers and letters combined). Almost every four letter word is taken (yes, even those). But the question is - does it matter? We no longer rely on domains being logically named, we have come to expect search engines, blogs and advertisers to do our dirty work for us and help us find these unusually named sites. You no longer have to claim your online space as eMyBusiness.com to be discovered (that's 'so 1997' of you). Nor does it have to - in any way - make reference to what you do (Meebo anyone?).
At some point the collective 'we' that is the web lost all need for logical names and bought up whatever domain names we could. Much of this was born out of necessity but it also coincided with the explosive growth of online communities. At a very specific point we stopped being literal and began our foray into the absract. Josh from Firewheel wrote about this way back in December, highlighting the concentric circles of 2.0 names. When we regularly visit sites named Kiko and Squidoo - what's next? Will the pendulum ever swing back to names my mother can remember?
While we'd like to think so it is not likely - and judging by our behaviour, not necessary. Following the old "if you build it they will come" mentality, businesses and individuals alike are snatching up digital real estate with little regard for complexity or pronunciation of names. Instead, we're making haikus, full sentences or questions out of them. Take "did you know that you can only have sixty three characters in a domain name.com" and "Tell Me Girlfriend" for example.
Long story short, if you haven't bought the domain of your full name (or business) yet, grab your AmEx and snag it before someone else does and builds a pr0n site there for you. And if you're naming your new business and want a site with that name, be prepared to add a few vowels to it or go long (63 characters to be exact). If cultural patterns are any indication, just have fun with it, put out a good service, great content and we'll find you. Thank goodness for technorati and google.
I've been online for years. I can still remember when you searched the web by typing in domain names directly. Yes...there was a time before Google and Yahoo and MSN... Anyway, I used to be somewhat of a domain squatter myself, buying up small bits of digital real estate as best I could. At one time it was actually possible to type in a common noun (such as 'business') and find that domain available.
It's no surprise that catchy domains are no longer available. All 1000 of the top English words are taken. Every possible two and three character combination is gone (numbers and letters combined). Almost every four letter word is taken (yes, even those). But the question is - does it matter? We no longer rely on domains being logically named, we have come to expect search engines, blogs and advertisers to do our dirty work for us and help us find these unusually named sites. You no longer have to claim your online space as eMyBusiness.com to be discovered (that's 'so 1997' of you). Nor does it have to - in any way - make reference to what you do (Meebo anyone?).
At some point the collective 'we' that is the web lost all need for logical names and bought up whatever domain names we could. Much of this was born out of necessity but it also coincided with the explosive growth of online communities. At a very specific point we stopped being literal and began our foray into the absract. Josh from Firewheel wrote about this way back in December, highlighting the concentric circles of 2.0 names. When we regularly visit sites named Kiko and Squidoo - what's next? Will the pendulum ever swing back to names my mother can remember?
While we'd like to think so it is not likely - and judging by our behaviour, not necessary. Following the old "if you build it they will come" mentality, businesses and individuals alike are snatching up digital real estate with little regard for complexity or pronunciation of names. Instead, we're making haikus, full sentences or questions out of them. Take "did you know that you can only have sixty three characters in a domain name.com" and "Tell Me Girlfriend" for example.
Long story short, if you haven't bought the domain of your full name (or business) yet, grab your AmEx and snag it before someone else does and builds a pr0n site there for you. And if you're naming your new business and want a site with that name, be prepared to add a few vowels to it or go long (63 characters to be exact). If cultural patterns are any indication, just have fun with it, put out a good service, great content and we'll find you. Thank goodness for technorati and google.
posted by franki durbin @ 6:34 AM PERMALINK
2 Comments:
I'm very thankful I bought my full name many years. It's a complex name and the likelihood of someone ripping it off is small, but you never know. I don't use it for anything but emails--it makes it easy for people to find me.
Sometimes I go on domain hounding sprees. Recently I bought about 15 names related to something I specialize it. Now they just sit there ;) You'd think I'd capitalize on them somehow!
I've been doing the same thing for years - buying my name(s) - just in case.
What's particularly funny is that Mr. Forbes presented additional information about domain names: when you look up the 300 most common first names and pair them with the top 300 surnames 89% of male names were taken and 84% for women! Staggering. It certainly helps to have a less common name!
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