Register That Domain - Revision history

LeonBambrick at 13:00, 7 November 2009

2009-11-07T13:00:23Z

LeonBambrick at 12:57, 7 November 2009

2009-11-07T12:57:39Z

LeonBambrick at 12:38, 7 November 2009

2009-11-07T12:38:38Z

LeonBambrick: /* Did you run out of names before you found a good one? */

2009-11-07T12:32:40Z

Did you run out of names before you found a good one?

LeonBambrick: /* Accept that there are no perfect product names. */

2009-11-07T12:27:43Z

Accept that there are no perfect product names.

LeonBambrick at 05:33, 15 March 2009

2009-03-15T05:33:34Z

LeonBambrick at 05:31, 15 March 2009

2009-03-15T05:31:31Z

LeonBambrick at 05:30, 15 March 2009

2009-03-15T05:30:32Z

LeonBambrick: New page: = Registering a Domain = This is a fairly hefty milestone all by itself. I'd guess that ninety percent of good product ideas never get this far. Here's my basic tips: * until you've secu...

2009-03-15T05:26:53Z

New page: = Registering a Domain = This is a fairly hefty milestone all by itself. I'd guess that ninety percent of good product ideas never get this far. Here's my basic tips: * until you've secu...

New page

= Registering a Domain =
This is a fairly hefty milestone all by itself. I'd guess that ninety percent of good product ideas never get this far.

Here's my basic tips:

* until you've secured a domain name, don't commit to a product name
* don't expect to secure the perfect name
* register the product name, not the company name (that can come much later)

I'll go through those three in order

== until you've secured a domain name, don't commit to a product name ==

At some point in the distant past, perhaps one thousand years ago, there was the time of the cyber squatters. I don't know who these mythical people were, but I know that they are generally blamed for the following sad fact:

'''Twenty Four out of Every Twenty Five domain names you can think of have already been taken.'''

All sorts of dumb names have been taken, probably including that hot little product name you had your eyes on all this time.

If you're an idiot you can waste your energy chasing that domain name; sending emails to the people who've taken in, you can try to talk them into selling it to you, you can send lawyers after it, you can really get nasty about the whole thing. Or worse still, you can stick with your product name, but choose a different domain name.

But if you're sensible, you'll start making a big lst of ugly useless names. Use a thesaurus. Name-storming is fun. Turn off the inner-critic.

* Make a big list of names. Twenty five or more is good.
* Sort them from most desired to least desired.
* For each name:
** Google it:
*** Already used in prior-art? Discard it.
*** Turns up as a swear word in spanish? Discard it.
*** Anything else funny turns up on the web? Discard it.
*** Perform a 'WhoIs' search. (use the "internic", "whois.net", "godaddy", whoever you want). The name is taken? Discard it.
*** If it's available then buy it.
*** Stop there. Throw away the rest of the list.

Now, you've got to fall in love with the name you ended up with.

You've got no choice. You're stuck with it now, so you'd better treat it with respect.

'''And you're done. Easy wasn't it.'''

What? You're still there? You think I've got more strongly-felt opinions on this topic? You bet I do.

Buying is a minefield...
I use goDaddy for purchasing websites, because they're very very cheap. And I like an essay written by Bob Parsons, the go daddy himself. However.

These guys are masters at up selling. As you make your way to the checkout, they try to push dozens of other products into your shopping cart. All of which are totally overpriced crap. So make sure you buy only what you want -- a domain name for a year (maybe two) just for the domain you're after. Nothing else.

You can get a 10% discount (or more) if you find a discount voucher for Go Daddy. Google for 'godaddy voucher'. Didn't work for me, but ymmv.

Dot Com is All That Matters
Go for ".com". Don't mess around with ".net", ".biz" or any others. And don't waste your time on ones that relate to your country of origin, e.g. ".com.au", ".co.uk" unless your product will only ever be sold in that country. These cost more, involve more hoops, and are less memorable. The Coca-colonisation of the world is a big force, and I'm not going to try and slow it ;-)

Accept that there are no perfect product names.
Names can be cute, glib, memorable, descriptive, inspiring -- all kinds of things, but they can't be all of these things at once. It's very easy to over-constrain the name you want. The less rules you impose on the name, the better chance you have of coming up with a useable name.

Impose too many rules on the name results in an impossible equation. For example, say you have these two rules:

x + 1 = 2
x - 1 = 2
What is x?
In this case, x is unsolvable: there's simple no value for x that will satisfy both constraints. The only thing to do is to have less constraints. The same applies with choosing a name. You need less constraints: so few constraints that you'll be able to find the required twenty-five possible values, before you go searching the internet for availability.

Actually, Product Names Hardly Matter At All
Take Ebay, Google and Amazon as examples. These are well recognised brand names, that evoke the right reaction from millions of customers. But that recognition has been hard won by the companies and the products -- not by the choice of name. There's nothing great about any of these names. They tell you nothing about what the product does, nor what differentiates them from their competitors. But they're undeniably successful names.

Don't Be Too Specific
Okay -- even though 'Product Names Hardly Matter At All' there are still some terrible names out there, and perhaps even a few good ones.

Obviously, avoid offensive names. I went to uni with a guy who gave his engineering-thesis the acronym "S.H.I.T.S." I sh*t you not. This meant that everyone who reviewed his work had a negative perception before they'd even read the precis. Avoid causing offense, even mild offense.

Personally, I think it's bad to have an overly 'specific' name. An example of a specific name is a local company I know of who call themselves "Just Stumps". The idea is that they are focused on stump grinding. I've seen there name in a local newspaper and it's always bugged me. I rang them up one day and asked them, "Hey, i've got a tree that needs to be cut down. Do you do that?" Guess what! They do! "Oh, and I've got a concrete slab that needs to be removed, can you help with that?" Of course they can. Similarly "Just Jeans" don't just sell Jeans. "Roses Only" don't just sell roses, and in fact, every 'specific' name is a just a big lie. So don't turn yourself into a liar: avoid 'specific' names.

Did you run out of names before you found a good one?
An old trick is to mis-spell a word, creating a clever juxtaposition of two ideas. 'Beatles' for example. The advantage to this trick is that it creates new words (thus no prior art), that are short and will (eventually) be memorable.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-(This is step 1 of [[25_Steps_to_Build_Your_Own_Micro_ISV]])
+(This is step 1 of [[25 Steps to Build Your Own Micro ISV]])
 == Registering a domain ==
@@ Line 89: / Line 89: @@
-This step 1 of [[25_Steps_to_Build_Your_Own_Micro_ISV]]
+This step 1 of [[25 Steps to Build Your Own Micro ISV]]
 [[Category:MicroISV]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 == Registering a domain ==
@@ Line 85: / Line 86: @@
-(based on [http://secretgeek.net/25Steps_1DomainName.asp 'Step 1 of 25 to Building a Micro-ISV: Register a Domain'] )
+(This article originated with my blogpost at secretGeek.net, [http://secretgeek.net/25Steps_1DomainName.asp 'Step 1 of 25 to Building a Micro-ISV: Register a Domain'] )
 [[Category:MicroISV]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:38, 7 November 2009
Line 86:		Line 86:

	(based on [http://secretgeek.net/25Steps_1DomainName.asp 'Step 1 of 25 to Building a Micro-ISV: Register a Domain'] )		(based on [http://secretgeek.net/25Steps_1DomainName.asp 'Step 1 of 25 to Building a Micro-ISV: Register a Domain'] )
		+
		+	[[Category:MicroISV]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:32, 7 November 2009
Line 85:		Line 85:


−	(based on [http://secretgeek.net/25Steps_1DomainName.asp] )	+	(based on [http://secretgeek.net/25Steps_1DomainName.asp 'Step 1 of 25 to Building a Micro-ISV: Register a Domain'] )

@@ Line 57: / Line 57: @@
 == Accept that there are no perfect product names. ==
-Names can be cute, glib, memorable, descriptive, inspiring -- all kinds of things, but they can't be all of these things at once. It's very easy to over-constrain the name you want. The less rules you impose on the name, the better chance you have of coming up with a useable name.
+Names can be cute, glib, memorable, descriptive, inspiring -- all kinds of things, but they can't necessarily be all of these things at once. It's very easy to over-constrain the name you want. The less rules you impose on the name, the better chance you have of coming up with a useable name.
 Impose too many rules on the name results in an impossible equation. For example, say you have these two rules:

@@ Line 30: / Line 30: @@
 *** Turns up as a swear word in spanish? Discard it.
 *** Anything else funny turns up on the web? Discard it.
-*** Perform a 'WhoIs' search. (use the "internic", "whois.net", "godaddy", whoever you want). The name is taken? Discard it.
+** Perform a 'WhoIs' search. (use the "internic", "whois.net", "godaddy", whoever you want). The name is taken? Discard it.
-*** If it's available then buy it.
+** If it's available then buy it.
-*** Stop there. Throw away the rest of the list.
+** Stop there. Throw away the rest of the list.
 Now, you've got to fall in love with the name you ended up with.

← Older revision		Revision as of 05:31, 15 March 2009
Line 1:		Line 1:
		+	== Registering a domain ==
		+
	This is a fairly hefty milestone all by itself. I'd guess that ninety percent of good product ideas never get this far.		This is a fairly hefty milestone all by itself. I'd guess that ninety percent of good product ideas never get this far.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 This is a fairly hefty milestone all by itself. I'd guess that ninety percent of good product ideas never get this far.
@@ Line 14: / Line 13: @@
 At some point in the distant past, perhaps one thousand years ago, there was the time of the cyber squatters. I don't know who these mythical people were, but I know that they are generally blamed for the following sad fact:
- '''Twenty Four out of Every Twenty Five domain names you can think of have already been taken.'''
+'''99 out of Every 100 domain names you can dream up are already taken.'''
 All sorts of dumb names have been taken, probably including that hot little product name you had your eyes on all this time.
@@ Line 20: / Line 19: @@
 If you're an idiot you can waste your energy chasing that domain name; sending emails to the people who've taken in, you can try to talk them into selling it to you, you can send lawyers after it, you can really get nasty about the whole thing. Or worse still, you can stick with your product name, but choose a different domain name.
-But if you're sensible, you'll start making a big lst of ugly useless names. Use a thesaurus. Name-storming is fun. Turn off the inner-critic.
+But if you're sensible, you'll start making a big list of ugly useless names. Use a thesaurus. Name-storming is fun. Turn off the inner-critic.
 * Make a big list of names. Twenty five or more is good.
@@ Line 41: / Line 40: @@
 What? You're still there? You think I've got more strongly-felt opinions on this topic? You bet I do.
-Buying is a minefield...
+== Buying is a minefield... ==
 I use goDaddy for purchasing websites, because they're very very cheap. And I like an essay written by Bob Parsons, the go daddy himself. However.
@@ Line 48: / Line 49: @@
 You can get a 10% discount (or more) if you find a discount voucher for Go Daddy. Google for 'godaddy voucher'. Didn't work for me, but ymmv.
-Dot Com is All That Matters
+== Dot Com is All That Matters ==
 Go for ".com". Don't mess around with ".net", ".biz" or any others. And don't waste your time on ones that relate to your country of origin, e.g. ".com.au", ".co.uk" unless your product will only ever be sold in that country. These cost more, involve more hoops, and are less memorable. The Coca-colonisation of the world is a big force, and I'm not going to try and slow it ;-)
 Accept that there are no perfect product names.
 Names can be cute, glib, memorable, descriptive, inspiring -- all kinds of things, but they can't be all of these things at once. It's very easy to over-constrain the name you want. The less rules you impose on the name, the better chance you have of coming up with a useable name.
 Impose too many rules on the name results in an impossible equation. For example, say you have these two rules:
-x + 1 = 2
+ x + 1 = 2
-x - 1 = 2
+ x - 1 = 2
-What is x?
+ What is x?
 In this case, x is unsolvable: there's simple no value for x that will satisfy both constraints. The only thing to do is to have less constraints. The same applies with choosing a name. You need less constraints: so few constraints that you'll be able to find the required twenty-five possible values, before you go searching the internet for availability.
 Take Ebay, Google and Amazon as examples. These are well recognised brand names, that evoke the right reaction from millions of customers. But that recognition has been hard won by the companies and the products -- not by the choice of name. There's nothing great about any of these names. They tell you nothing about what the product does, nor what differentiates them from their competitors. But they're undeniably successful names.
-Don't Be Too Specific
+== Don't Be Too Specific ==
 Okay -- even though 'Product Names Hardly Matter At All' there are still some terrible names out there, and perhaps even a few good ones.
@@ Line 71: / Line 77: @@
 Personally, I think it's bad to have an overly 'specific' name. An example of a specific name is a local company I know of who call themselves "Just Stumps". The idea is that they are focused on stump grinding. I've seen there name in a local newspaper and it's always bugged me. I rang them up one day and asked them, "Hey, i've got a tree that needs to be cut down. Do you do that?" Guess what! They do! "Oh, and I've got a concrete slab that needs to be removed, can you help with that?" Of course they can. Similarly "Just Jeans" don't just sell Jeans. "Roses Only" don't just sell roses, and in fact, every 'specific' name is a just a big lie. So don't turn yourself into a liar: avoid 'specific' names.
-Did you run out of names before you found a good one?
+== Did you run out of names before you found a good one? ==
 An old trick is to mis-spell a word, creating a clever juxtaposition of two ideas. 'Beatles' for example. The advantage to this trick is that it creates new words (thus no prior art), that are short and will (eventually) be memorable.