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Domain Name Extensions
I have always felt that a commercial web service's name should have a .com extension.
The .org extension is fine for a real non-profit, but not for anything else.
And I really dislike the .net extension for web services.
So for the past ten years, I have encouraged every company I've worked with to pick a name where they can get the .com extension or buy the .com extension for a reasonable price.
I feel that $25k to $50k is a "reasonable price" to pay for a .com domain of your preferred name. It's great if you can get it for less and anything more is crazy and you should pick a new name.
I don't like hyphenated names that allow you to get the name you want with the .com extenstion.
That pretty much sums up how I've felt about this issue for the past ten years.
But my feelings on this issue are starting to change a bit, driven in part by the difficulty of finding good name, particularly good names where the .com extension is available.
Services like del.icio.us and last.fm and blip.tv are showing us a new way.
Country level domain name extensions (.us, .fm, .tv, etc) have been around for a long time. They are recognized at the root DNS level which means they are reachable by 100% of the web which is critical. And more and more of these country level domain name extensions are starting to be used for non-country level purposes.
I remember the first time I heard of this idea. It was 1998 or 1999 and my partner at Flatiron, Bob Greene, brought in a deal where a company had purchased the entire top level domain of the small Pacific island nation of Tuvalu. Their top level domain was .tv. I thought the idea was nuts and we never gave the .TV Corporation much consideration.
But that company ended up being purchased by Verisign and you can purchase .tv domain names quite easily and many have done so. For web services that are offering a video or television like experience, I think it makes a ton of sense.
Micronesia also has an interesting country level doman extension, .fm. You can buy domains with that extension quite easily, as last.fm, has done. I think its an excellent domain name extension for those companies offering an audio/radio type service on the web.
The .us extension is also available, it is the country level domain for the United States. Joshua Schachter did something interesting with that extension when he bought the icio.us name and added del. in front of it to create Delicious. I don't recommend that approach to naming your web service, but it worked for Joshua and I expect we'll see clever entrepreneurs doing things like that more in the future.
I much prefer this creative approach to domain name extensions than the seven "alternative top level domains" that have been approved by ICANN:
.aero
.biz
.coop
.info
.museum
.name
.pro
I think using those is just as bad as using .net. It says "I couldn't get the name I wanted so I went with something else". I particularly don't like the .biz name. I think its awful.
The final option is a sub domain, like I use here on this weblog (avc.blogs.com). I don't recommend that for a destination web service, but if you take Joshua's trick, and apply it to a .com subdomain, you might be able to come up with something clever that works well.
The bottom line is naming a web service is getting harder. I still like the .com extension best and encourage everyone to start there. But if you can't get what you want for a reasonable price, there are other options to consider, particularly if you get creative.
Here's a great schedule of the various options and the pros and cons of each.
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Posted March 5, 2006 in Venture Capital and TechnologyComments
I agree 100% on the .com superiority and low prestige associated with .net, .biz, etc.
Thank god for Delicious' bookmarklets, however. I can never remember where the dots go. I'm sure I'm not the only one facing this problem, and I bet a lot of people who are less experienced with the web still try to put a .com at the end.
Posted by: Yali Friedman | Mar 5, 2006 11:16:19 AM
Two questions: First, what about long domain names? We struggled with selecting a name. We were expanding upon our book and wanted to clearly indicate what we were about and take advantage of the success of the book, but the name is long... www.athleticmindedtraveler.com See?
Second, I can't imagine forking over $25k to $50k to a squatter. Maybe the big dogs have the cashola...but for newbies, it's a nasty pill to swallow--which brings me to the whole RIM patent settlment. I'd be curious about your thoughts on "patent squatting." Is it a necessary evil?
Getting up on my soap box, I have a strong need to make something or feel I am creating value. After years in finance trading/selling derivatives, it drove me nuts that my job was to re-package and move around money. I created jack. So it peeves me to no end that there is a market of squatters who create nothing and earn something....
Posted by: erin kaese | Mar 5, 2006 4:43:02 PM
Buying a .net domain for your company that redirects to your .com domain makes a lot of sense.
While I don't think paying $25K to $50K makes sense for most entrepreneurs, I do not like long domain names either. Just like del.icio.us, creativity is the key to choosing a good domain name. With the proliferation of porn, I was pleasantly surprised to find that SINLetter.com was still available when I launched my website last year.
Posted by: Asif (SINLetter) | Mar 5, 2006 9:22:36 PM
Yali Friedman: delicious.com now takes you to delicious.
Posted by: web20guy | Mar 5, 2006 9:57:58 PM
.com is still king.
Posted by: david lazar | Mar 6, 2006 7:36:41 AM
I couldn't agree more with your posting. Even with the current polution of the .com namespace it is possible to come up with a good name. Recently I and two other partners were able to come with a name that is meaningful, one syllable and can be used as a verb. Following Guy's post on the name game
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/02/the_name_game.html
The unfortunate thing is that it does take time and alot of creativity. I suggest going through the process of listing all the words that are associative to your site, and then play with them, seperating portions, recombining, etc. Eventually you will come up with someting interesting. The other alternative is to goto language dictionaries and type in words and see what you come up with.
Posted by: ThePef | Mar 6, 2006 8:51:13 AM
Fred,
Very timely post. My partner and I just launched our blog and after much TLD deliberation went with a .fm name. I think given the nature of our content and our writing going against the grain, the .fm works perfectly. There is something about being a little different that is definitely more appealing that the usual .com name...
Posted by: Eric | Mar 6, 2006 11:05:59 AM
Do you think the hyphenation issue is still actually an issue, now that most online traffic is driven by other online networks? I'm thinking in terms of del.icio.us, Digg, and the success of AdSense et al.
Posted by: dwlt | Mar 6, 2006 2:38:45 PM
Another example of a ccTLD being put to good use is www.southland.la.
Posted by: Ray | Mar 6, 2006 7:25:33 PM
A lot of European countries are liberalizing their DNS market (no local representation, no trademarks necessary). In some cases, their TLDs can be also used to generate more memorable names:
.be (gada.be), .it (www.justdo.it is taken, but not used), .at, .de, .se, .ch ...
Some names that are available:
whatchalookin.at, canihit.it, poetrynotpro.se
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