What’s In A Name? The Internet vs. The Real World

In the real world we own our name. I’ve got a birth certificate somewhere which confirms who am I and, short of changing it by deed poll, this name will remain with me until I shuffle off this mortal coil. Although there’s quite a few Gary Gales out there on the Internet, this one is inextricably me and no-one can take that away from me.

What’s In A Name? The Internet vs. The Real World

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The Best Marketing Move Microsoft Could Make With Windows Phone: CHANGE THE NAME (MSFT)

Windows Phone is a fine mobile platform.

The interface is innovative and gets you in and out of tasks more quickly than the menus and icons that Apple and Android use. Its email app is top-notch.

Its on-screen keyboard is actually better than the iPhone's. (I know this because I've been using a Windows Phone that Microsoft loaned me as my primary phone for the last two weeks -- I make far fewer errors, and when I do, the auto-correct is much better.)

The September update, code-named Mango, will add cool features like app multitasking, a speedy new browser with HTML5 support, voice commands, augmented reality, the ability to identify songs that are playing...and on and on.

There have been a few glitches -- updates aren't getting pushed out as smoothly as they should be, and some obvious features like cut and paste won't be added until Mango. Plus, it needs more apps, but that's to be expected given that it came out more than three years after the iPhone and two years after Android.

But overall, Windows Phone doesn't have a quality problem. It has a perception problem.

And there's one quick and easy way Microsoft can start to fix it.

Stop calling it "Windows Phone."

Windows Phone has nothing to do with the traditional desktop Windows. It doesn't run Windows apps. It requires different hardware (ARM instead of Intel x86 processors). It's based on different technology, all the way down to the kernel.

Windows Phone isn't even a windowing operating system like Windows. (Or the various Mac OSs over the years or the Xerox Alto which started the whole windowing thing.) It uses a system of horizontal and vertical menus with big words filling up the screen. There are no "windows" to collapse and move around, unless you consider an app running on a full screen to be a "window."

Every Windows Phone has a physical start button that mimics the Windows icon, but Microsoft ought to scrap that, too. Nobody cares. Just call it a "home" button and be done with it.

A long time ago when Windows ruled the world, naming other products after it seemed like a good idea. But now that Windows PC sales are declining among consumers, why burden what's supposed to be a future-looking product with a backward-looking name?

There's some precedent for the move, too. Microsoft launched its search engine in 2005, and by 2008 it was pretty good -- its accuracy was better than Google for some results, worse for others, but it wasn't horrible.

But it had a horrible name. Windows Live Search. Then Live Search. Meaningless. Forgettable. No fun.

It wasn't until Microsoft renamed it Bing in 2009 that people started paying attention. Bing versus Google -- that suddenly sounded like a real battle.

Microsoft knows how to come up with catchy names. Bing. Silverlight. Lync (much better than its previous names like Live Communications Server and Office Communications Server). Xbox. Zune. (Which is a tarnished brand because the first version was so much worse than the iPod at the time, but at least it wasn't Windows Human Ear Professional Edition or something.)

For Windows Phone to survive, it has to be a great consumer product. And every great consumer product has a great consumer name.

Here's a suggestion: Mango.

Or better yet, build Skype into the OS and call them Skype phones.

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See Also:

• Here's A Tough Job: "Consumer Demand Generation" For Windows Phone
• Microsoft's Real Windows Phone 7 Problem: Nobody Cares
• Microsoft Opens Windows Phone To Much Better Apps

The Best Marketing Move Microsoft Could Make With Windows Phone: CHANGE THE NAME (MSFT)

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Power.com Shuts Down, Domain Name Up For Sale

A tipster informs us that Power.com is no more and that the domain name will be sold through an auction that ends on August 17, 2011. Interested parties can pre-register on the hideous, superlative-laden website in order to receive detailed instructions for the auction in May 2011. Power.com originally made its debut in November 2008 as a site that aggregated data from a variety of social networking sites in a single, Web-based interface.

Power.com Shuts Down, Domain Name Up For Sale

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What NOT To Do When You're Buying A Domain Name

Navigating the world of domain names can be a daunting task if you're not up to speed on how to get one.

With countless caveats and hosting companies  out there, it's easy to be overwhelmed or worse, make a mistake that could ultimately cripple your business.

Consider these do's and don'ts from small-business owners and experts to help secure your company's domain name.

Do: Include a location or keywords in your domain name, if you can.

If your business focuses on a geographic region, try to put the location into the name of your domain, says Jean Bedord, a Silicon Valley-based search consultant and author of the book I've Got a Domain Name--Now What???

When Mikalai Krivenko needed a domain for his painting business in Hoboken, N.J., in 2009, his son Yuriy, a Brooklyn-based search-optimization specialist, suggested he put "Hoboken" in the name. For $11, Krivenko bought hobokenpainter.com, which shows up at the top of keyword searches that include "Hoboken" and "painter." Whether it's location, or what your company does, Krivenko advises: "Put the most important keyword for your industry in the domain name."

Do: Register yourself as the owner of the domain name.

Some business owners make the mistake of not checking to ensure whoever registers their domain name does so under the business owner's name. It's very important to be sure you are the domain owner and administrative contact, says Bedord. "It's just like a piece of property. If you don't own the property, you can't sell an existing business," she says.

It's an obvious, yet common, mistake made by business owners. Three years after Graham Hunt, 44, started his real estate firm Valencia Property in Spain in 2000, the two-person web design team he hired to build his site split and he had to choose between them. Hunt soon discovered the partner he didn't choose had registered himself as the owner and administrative contact for the domain name, so Hunt didn't own his own website. It took three years and he ended up paying the disgruntled partner nearly $6,000 in sales commission fees to get back ownership of the domain, which originally cost just $15.

Do: Remember to renew your domain name registration.

When Nick Hoffmann, 32, missed the renewal of his networking company's domain name inetguru.com in 2000, it was a crippling business blow. The name got bought by someone else and without email access through the site, Hoffmann lost contact with clients. Eventually, he folded the company. Now working as chief operating officer for an aftermarket marketplace for domains, Hoffmann suggests buying a registration for five or 10 years upfront, or setting up an annual auto-renew payment.

Just make sure the credit card on file doesn't expire, another common mistake that might lead to losing a domain name. "The whole aftermarket industry is based on names that drop off," he says. "It happens every day."

Don't: Use dashes, abbreviations or numbers in your domain name.

Instead, come up with a catchy name that's easy to remember and captures your business. Fan Bi, co-founder of Blank Label, a Boston-based online custom dress shirt company learned that lesson when settling on a domain in 2008. At the time, blanklabel.com was out of his price range at $15,000.

Bi chose blank-label.com for a much cheaper $250. But as the business grew, he realized the hyphenated name was far from the best choice. "You get much more word-of-mouth if it's a name you can easily say without having to spell out," Bi says. Last year, after months of negotiation with the domain owner, he was able to purchase blanklabel.com for $6,000. Just three months after the change, website traffic shot up 25%.


Don't: Waste money on extensions other than .com.

When you register your domain name, you'll be bombarded with offers to purchase other versions like .net and .co. For most small businesses, that's not needed. Investing in other extensions becomes important when patenting something or protecting a trademark, says Bedord. If you think a competitor might want the .net version of your domain name, for example, consider taking it first. "The reality is you have to pay for every one of those," Bedord says. "The value is really in the .com."

Don't: Buy a domain without checking into its past.

Even available domains can be exposed to legal trouble if the name is too similar to another company's trademark. Nearly a year after launching New York-based LEEDTeacher in 2009, Zachary Rose learned the domain LEEDTeacher.com infringed on the registered trademark of a massive nonprofit.

Rose, now 29, received a cease-and-desist letter demanding he change the name of his green jobs training firm, and shut down the website. He ultimately paid $2,000 in lawyer fees, renamed the company Green Education Services and switched the domain to GreenEDU.com.

Aside from consulting a lawyer, check www.whois.net, which lists registered domain names, for other possible legal landmines, suggests Rose. The site also includes expired domains up for grabs, and you can learn what problems a name comes with. For example, if a previous domain owner violated a Google term and was banned from Google searches, you'll want to know before investing in the name, Rose says.

This post originally appeared at Entrepreneur.

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See Also:

• Three Cool, Creative Ways Businesses Use iPads
• Join Us At Make Mine A Million (M3 1000) In Denver
• Small Business News: Social Media School

What NOT To Do When You're Buying A Domain Name

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Bismillah In the name of Allah

Bismillah In the name of Allah

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Wikileaks Lost Domain Name, Amazon Services Following DDOS Attack, Changes Its Web Address

The DNS Company EveryDNS.net have terminated its services to the controversial Wikileaks domain name. Citing the reason as the large scale DDOS attacks. But Wikileaks has already reappeared using a Swiss web address.

Wikileaks Lost Domain Name, Amazon Services Following DDOS Attack, Changes Its Web Address

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Email Reverse Lookup - Trace Unknown Gmail And Other Email Addresses And Get Name And Location

Email Reverse Lookup - Trace Unknown Gmail And Other Email Addresses And Get Name And LocationThe beauty of technology is such human beings from any part of the earth can really trace a person to where he or she lives through his/her e-letter domicil

Email Reverse Lookup - Trace Unknown Gmail And Other Email Addresses And Get Name And Location

Backlink: http://www.blogcatalog.com/search/frame?term=location&id;=424a185bd2b05c644f14cbac7c2a273f

Why VGI needs a new name

In this day and age, you cannot afford to organize a conference that even remotely has something to do with geographic information and not have a “VGI” track / focus / workshop – or at least a few talks covering the topic. Over lunch, everyone agrees: VGI is important, and we’re on the case.