Promotional Product Business: What's In A Name?

[mole]

Why is looking like crap on the right side any better?

One can assume the euphemic logic that prompted that remark is one based on pure personal injecture. Just because you grew up with and continue to eat at MacDonalds, doesn't make it the best hamburger in the world.

[DaddyHalbucks]

Forget my personal preferences.

1. Ask net heavyweights such as Amazon, eBay, MicroSoft, Hotmail, IBM, Sun, Google, Yahoo, etc.. what extension they choose for their flagship.

2. Ask the Fortune 500 what extension they use.

3. Ask the top domainers on this board what extension they think is the most valueable. What I mean by top domainers is people who have actually made millions on domains.

4. Look at DNJournal, which is definitely not unfriendly to the alt extensions, considering editor/ owner Ron Jackson is heavily invested in the alt extensions. Look on DNJournal top sales column. What extension dominates the top sales prices fetched?

5. Look on television and see which extension is advertised most. Remember the GoDaddy superbowl ad? It was what --GoDaddy --dot what?

6. Look at the raw registration figures from the NSI registry. Which extension dominates?

etc..etc..etc..

[mole]

The web grew up with .COM. All the key players you mention started running their websites over 10 years ago, when there was not much else they could register that represented what they wanted to do i..e commerce on the WWW.

I'm not saying that .COM is not the most valuable, just that the dependency on .COM will fall. Its a situation that causes a chain reaction in perceived value, and once the myth 'articificial scarcity' is challenged and disproved, it follows that the prices people are willing to pay for each .COM will also fall. Simple logic, but a difficult one for those with vested interests and achieved advantages on the .COM speculative area will admit to.

If we consider that type-in traffic or "direct navigation" makes up only 10-15% of how the web as we know it today is navigated, you may start to appreciate that businesses that want to increase their web presence in new, more targeted ways, can and will drive the engines of adoption and development for alternative extensions. Examples like http://www.ikea.us

Same will http://www.billboard.biz , while the site sits on top of their .COM site, there is a clear and deliberated attempt to cater to their B2B brand nemesis as well.

The WWW is a bottomless ocean, infested with 30 feet long sharks. Many businesses recognize, through hard lessons, that no they cannot rule the world just by wearing the emperor's cloath of .COM.

Even the kingpins of .COM visibility, Ebay, Google, Monster - they all recognized the need to extend beyond .COM to ccTLDs and local transactions years ago.

What's to stop Google from stepping on the plate for

google.travel
google.jobs
google.mobi
google.xxx

The brand belief of Google is to organize the world's information. Google showed the world the meaning and power of FLEXIBILITY in one's business model.

The truism for courageous entreprenuership today is to challenge the conventional, recreate the future, don't let it lead you by the tail.

IMHO, it is easy to fall into the cosy trap of what you can immediately see in front of your nose what your brain is willing to understand and accept. I applaud those with the guts, the determination and above all, the ingenuity, to see and prepare for what's behind the corner.

It amuses me immeasurably when I hear people remorsefully remark "I wish I had the forsight to buy sex.com back in 1989", and then blissfully continue to wear their 'Not In' hat in face of an ever changing Internet and web navigation revolution.

[DaddyHalbucks]

The web grew up with .COM. All the key players you mention started running their websites over 10 years ago, when there was not much else they could register that represented what they wanted to do i..e commerce on the WWW.

I'm not saying that .COM is not the most valuable, just that the dependency on .COM will fall. Its a situation that causes a chain reaction in perceived value, and once the myth 'articificial scarcity' is challenged and disproved, it follows that the prices people are willing to pay for each .COM will also fall. Simple logic, but a difficult one for those with vested interests and achieved advantages on the .COM speculative area will admit to.

If we consider that type-in traffic or "direct navigation" makes up only 10-15% of how the web as we know it today is navigated, you may start to appreciate that businesses that want to increase their web presence in new, more targeted ways, can and will drive the engines of adoption and development for alternative extensions. Examples like http://www.ikea.us

Same will http://www.billboard.biz , while the site sits on top of their .COM site, there is a clear and deliberated attempt to cater to their B2B brand nemesis as well.

The WWW is a bottomless ocean, infested with 30 feet long sharks. Many businesses recognize, through hard lessons, that no they cannot rule the world just by wearing the emperor's cloath of .COM.

Even the kingpins of .COM visibility, Ebay, Google, Monster - they all recognized the need to extend beyond .COM to ccTLDs and local transactions years ago.

What's to stop Google from stepping on the plate for

google.travel
google.jobs
google.mobi
google.xxx

The brand belief of Google is to organize the world's information. Google showed the world the meaning and power of FLEXIBILITY in one's business model.

The truism for courageous entreprenuership today is to challenge the conventional, recreate the future, don't let it lead you by the tail.

IMHO, it is easy to fall into the cosy trap of what you can immediately see in front of your nose what your brain is willing to understand and accept. I applaud those with the guts, the determination and above all, the ingenuity, to see and prepare for what's behind the corner.

It amuses me immeasurably when I hear people remorsefully remark "I wish I had the forsight to buy sex.com back in 1989", and then blissfully continue to wear their 'Not In' hat in face of an ever changing Internet and web navigation revolution.

Exactly. .COM had the first mover advantage, and thus became the default.

Your isolated examples of major companies using alt extensions are just that.. isolated examples, a small small percentage.

What's to stop Google.com from using sophisticated software for sniffing out mobile customers and directing them automatically to a mobile website such as mobile.google.com? Or, why won't mobile phones become so integrated with browsers that surfing the web from your phone will be just as easy as from your desktop?

There are lots of reasons why google.jobs and google.travel will fail. They are very very confusing for consumers. I think you fail to grasp the level of domain proficiency for the average web surfer. It is very very low.

What site is real, and what site is a security threat? All of the phishing and cybersquatting of late makes consumer confidence in anything but .COM even lower.

I agree with your general comments about how entrepreneurship must challenge convention and how foreseeing the future is vital --however, I just don't think your particular vision of the future is correct.

You have not proven your case. You have not proven *WHY* .COM will fail. If anything, you have proven the opposite.

[mole]

You have not proven your case. You have not proven *WHY* .COM will fail. If anything, you have proven the opposite.

The judge and juror has spoken. It's like one of those British comedy court cases where the subject of DIVORCE ends up being one of MURDER.

Failure of .COM was never the issue.

If anything, you have proven that one only reads and processes what one wishes to read and process *sigh*.

I've had my fun. No point flogging a dead horse.

Complacency is bliss, a good example of why you should never ignore surrounding namespace.

Domain disputes
JIANG WEI
2005-11-14 06:37

Internet search engine company Google could be facing new disputes over its .cn domain names just several months after it spent nearly 1 million yuan (US$123,456) to register google.com.cn and google.cn.

Data from the China Internet Information Centre (CNNIC) shows that although Google registered gmail.com.cn as soon as it globally launched its Gmail e-mail service in April last year, another relevant .cn domain name, Gmail.cn, has been registered by a Beijing-based company.

Now the key question is whether Google will apply for arbitration or be forced to buy it back.

It's unlikely that the company could get the domain name through arbitration or lawsuits unless it could show that the second party was registered it with malicious intent, says Hu Gang, a legal expert in internet disputes.

"That gmail.cn domain was registered in August 2003, far before Google developed Gmail," he says.

Hu says Google will definitely not be willing to let its worldwide brand be used by others.

Statistics from the CNNIC show that Gmail.cn is not the only domain name that Google failed to register. Other speculators have cashed in on the company's ignorance of .cn domain name protection. A number of .cn domain names relating to Google's well known online products, such as Google Talk, Google Earth and Google Local, have been registered by others.

A company in South China's Guangdong Province registered googlelocal.cn and googlelocal.com.cn in March 2004. Google only presented its Local localized search service to the Chinese market a few weeks ago.

Some of Google's domain names, including googlemap.cn and googleearth.cn, were quickly registered shortly after the US-based company's purchase of other .cn domain names.

Googletalk.cn and googltalk.com.cn were registered around the same time Google officially launched its Google Talk service.

"The low cost of registering and the high potential payback have made variations on Google's .cn domain names 'investment targets'," Hu says.

He suggests that any companies that might eventually rapidly expand should implement comprehensive .cn domain protection as soon as possible.

"It takes only several thousand to 10,000 yuan (US$1,235) to register hundreds of .cn domain names," he says. "That's just a small sum for large companies."

It can save them a lot of time and money, however, when they discover that they have lost a domain name.

"Some foreign companies are doing a pretty good job of protecting their online brands," he says.

Deutsche Telekom AG, for example, has not yet entered the Chinese market, but the company has already registered over 100 domain names.

Hu says that the German company's established domain name protection system identifies infringement risks before it enters a market.

"Enterprises can also learn from the example of Samsung," he says.

Earlier this year, the South Korean company registered approximately 470 .cn domain names. The effort covered many of the company's brands, sub-brands, officials' names, and any words that could damage the company's reputation.

"It is becoming standard procedure," Hu says.

Complacency is bliss..

Domain disputes
JIANG WEI
2005-11-14 06:37

Internet search engine company Google could be facing new disputes over its .cn domain names just several months after it spent nearly 1 million yuan (US$123,456) to register google.com.cn and google.cn.

Data from the China Internet Information Centre (CNNIC) shows that although Google registered gmail.com.cn as soon as it globally launched its Gmail e-mail service in April last year, another relevant .cn domain name, Gmail.cn, has been registered by a Beijing-based company.

Now the key question is whether Google will apply for arbitration or be forced to buy it back.

It's unlikely that the company could get the domain name through arbitration or lawsuits unless it could show that the second party was registered it with malicious intent, says Hu Gang, a legal expert in internet disputes.

"That gmail.cn domain was registered in August 2003, far before Google developed Gmail," he says.

Hu says Google will definitely not be willing to let its worldwide brand be used by others.

Statistics from the CNNIC show that Gmail.cn is not the only domain name that Google failed to register. Other speculators have cashed in on the company's ignorance of .cn domain name protection. A number of .cn domain names relating to Google's well known online products, such as Google Talk, Google Earth and Google Local, have been registered by others.

A company in South China's Guangdong Province registered googlelocal.cn and googlelocal.com.cn in March 2004. Google only presented its Local localized search service to the Chinese market a few weeks ago.

Some of Google's domain names, including googlemap.cn and googleearth.cn, were quickly registered shortly after the US-based company's purchase of other .cn domain names.

Googletalk.cn and googltalk.com.cn were registered around the same time Google officially launched its Google Talk service.

"The low cost of registering and the high potential payback have made variations on Google's .cn domain names 'investment targets'," Hu says.

He suggests that any companies that might eventually rapidly expand should implement comprehensive .cn domain protection as soon as possible.

"It takes only several thousand to 10,000 yuan (US$1,235) to register hundreds of .cn domain names," he says. "That's just a small sum for large companies."

It can save them a lot of time and money, however, when they discover that they have lost a domain name.

"Some foreign companies are doing a pretty good job of protecting their online brands," he says.

Deutsche Telekom AG, for example, has not yet entered the Chinese market, but the company has already registered over 100 domain names.

Hu says that the German company's established domain name protection system identifies infringement risks before it enters a market.

"Enterprises can also learn from the example of Samsung," he says.

Earlier this year, the South Korean company registered approximately 470 .cn domain names. The effort covered many of the company's brands, sub-brands, officials' names, and any words that could damage the company's reputation.

"It is becoming standard procedure," Hu says.

[Rubber Duck]

Yes, we have picked up "Local" the words and characters used by Google in both dot JP and dot CN. Both are Generic terms!

Google may have held back on ASCII version of Google as they are fully aware of the significance of local character domains and are indeed in the vanguard of imiplementing local character search and IDN.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

[xnx]

Well I am certainly not a .commie and I do believe in ext diversification, but Mole I am not sure exactly what you are getting at? I thinK when most people talk about .com they are talking about great .coms not four word.coms For you to go back and pick a boom time and then say LUST.com $106,000 cheap in 99 they would have wanted a MILLION means nothing. THey were fools back then and things changed in the maturation of the domain business. I believe in other exts but I don't believe their resale value will surpass.com. IF you mean people won't pay xxx,xxx for a name they will go reg the .biz to build on, then I see where you are coming from and that may be true for some, contrary to what the .commies think most small businesses cannot pay xxx,xxx for a name. I think you are talking more about how small businesses will build their business and others are talking about the resale of domains in the secondary market. Small businesses choosing to build on a cctld or .biz will not affect the prices of top .coms. IMO

[Rubber Duck]

Well I am certainly not a .commie and I do believe in ext diversification, but Mole I am not sure exactly what you are getting at? I thinK when most people talk about .com they are talking about great .coms not four word.coms For you to go back and pick a boom time and then say LUST.com $106,000 cheap in 99 they would have wanted a MILLION means nothing. THey were fools back then and things changed in the maturation of the domain business. I believe in other exts but I don't believe their resale value will surpass.com. IF you mean people won't pay xxx,xxx for a name they will go reg the .biz to build on, then I see where you are coming from and that may be true for some, contrary to what the .commies think most small businesses cannot pay xxx,xxx for a name. I think you are talking more about how small businesses will build their business and others are talking about the resale of domains in the secondary market. Small businesses choosing to build on a cctld or .biz will not affect the prices of top .coms. IMO

I largely agree with what you are saying, but from a speculators perspective it not absolute prices that are important, but the pace of increase. In that department, dot com has had its day.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon