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.

Fancy having to market an airline with a backwards name like Etihad!

As if marketing and promoting a new airline isn’t hard enough, imagine having to do it when you are stuck with a name like Etihad! Yes, they might have recently been awarded some best airline of the year prizes, but obviously they weren’t measuring the name qualities. And across the runway from you stands Emirates making life even harder - another name that was foreign to us, but at least we had heard of it or could pronounce it.

I feel better riding with this airline now that I see their all very experienced British and Australian management team, but I guess the owners are never going to let them have a nicey friendly name. I wonder if they realize their name looks like someone cleverly spelled their name backwards to make a unique email or forum name - at least to western ears and eyes? I choke on enjoying my English premier league soccer everytime this awkward name shows up on the ad boards.

Mogi is confused… maybe Nogo is better.

Far be it for me to critize strange and unusual names like Mogi … but then again it takes a lot of branding dollars to promote such a Star Wars sounding name as being a trustworthy car maintenance service plan provider.

So why shoot yourself in the foot with a logo that makes your name appear to be Amogi?

Are they trying to add a little love?

Get it?  No, well go over to GetMogi.com just to add to the confusion.

From San Francisco and Pegasus come…..

Truncate the name San Francisco and you have Cisco… the big networking company founded in the San Francisco Bay Area. That is why their logo is half a golden gate bridge (cut lengthwise)!

Now I find out that the big and upcoming Chinese high tech company was going to be called Pegasus (good luck on getting that trademark worldwide), but truncated it rather to be Asus so they could be front of the alphabet. That is a very bad reason to pick a name nowadays. If you are relying on people finding you at the front of the yellow pages directory, then you have much bigger marketing problems. Google searches sure don’t care if your name starts with an A or a Z. In fact, even in alphabetical searches, 3Com, for example, will be ahead of this ass like name.

Around here, every time anyone says Asus, all the latino men named Jesus jump up, as that is what it also sounds like unless people emphasize the H sound of Jesus.. which they don’t do!

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.