Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
"... following the dotcom crash it has become unfashionable to define oneself as a dotcom as such a definition may have an effect on funding: 'Of the 3.5 million businesses Dun & Bradsheet have on their records none define themselves as a dotcom.'"
Eeek.... it has taken me five years and a huge amount of money to get the 4 character domain name which I always wanted. Bought it from a Canadian corporation. I had intended to define my forthcoming biz with the dot.com in the name e.g. CoolStuff.com, Inc. - after all, 100% of my income comes from the net.
Would you say it is still a taboo to make a big deal about being a '.com'? Surely it says something that a pureplay dotcom has survived the crash? Is it only really a no-no if one needs funding?
What do you think would be better? CoolStuff.com, Inc. or CoolStuff, Inc.? I personally have always believed the former, because each and every mention of the business name provides free publicity for the website. Or is it too tacky/desperate to be a 'CoolStuff.com Inc.'?
But these days, if you've survived the shake-out, and have a viable product that can actually make money without the need for VC there is no real stigma attached to the .com TLD.
There is a very large mortgage lender who advertises on TV all the time and their company name includes the dot com.
I don't call myself a dotcom. Nor do I identify any of the other sites I am developing as dotcoms. You can still have a .com domain, that's preferable.
But I have to say that I myself do feel a certain level of skepticism when confronting a "pure-play" dot-com. For instance, it took a lot of word of mouth to ease my skepticism of that DVD rental dot-com, and consider them a legit way of renting movies. Sounds like a good deal. But guess what? Despite so many raves about them, I myself have yet to visit their web site, let alone rent a dvd from them.
That's MY opinion. What do other people think about this?
It's not just a name, it's a destination.
Trav's got a good point - 100% pure-play internet might as well have the .com in the name.
And changing the business name after the fact is a pain, but not impossible. Big business does it regularly as it changes and consoldates.
Yes, during the boom everyone dropped it from their name. But if you don't need VC capital, you really don't care.
I mean, naming your biz ".com" isn't really like naming your kid "Adolph", is it? Er, is it?
