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Change Your Name

paulgraham.com

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Re: Change Your Name

#71

Post by ThomPete »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #52

I couldn't disagree more with this article and am kinda surprised Paul wrote about this. Domain names are transitioning into becoming useless. When you open any web browser or mobile phone and go to look for a company it does a search. The most relevant results come back at the top. This type of trend, as we abstract away from using TLDs, is only going to continue. Owning a .com isn't nearly as meaningful today as it…

Exactly! Referring to your domain name is something you do so rarely it's not even worth mentioning. Most of the time people get redirected to your website, it's via bitly or a number of other url shorteners.

Re: Change Your Name

#72

Post by PhilipA »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #52

I couldn't disagree more with this article and am kinda surprised Paul wrote about this. Domain names are transitioning into becoming useless. When you open any web browser or mobile phone and go to look for a company it does a search. The most relevant results come back at the top. This type of trend, as we abstract away from using TLDs, is only going to continue. Owning a .com isn't nearly as meaningful today as it…

It seems like we are going back to the AOL keyword days... not a good sign.

Re: Change Your Name

#74

Post by jlarocco »

rjvir wrote: post #33

> 100% of the top 20 YC companies by valuation have the .com of their name. 94% of the top 50 do. But only 66% of companies in the current batch have the .com of their name. That's not a straight comparison. A better stat would be, what percentage of the top 20 YC companies had the .com while they were in the active YC batch?

I think a lot of the comments here are missing the point.

If somebody is already using the .com domain, then that name is already being used for something and creating a new business with the same name is a bad idea. I guess in the worst case scenario they could file a lawsuit claiming that you're infringing their trademark.

People can try to justify it by saying everybody just searches anyway, but if the .com name is already established it'll be a never-ending battle to keep your name in the top search results.

I mean, nobody would try to use ford.io or yahoo.tk for their startup, doing the same thing but with a smaller company is an equally bad idea.

Re: Change Your Name

#75

Post by BinaryIdiot »

creeble wrote: post #67
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #52

I couldn't disagree more with this article and am kinda surprised Paul wrote about this. Domain names are transitioning into becoming useless. When you open any web browser or mobile phone and go to look for a company it does a search. The most relevant results come back at the top. This type of trend, as we abstract away from using TLDs, is only going to continue. Owning a .com isn't nearly as meaningful today as it…

Yeah. I heard this 13 years ago too. http://shirky.com/writings/domain_names.html

> Yeah. I heard this 13 years ago too. http://shirky.com/writings/domain_names.html

So because someone suggested it 13 years ago makes it not true today? Look at how the new TLDs are working out; if you want to find a company using a funny TLD you just search for their name and unless the .com is higher ranked the company comes right up to the top.

Look at it from a user's perspective; do you know anyone who actually types in a domain name anymore that isn't a technie? If a user wants to find a specific company they just simply use voice and ask their phone or open a browser and just type it in.

Typing in a TLD adds friction especially since ICANN added all of these stupid TLDs that no one is even used to. The lower the friction the better, right?

Re: Change Your Name

#77

Post by seasoup »

Are you all seriously arguing with Paul Graham about something in his realm of expertise that only someone with a vast experience in multiple startups can form an informed opinion of, or someone that has undertaken a serious research study thereof? If you are not one of those two, just smile, nod, and change your name. If pg suggests something, he thinks it's important, if he thinks it's important enough to write an article on, he's pretty sure he's right and it's important.

Re: Change Your Name

#78

Post by starshadowx2 »

dave1619 wrote: post #18

I knew I needed to change our company's name but this article really sealed the deal. The problem is I don't have the skill of naming. If you do, I'd love your help (email me at lalalee at hotmail.com).

Try sites like these:

* Namium - http://www.naminum.com

* The Name App - http://thenameapp.com

* Wordoid - http://wordoid.com/

There are some more sites like these but more focused on domain names, all from here - https://blog.growth.supply/300-awesome-free-things-e07b3cd5f...

Re: Change Your Name

#79

Post by flylib »

this is telling

Just take a look at all these successful startups which either had a temporary domain name, or which still have a different domain name to their name:

Square was squareup.com, DropBox was getdropbox.com, Facebook was thefacebook.com, Instagram was instagr.am, Twitter was twttr.com, Foursquare was playfoursquare.com, Basecamp is basecamphq.com, Pocket is getpocket.com, Bitly was/is bit.ly, Delicious was del.icio.us, Freckle is letsfreckle.com

https://blog.bufferapp.com/how-to-name-your-startup

Re: Change Your Name

#80

Post by unethical_ban »

flylib wrote: post #79

this is telling Just take a look at all these successful startups which either had a temporary domain name, or which still have a different domain name to their name: Square was squareup.com, DropBox was getdropbox.com, Facebook was thefacebook.com, Instagram was instagr.am, Twitter was twttr.com, Foursquare was playfoursquare.com, Basecamp is basecamphq.com, Pocket is getpocket.com, Bitly was/is bit.ly, Delicious wa…

Simple was banksimple.com.
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