To www or not www the domain*com

Twitter got me thinking

[walkman]

so is it www.webmasterworld.com or webmasterworld.com?

Twitter and the short-link focus has got me thinking. My domain is about as long as WebmasterWorld so I don't know. Google rankings and possibility of change is another factor but that aside, what do you think, www or just domain*com?

[phranque]

if you include the URI scheme almost all such clients will generate hyperlinks.
http://example.com/

and then there are those cases where you actually don't want a text string hyperlinked...

[Robert Charlton]

IMO, it completely depends on who your audience is.

I'm assuming the lay public, and that non-technical audience is much more likely to get www.example.com right than to manage http://example.com/ without typos.

[graeme_p]

I'm assuming the lay public, and that non-technical audience is much more likely to get www.example.com right than to manage http://example.com/ without typos.

1) That only matters in the context of typing web urls into something other than a web browser (e.g. emailing a link).
2) They are getting used to dropping the www, and therefore typing http:// thanks to Blogger, bit.ly, Twitter, and a host of other popular sites that do not use the www. In the last year or two there has been a definite move away from always using www.