Name Awards

Top 10 ways to find a free .com name in 2010

Every week someone cries on my shoulder about how hard it is becoming to find free .com domain names. Well they are disappearing at a rate of 1 million a month, and have been doing so for a while, so what do you expect if you are only waking up now?

Anyway, here are my professional suggestions. Let me know what you think or pass along the list, with due credit to Athol Foden of Brighter Naming.

1. Use a number in your name. e.g. 3Com, 2Wire, Tack360, etc. Works best if name is mostly seen online and not used much on the phone.
2. Use a different form of a verb.  e.g  Learning Spanish instead of Learn Spanish say. Or Brighter Naming instead of Bright Naming. Non-English languages often have lots of conjugations of their verbs providing even more options.
3. Personalize or localize the name.  e.g.  iFly, MySpinnerTricks, YourBicycleTracks, OurFishingTrips, TexasBigGameSupporters, ScottishCurlingClub, CollegePaymentsUSA, etc.
4. Coin new words from classic or other roots:  Miradiance  (Mira is Spanish/Latin for view), Frito Lay (Frito is Spanish for fried), Verantis (From verity = truth and Atlantis)
5. Use initials as well:   PFChangs, PrintDNA, SugarCRM, NGMoco
6. Combine parts of words: e.g. Solyndra from solar and cylinder, Sony from sonus and sonny, Transcera from transcend and era. Or even combine languages: e.g. NeuStar  (German + English words), Tambrio (English + Spanish).
7. Go Hawaiian, or African, or …     Akamai, Wiki, Ubuntu, Zynga
8. Squeeze vowels in (to make smoother pronunciations) like Avidasports, Affinaquest, or out (aka IM speak) to make for very short names like Flickr, Loopt, VCTRY.
9. Go phonetic with something that just sounds good and create your own meanings:   Cisco, Kinkos, Zanitar, Jamba, Brivo, Ariba, Skype
10. Work with a professional naming agency or consultant that tracks free domains and can also quickly implement one of the above techniques.

Number 10 is probably the least expensive solution when you consider the management time and legal headaches they also solve, especially now that competition has driven prices down to $6000 for corporate accounts, and much less for individuals or small businesses.

Bloom Energy for your body or your building!

Just when I thought what a good name Bloom Energy was for the fuel cell company officially (and finally) launching tomorrow (Wed 23rd) - after getting a mega scoop preview on 60 minutes - I discovered other trademarks on the name Bloom Energy.

Now what would you do if you were the marketing team down at Del Monte Corp. with this great new energy drink blend that you have been so carefully cultivating and here comes the home and office energy story of the year with your same name?

Do you ignore them, knowing fuel cell energy companies are only in the spotlight briefly? Or do you play along and start talking about fuel cells for your body?

Exact match trademarks can be registered, of course, since trademarks are filed according to definite International Classes and these are in very different classes. As the supply of names continues to tighten, we will see lots more of this happening. I even recall last year seeing three different TV ads in the same week for 3 different products, all called Fusion. And none of them was one of the very popular fusion restaurants.

Kwik, is it Kewlr or Kewler?

Since I for one have been quoted in the press about new name styles that squeeze out the vowels becoming more popular, I should not be surprised to discover names like Kewlr ( a social bookmarking site) and Kewler (makers of Icy Hot balls) coexisting.

Maybe I will also need a copy of KwikEdit to get my site straightened out before I kew up to go to Kuwait.

Never lay your hands on the Neverland name.

Although it is a straight copy by Michael Jackson, and before that by Disney, of a mythical place name in the classic Peter Pan novels, today there are some big organizations and their friendly lawyers protecting the Neverland name. And, of course, Michael Jackson’s estate is probably worth a lot more now that he has passed on. So I was not surprised to read that a would-be tribute musical band had been sent one of those dreaded cease and desist letters for trying to use the name. In a smart move, they are now Foreverland. Much cheaper than fighting a lawsuit… but a positive implied connection nevertheless.

During Jackson’s passing, his Neverland Ranch gained even more immense worldwide coverage. Ironically, when he bought it originally from Sycamore Valley Ranch, he renamed it, but he had subsequently become a part owner of Sycamore Valley Ranch and taken over the ownership. So much of the public immediately recognized the brand as being associated with Michael Jackson - and would attest to that if asked for a common opinion - even though there are many trademark applications and fights over the name. Pity Jackson didn’t properly protect it earlier, instead of the slew of filings on his death (assuming he could get the rights properly from Disney or J.M.Barrie Estate author of Peter Pan).

Enough legal, more interestingly, why does the name have such power, such interest, such fascination? It is a negative right? Wow. Great example of where a negative has become a positive. How much more over the top brandable than Sycamore Valley Ranch? Immeasurable…  with maybe even a touch of genius behind it. Most corporations I know would get all analytical and say it is too negative a name for us - but most of them outside Hollywood are not paid to dream!

Eloquent and beautiful.. but in this day and age Neverland is taken as a name. RIP Michael Jackson… we will leave your place name to your lawyers and family.

When the obvious is simple and bounces right along.

Now that we all know the Apple lawyers were laying a false trail (or there is more to come), isn’t it refreshing that the marketing geniuses there kept the new naming architecture clean and simple too. So now we can look forward to iPad, iBooks, etc.

But we expect that of Apple. Historically Polaroid has been a different story though, often falling over all their own wasted ink papers. Not now. The new consumer camera contains their instant print magic as well as being a digital camera. And it has the hip, sweet, simple and obvious name PoGo.

Congratulations. But the fun is only just starting. They have announced a co-branding deal with Lady Gaga of all people. Talk about moving from stuffy to hip and relevant! Will that be the Lady PoGo or the GagoPo or PaGoGa or PoLady…  ?

Oh dear…TabletMac is such a heavy name!

A year from now people will be so used to playing with their TabletMacs they will have forgotten what a heavy a name it has. Shouldn’t that word be reserved for companies taking their medicine? Who the heck came up with it anyway? (Probably Moses and his stone age friends).

Yes Apple, we know you have lots of brand power and marketing reach, but we are not accustomed to seeing such boring heavy names from you. It is time for a new category name, even if you have to cross over something like you did in moving iPod from internet kiosk usage.

This time you have Kindle and Nook giving you a run for your money on the book front too. Of course, we know you plan to become the standard for video reviewing too. So why not Vpad, or Vpod or VMac or PadMac… almost anything is better than the langourous Tablet name.

Are you antsy for some ittie bittie thing from Etsy?

In the latest Reader’s digest, the Founder of Etsy.com explains how he actually wanted a nonsense word since he planned on creating the brand from scratch. Even so, it is not all of us who watch Italian operas and listen for common phrases. Apparently in Italian etsi means Oh, yes. In Latin, it means although, even if (the article says and if).

From that he derived Etsy, probably because the domain Etsi.com was already tied up by an European Telecom standards body. So it really is not nonsense at all.

Sound a bit cutesy to you? Of course it does… but that is very appropriate for all the hand made arts and crafts vendors that use Etsy as their main online shop site. I might start my Xmas shopping here.. and help the little guys in this economy.

Magenn if you can, a new clean technology that works

Well, if you were going to create a company to invent and deploy lighter than air wind turbine generators, what would you call it?  Windy Sky? What if you imagined that these devices could be deployed worldwide, wherever Magellan sailed?  Then maybe you would come up with a unique new name like Magenn.

OK, I can hear you cringing now and saying “I would never name my company with an awkward coined word like that!”. In such a case, I would remind you of all the people who never would of dreamed of naming their company Cisco or Google. But now those are great names, because their shortness and good phonetics, with sticky consonants, are proving to be memorable brand monikers.

I am not smart enough to know if Magenn’s flying wind turbines will really work… but they are fascinating and we wish them well.  And seriously consider them as  a prospect if you are a venture investor. Their embedded tagline does a great job of positioning the technology until such time as they are better known.

Note: We have no connections to this company and have done no business or technology evaluation other than on their company name.

Code names for code on the eve of code camp

On the eve (almost) of Silicon Valley CodeCamp, I cannot help reminiscing about old computer compilers and coders. Remember the old traditional abbreviations like Fortran (Formula Translation), Cobol (Common Boring Language - Officially Common Business Language), RPG (Report Program Generator) and the trustworthy Basic?

Well I was an old time coder, which I perhaps why I am one of the few marketing types invited to hang out at this ultimate free programming geekfest. I loved it when Kim Polese, while a great product manager at Sun, changed the name from Green (formerly Oak) to Java. Programmers have been brewing up a storm ever since. What a marketing coup - via a simple name change.

Of course, nowadays, Java has to compete with other exciting tools like Python, Scala and Ruby on Rails. Their names alone are enough to make me want to investigate their capabilities - at least if I was still a hacker. Instead, I am relegated to presenting on how to convert code into products, and products into brands.

Naming on the All Business radio show

Sheryl Parks, one of the business reporters and hosts on KBZNZ, has a great play on her own name:  Sparks to Flame. She has also been an entrepreneur in previous lives so was a very smart host when interviewing me about naming your startup.

Listen in tomorrow (Wed 23rd) at 6:00am or 6:00pm (PST) when we will be on the air together on KZBNZ internet talk radio.