If somebody wanted to name their product or company during the Dot Com Boom they wanted to own the .com.  After all, it was the Dot Com Boom, not the Dot Poo Boom.  Their second choice was .net, then .org, and so forth. The Web 2.0 generation no longer cared for an accurately-spelled domain at all costs.  Flickr, Bit.ly, Scribd, Delicio.us and Instagr.am became the creative norm.  Part of this resulted because startups realized it was poor stewardship of their investors’ money to pay for a slick name when the product execution matters most.

Don Draper of Mad Men works on Madison Avenue (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The only reason to buy .poo is if .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .tv, .me, .cc, .ws, .us and .co are already taken and you still think the name would be effective in branding your product or service.  When Delicio.us was acquired by Yahoo!, they bought delicious.com.  Instagr.am bought instagram.com once it was financially feasible.  Virtually the only thing on Instagram’s website is a link to their mobile app.  Facebook paid $1 Billion for this company and a website wasn’t even a part of their business model.

We saw what happened with the release of the .xxx gTLD.  Nobody in their right mind wanted to be in the ghetto if they could have the prime .com real estate.  Even the porn industry preferred to be on Rodeo Drive.  I work with companies that defensively purchase domains for their projects but the average budgets are about $10K.  If they don’t get the domain at a reasonable price, then oh well.  They know owning the .com is a component to their branding process, but not ‘the’ component.  Search engine optimization, social media, mobile and execution are far more important.  I can’t remember the last time I typed w w w dot anything.  I go to my browser’s Google bar, type the brand name and click a result. There is a sucker born every minute.  I don’t care who visits knockoffreport.poo.  Do you?

Now I’m going to finish my coffee.