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Change Your Name

paulgraham.com

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Re: Change Your Name

#81

Post by BinaryIdiot »

PhilipA wrote: post #72
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.

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

Not really comparable in my opinion. In AOL, if I remember correctly, you had to register or pay for your keyword much like a domain name. So all keywords were owned by a central authority, could only be used within their ecosystem and had the same type of squatter issues as domain names.

What's happening today are "keywords" being associated with specific websites when, and only when, the users are actively looking for and using that website. This isn't centralized (sure most people using Google but people forget Bing is actually really good and used by many!). You can't simply pay for the top spot anymore.

Re: Change Your Name

#82

Post by creeble »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #75
creeble wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The absolute lowest friction is to have a .com domain. And yes, it's still true.

Re: Change Your Name

#83

Post by GlennS »

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?

The correlation might be backward: the top 20 YC companies by valuation probably have enough cash to buy the domain name that matches their company name.

Re: Change Your Name

#84

Post by jotm »

eli wrote: post #54
ploxiln wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

del.icio.us is an awesome domain. I'd be inclined to believe someone came up with the domain before the name.

I couldn't always remember where the dots went. Not a great property for a domain name.

Which is why I had it on the bookmarks bar. A single bookmark to all of my bookmarks :-). I haven't used them in a long time, what are they up to these days?

Re: Change Your Name

#86

Post by creeble »

jlarocco wrote: post #74
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 i…

Yea, I would agree that this is really the key point. If it's a fallow .com name (that you can't afford), then maybe you'll be lucky with an alternative TLD. But it's probably a poorer choice than changing your name.

Re: Change Your Name

#87

Post by bigtunacan »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #81
PhilipA wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> It seems like we are going back to the AOL keyword days... not a good sign. Not really comparable in my opinion. In AOL, if I remember correctly, you had to register or pay for your keyword much like a domain name. So all keywords were owned by a central authority, could only be used within their ecosystem and had the same type of squatter issues as domain names. What's happening today are "keywords" being associat…

You can "simply pay for the top spot". This is why the results at the very top of the Google search are paid ad placements.

Re: Change Your Name

#89

Post by moubarak »

Well bad names which own their .com are far more worse. bvckup2.com? seriously? too bad for a great product. There are other examples out there it baffles me.

Re: Change Your Name

#90

Post by BinaryIdiot »

bigtunacan wrote: post #87
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like we are going back to the AOL keyword days... not a good sign. Not really comparable in my opinion. In AOL, if I remember correctly, you had to register or pay for your keyword much like a domain name. So all keywords were owned by a central authority, could only be used within their ecosystem and had the same type of squatter issues as domain names. What's happening today are "keywords" being associat…

You can "simply pay for the top spot". This is why the results at the very top of the Google search are paid ad placements.

I was referring to search results not advertisements. You can pay one fee, like a domain TLD or AOL Keyword, and get that spot. With those advertisements you have to constantly put money in to stay at that spot.
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