from Hacker News

Tell HN: It's not about domains, it's about a package

by kamme on 7/13/10, 8:33 AM with 4 comments

I often see advice about domain names and how choosing the correct domain name is one of the most important things to have a successfull concept, but in my opinion it's not about domain names, it's about branding/accounts in general.

If you don't have the twitter account, facebook page, linkedin, ... to go with your (domain) name, it's pretty useless to register the domain. People expect a package, not only a domain.

That is why tools that do it all (like for ex. http://www.namechecklist.com/ ) are in my eyes far more important then any domain checking tool, you don't want a domain, you want the whole package. It makes finding the correct name harder, but in general it's that name that has to be as unique as possible. It's always better to think about things like this is advance, it's harder to change afterwards...

  • by jbail on 7/13/10, 4:30 PM

    I might be the minority, but I just don't care what Google has to say on Twitter and the whole "visit us on Facebook" thing is just lame. It used to be "visit us on MySpace" and I think it'll be something else in the near future. "Friending" my bank just isn't going to happen.

    Social networking sites come and go as their popularity waxes and wanes. Your domain name will (or should) outlive them.

  • by moe on 7/13/10, 1:44 PM

    how choosing the correct domain name is one of the most important things to have a successfull concept

    Nonsense. The name is amongst the least important bits of almost any product. It should obviously meet some basic criteria (be pronouncable..). Beyond that it's mostly bikeshedding, unless you're in one of the rare markets/situations where branding really matters.

    Moreover the tool you mention seems to be horribly misleading. It gives me a green "70%" in domain availability for a name that has .com, .net, .org taken...

  • by CatalystFactory on 7/13/10, 2:03 PM

    I'm not sure you need the whole package, but it sure helps and potentially saves time/cost down the road.

    @moe I think branding is always important.