So, you decided to name your company / product / app / website / brand etc? You've been told by everybody how important the name is, given a bunch of vague unhelpful advice of how it should be something memorable, strong, fashionable, short, expressive, awesome, modern, 'edgy', and many other adjectives found in the language? Aside from that you've given it a lot of thought and want it to be "you". Something unique, and related to you in some way. You sit and think about it day and night, right down names on walls because you ran out of paper around the house / office, it comes to you in a dream and in the morning you wonder what drinks you had or what did you have before falling asleep to come up with such horrible idea.
Anyway. The point is you put a lot of thought and effort and time into naming your precious. And YES finally! You got it! It's just right! Sunshine and joy, good mood, cheerful singing, the world is at your feet. You get your cup of coffee and go to godaddy.com, asmallorange.com, or any other hosting spot. You type in myPrecious.com and that smile is wiped off of your face - the name is taken. You say "fine. I'll try this one". Nope that's taken, too. You try .net .org, ... .tv! (you're desparate!) taken... taken. TAKEN! You wonder who has thought of that name that you love so much. You go check out the page and oh what a surprise it's not being used - it's parked. Pay somewhere between $500 and $1.500 or hey $25.000 and that domain will be yours. The other 40% says "hey, if you want this domain click here or contact derpderp@domainnamesiwant.derp." Eventually, you will come across a couple of websites that use a similar name as you had originally chosen for a really horribly "designed" page that actually has nothing to do with the word.
From this point you have a couple choices.
Look around you, pick an object, type in that, if it's not taken - hey it's all yours. Name your precious creation ForkOnAPlate or GlassOfMilk or laVase etc. To anybody who questions you tell them they are not artistic enough to comprehend (and in your mind say "you're not autistic enough to understand").
Or make up a name that means absolutely nothing just put in random letters or close your eyes and type something.
Or, open a dictionary, find a verb that you like, skip a letter or two, or misspell it in a fancy way, let your imagination loose. One of them should work.
Anyway, the point is it's hard enough to find a name, and it's even harder to find a domain name that's not parked or in a very rare case used by somebody else. So next time you make fun of product names or laugh at how they have nothing to do with the product / website / brand, understand that people just didn't want to spend unreasonable money on buying out a... name.
It's really bad out there and nobody is doing anything about it. In my opinion parking should be illegal and monitored by hosting providers. But of course it brings in money to providers so why should they move a finger? The system works fine for them and brings in extra money. And why would they spend time and resources on something that's sort of profitable for them?
On the other hand, if there was a domain provider who would forbid domain parkings, it would probably get all the clients from all the other ones that don't. It would take just one to do that. They could even up their hosting prices - and balance out their no parking policy. Eventually all the other providers would end up with name parkers and no other business, bad reputation, and hopefully either go out of business or change their policy to no parking as well. Sure wouldn't happen overnight but hey would work and pay off eventually. And we would stop having ridiculous brand names and have less chaos, less headaches, less stress, sunshine and singing.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Perfect world. It could and should happen though. I think, a lot of people never give any thought to this problem until they come face to face with it. Then, as soon as they settle for other bad options they forget that there was a problem at all and don't want to so much as raise a finger and do something about it, talk about it, start a petition, raise awareness, or anything else that people do. But first step is realizing that there is a problem that needs solving. A problem that shouldn't have been there in the first place. I bet if somebody went out to all the stores bought out all the milk, and started selling it for $500 per carton or say to the highest bidder I bet people would not be too happy about it and not tolerate it. So ask yourselves why should domain parking be tolerated?
Anyway. The point is you put a lot of thought and effort and time into naming your precious. And YES finally! You got it! It's just right! Sunshine and joy, good mood, cheerful singing, the world is at your feet. You get your cup of coffee and go to godaddy.com, asmallorange.com, or any other hosting spot. You type in myPrecious.com and that smile is wiped off of your face - the name is taken. You say "fine. I'll try this one". Nope that's taken, too. You try .net .org, ... .tv! (you're desparate!) taken... taken. TAKEN! You wonder who has thought of that name that you love so much. You go check out the page and oh what a surprise it's not being used - it's parked. Pay somewhere between $500 and $1.500 or hey $25.000 and that domain will be yours. The other 40% says "hey, if you want this domain click here or contact derpderp@domainnamesiwant.derp." Eventually, you will come across a couple of websites that use a similar name as you had originally chosen for a really horribly "designed" page that actually has nothing to do with the word.
From this point you have a couple choices.
Look around you, pick an object, type in that, if it's not taken - hey it's all yours. Name your precious creation ForkOnAPlate or GlassOfMilk or laVase etc. To anybody who questions you tell them they are not artistic enough to comprehend (and in your mind say "you're not autistic enough to understand").
Or make up a name that means absolutely nothing just put in random letters or close your eyes and type something.
Or, open a dictionary, find a verb that you like, skip a letter or two, or misspell it in a fancy way, let your imagination loose. One of them should work.
Anyway, the point is it's hard enough to find a name, and it's even harder to find a domain name that's not parked or in a very rare case used by somebody else. So next time you make fun of product names or laugh at how they have nothing to do with the product / website / brand, understand that people just didn't want to spend unreasonable money on buying out a... name.
It's really bad out there and nobody is doing anything about it. In my opinion parking should be illegal and monitored by hosting providers. But of course it brings in money to providers so why should they move a finger? The system works fine for them and brings in extra money. And why would they spend time and resources on something that's sort of profitable for them?
On the other hand, if there was a domain provider who would forbid domain parkings, it would probably get all the clients from all the other ones that don't. It would take just one to do that. They could even up their hosting prices - and balance out their no parking policy. Eventually all the other providers would end up with name parkers and no other business, bad reputation, and hopefully either go out of business or change their policy to no parking as well. Sure wouldn't happen overnight but hey would work and pay off eventually. And we would stop having ridiculous brand names and have less chaos, less headaches, less stress, sunshine and singing.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Perfect world. It could and should happen though. I think, a lot of people never give any thought to this problem until they come face to face with it. Then, as soon as they settle for other bad options they forget that there was a problem at all and don't want to so much as raise a finger and do something about it, talk about it, start a petition, raise awareness, or anything else that people do. But first step is realizing that there is a problem that needs solving. A problem that shouldn't have been there in the first place. I bet if somebody went out to all the stores bought out all the milk, and started selling it for $500 per carton or say to the highest bidder I bet people would not be too happy about it and not tolerate it. So ask yourselves why should domain parking be tolerated?
No comments:
Post a Comment