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Change Your Name

paulgraham.com

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Re: Change Your Name

#141

Post by mikeash »

Riseed wrote: post #132
nostrademons wrote: post #124

"It turns out almost any word or word pair that is not an obviously bad name is a sufficiently good one, and the number of such domains is so large that you can find plenty that are cheap or even untaken." So, after reading this advice, I decided I'd actually try it out - it's easy enough to download a word list and write a script that pings a WHOIS API to check every single word or word pair. Turns out most such API…

There are still a few one-word domains left in the .com TLD (e.g. naziisms.com, regularizing.com, castigators.com). I myself registered one earlier this summer. http://www.randomdotcom.com/

I can just see it now.

"Certainly there are some unfortunate connotations with our name, but we feel that the advantage of having a memorable, one-word dot-com domain name is worth it." - Bob Q. Startup, Founder and CEO of Naziisms, Inc.

Re: Change Your Name

#142

Post by snake117 »

Nowadays, it seems that if your startup is primarily a web application, then choosing the right domain is a little more important than if you make an app like Snapchat. Is there really a big difference if you type in "snapchat.com" vs "snapchatapp.com"?

However, if you can avoid more obscure and complicated URLs, then by all means do it. I think its best practice to have something straight forward so the user doesn't have to search first to come on your site. You never know what kind of distraction can present itself in those few seconds leading a user away from your site.

Re: Change Your Name

#143

Post by kfor »

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?

Exactly. Maybe it's because the top 20 stuck around in YC long enough to be badgered by Paul Graham into getting a .com?

That said, I don't disagree with him on .com, I just don't think this particular factoid adds anything to the argument.

Re: Change Your Name

#144

Post by baddox »

beambot wrote: post #135
baddox wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds (unsurprisingly, of course) like the perspective of an investor or other tech industry insider. Notice the phrases like "it signals weakness" and "suggests you're a marginal company." Those don't seem like phrases most people are ever going to think about a company, and especially not based only on their domain name.

I disagree. My parents are typical web users. Fairly tech savvy, but not tech insiders. I recall telling them about bit.ly. It took a while to explain that it wasn't bitly.com, bit.ly.com, etc. They ended up just searching for it instead of typing in the domain name. Think of the added friction this causes... and as we all know, every added interaction detracts from the conversion funnel. Taken in aggregate, many sta…

Isn't that a slightly different point? You're talking about ability of a user to discover or find the site, not the user's perception of the strength of the business.

Re: Change Your Name

#145

Post by tlogan »

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…

I agree with you.

Name of the company and domain name has very little to do with company's success. There so many things you need to worry when company is small and getting domain name or renaming company is really very dangerous distraction.

I'm not saying domain name does not play some role but spending time on it is a very dangerous distraction.

So, does it show as weakness? Yes. Is that biggest weakness of your company in relationship to how hard to fix it? No - but if answer is Yes then you are already made it and all this discussion is moot.

Re: Change Your Name

#146

Post by Stratoscope »

function_seven wrote: post #56
rubiquity wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently I'm still really, really bad at this.

:). Just think to yourself what apples have to do with computers and phones.

The Apple name did have a somewhat contrived connection with computers when the company was first started.

Back in 1976, Steve Jobs explained the name to me: "Take a byte of the Apple, get it?" And that's where the famous shape of the logo came from.

(I almost ended up working for him at the time - but that is a whole other story!)

Re: Change Your Name

#147

Post by tbrownaw »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #109
loup-vaillant wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

DNS is already centralized.

That's a different kind of centralized.

Everything going thru search engines, means you depend on someone who has no responsibility towards the people they have power over. That's bad; you have to waste time understanding their incentives and staying on their good side.

Re: Change Your Name

#148

Post by AJ007 »

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…

An easy thing for a well funded start up to spend money on is their domain name. A good question to ask is when did the top 20 YC companies by valuation buy theirs. Did they pass over really talented devs just so they could drop $500k on a dot com?

Things are changing. Talk to 18-20 year olds about how they are using the internet. Throw out an address using one of ICANN's new extensions. Do they even recognize its a website? EV Certs don't even show URLs in some browsers. Do mobile users look for you on Google, or in the app/play/other store? Personally I'm uncomfortable with the positions ICANN has taken.I don't trust them to protect domain's owner rights. We need better alternatives.

Re: Change Your Name

#149

Post by nodesocket »

I think there should a distinction made between consumer startups and b2b.

If you are a database or developer tools company, .io actually makes more sense. .io is the standard, and it has become de facto.

However, if your startup is a food rating service, or Uber for X, you gotta have the .com.

Re: Change Your Name

#150

Post by tzury »

PG

    a) Thanks for writing new posts. I have been missing your
       writings for quite long.

    b) IIRC, Dropbox started as getdropbox.com, just later on,
       when money "was not an issue", they purchased the more 
       expensive one - dropbox.com. 
       
       same applies to uber.com, square (which started as 
       squareapp.com) and many others.
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