Change Your Name • Hacker News Board

Re: Change Your Name

#91

Post by loup-vaillant » Sun, Aug 09, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

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…

> do you know anyone who actually types in a domain name anymore that isn't a technie?

That's a problem. It means we rely more and more on search engines, thus centralising the web (and with it, the internet) more than it needs to be. Centralizing the network means centralizing the power. Not a good idea. It never was.

Re: Change Your Name

#92

Post by leroy_masochist » Sun, Aug 09, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #25

>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. Which suggests there are lessons ahead for most of the rest, one way or another. How much of that is due to the pressure that he admittedly puts on them to change names? (And that higher valued ones are likely to be older and have had this pressur…

In addition to having had the pressure for longer, they have the money from having raised multiple rounds of financing.

Re: Change Your Name

#93

Post by tmsh » Sun, Aug 09, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

johnhess wrote: post #2

100% of the top 20 by valuation have their .com What proportion had it at their founding or shortly after? Surely a well funded and successful company had the means and motivation to purchase their .com

Exactly, that's the real test. The information is available:

http://brianjackson.io/view-dns-history-free/

Re: Change Your Name

#94

Post by tsomctl » Sun, Aug 09, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

seasoup wrote: post #77

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…

You might want to read up on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

Re: Change Your Name

#95

Post by paulpauper » Sun, Aug 09, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

Yea, this article would have been applicable in 1998, but not so much today. Even domain names are becoming antiquated, with everything moving to apps and cloud. The most popular blogs I read are still hosted on blogspot and wordpress...Having a good domain won't save your business if the execution and other aspects are flawed.

Re: Change Your Name

#96

Post by gonzo » Sun, Aug 09, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

rubiquity wrote: post #29

sivers wrote: post #14

Best advice I've ever seen on naming a business is from this old Seth Godin gem: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2003/06/naming_a_bus... I read that in 2003, and have never forgotten the "Lemon Pie" example since.

I've done some scuba and I don't get the Lemon Pie name in that context. Care to explain?

easy as lemon pie

Re: Change Your Name

#97

Post by jsalit » Sun, Aug 09, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

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…

You're assuming most people search first; many users don't even understand the difference between entering a search term versus a URL in a browser address bar. Yet, non-techy people know ".com".

Re: Change Your Name

#98

Post by jedrek » Sun, Aug 09, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #65

loceng wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are different strategies and it certainly can be an advantage if you have a single word .com domain that encompasses a core value or offering.

A lot of things can be advantageous. But lets keep in mind that 99.99% of all companies are not going to be unicorns with budgets to buy +100K domain names anytime soon. That doesn't mean they can't become a hugely successful company. My general point is just that you shouldn't prematurely optimize because you end up spending a lot of time on it. Unless you stumble on a great name that you can afford it's most of the…

How many jokes have been told about 1990s-era dot-coms spending $200k on domain names and then going under 6 months later.

Re: Change Your Name

#99

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 09, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

Tepix wrote: post #68

Animats wrote: post #61

The latest "new TLD" thing was a money-making scheme for domain registrars. Nobody goes to those domains. Even the previous round of TLDs (".museum", ".aero") are not used much; ".aero" has entries for all the major airport codes, but they're redirects. Amusingly, even if you have your very own TLD, it doesn't help you. Most browsers send single-word lookups to a search engine before they send them to DNS. Try "ca" i…

There is no website at "ca". Did you mean www.ca? That redirects to circa.ca

[deleted]

Re: Change Your Name

#100

Post by lsc » Sun, Aug 09, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

I think that changing your name is almost always the wrong thing to do. It's a sort of 'reputation bankruptcy' that only makes sense when your "credit" has been damaged beyond repair.

I imagine it would be different if you are primarily concerned about your reputation with your investors rather than your reputation with your users; but I think that big companies regularly undervalue the customer familiarity with their brand.

Sure, when choosing a name, choose a name that has an available .com. Why not? Before you've invested anything in a name, it is all but valueless, so the cost to getting a .com is very low.

The value in a name is in how many people recognize and remember it; if nobody knows your name, it's worthless. If people do remember it, it doesn't matter how awkward or weird the name is; the value is in that recognition. Once you have that, don't fuck with it.