For company names- how much “creativity” is just too much?
Google is undoubtedly the most recognized domain name the whole world round. More people have typed in g o o g l e . com than any other domain; Youtube, Amazon, you name it. These are 10/10 (perfect) domain names. Here we will contrast and compare to less easily memorable domain names.
A lot of companies with good plans, and good service or products have failed at their current choice of business/domain/brand names. It’s never too late to change your company/domain name.
The proliferation of domain-name squatting has led online start-ups to resort to increasingly ridiculous branding. So many companies, especially technology companies, have and still are making quite a mockery (some would argue an ‘evolution’) of the English language.
The saddest part is that it is often not their business model or core company’s fault that their start-up business has flopped over time.
Reviewing failed start-ups in the past couple of years, it has become obvious that about 9 out of 10 companies that have gone downhill over time - have had domain names that made it quite difficult to tell what they did (by looking at the name of the company/domain ).
In contrast, if you look at the companies in the Fortune 100, you can pretty much figure out what they do - Shell Oil, International Business Machines, United Parcel Service, Microsoft, etc... Most of the successful company's have names that match what they do - making it pretty clear upfront.
Fledgling companies, that have had to spend more than a minute, teaching each consumer ‘what it is they do’ have inadvertently positioned themselves to swim against the tide from day one.
It takes a lot of skill with the English language - to think up the best names and brands that are catchy to consumers within a particular service or product-line. But there is the additional modern problem of coming up with a domain name that isn’t already taken or “squatted”-upon.
For example: think up a dozen-or-so names for a new business and then look them up to see if those domain names are available.
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The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) - the organization that has been given the extremely fortunate and easy privilege of managing TLDs (“Top Level Domains), routinely approve and release new domain extensions (.shop, .name, .etc) - but new TLDs are not an elegant solution. It is quite obvious that most people prefer “.com”s for easiest internet branding. Truly, in most cases only dummies really want a .org, .io, .info, or even .net representing their core website name.
Below are some (a few of hundreds in total) examples of companies that have had stupid names - that quickly flopped and lost 100s or 10’s of millions of investor’s dollars:
Dumb name choice: Kozmo.com
Total Investor Money lost: $256,400,000
If making money on operations was a near impossibility, Kozmo seemed perpetual in that regard. Over time it floated other plans, like starting a print catalog and then a delivery service for local retailers. (However they discovered that retailers in general liked to manage own deliverymen, even at a bit more of a premium. Dumb name too. Just dumb... A $256,000,000 still dumb domain name.
Dumb name choice: Cuil
Total Investor Money lost: $33,000,000
Another unintended failure... Well obviously because the name is tough to spell and unintuitive to pronounce (every article written about Cuil had to remind folks that it is pronounced “cool”), and also because it couldn’t live up to its high claims of outperforming Google. ‘A’ for effort tho!
Dumb name choice: Joost Total Investor Money lost: $45,000,000
Joost attracted 45 million in investment. News releases and articles at the time billed Joost as a potential “YouTube killer.” YouTube proved popular (and clearly a much more pertinent domain name choice ). The entirely better brand was eventually acquired by Google and currently dominates web video.
Dumb name choice: Flooz.com
floozy
or floosie, floosy, floozie
[floo-zee] See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
noun, plural floozies. Slang.1.
a gaudily dressed, usually immoral woman, especially a prostitute.
Total Investor Money lost: $51,500,000
While the company says it suffered from an unfavorable economic climate, credit card fraud also played a part in its demise. “We have been the victims of organized credit card fraud,” says Levitan, who says Flooz was hit for $300,000 for transactions charged to card numbers stolen by an international crime ring. The company’s credit card processor was holding $1 million in Flooz’s funds to cover chargebacks, said the CEO. However, in the first place what a stupid-ass domain name. One big DUH!
Dumb name choice: Renkoo
Total Investor Money lost: $12,000,000
Facebook competitor. Renkoo ( WTF!?! )
Company: Rdio
Total Investor Money lost: $117.5M
Radio is spelled with an “a” too!
Company: Boo.com
Total Investor Money lost: $135,000,000 ( One Hundred and Thirty Five Million! )
Boo! It looks like Casper’s cousin took all that cash!
Company: Veoh Networks
Total Investor Money lost: $70,800,000
Maybe a better name would have been UhOh.com
Not all great domain names have been used up though. We found a quite decent one, linktoit.com - the phrase “link to it” is a natural part of modern language - as the website puts forward - the domain name succinctly captures the essence of the internet. We don’t know the price, the domain simply has: “ This primo domain that captures the essence of the internet in its name receives at least over 100+ random views per day with no advertising. It is for sale. You can email info@linktoit.com for a prompt reply (with 48 hours) to an inquiry. “
We bid $100. There was no response from the domain holder, yet...
By the way, if you would like to look up a domain record for any domain name, please feel free to use our free whois service: mywhois.net
Did you know that you might not be alone....
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