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Domain hacks are funny but counterproductive and problematic in the long run. Domain hacks involving digits are a marketing problem squared. See the reasoning

by Revisor 16y ago

Domain hacks are funny but counterproductive and problematic in the long run. Domain hacks involving digits are a marketing problem squared. See the reasoning behind the switch from del.icio.us to Delicious.com: So why did we switch to delicious.com? We’ve seen a zillion different confusions and misspellings of “del.icio.us” over the years (for example, “de.licio.us”, “del.icio.us.com”, and “del.licio.us”), so moving to delicious.com will make it easier for people to find the site and share it with their friends. http://blog.delicious.com/blog/2008/07/oh-happy-day.html http://blog.delicious.com/blog/2008/07/oh-happy-day.html

SoftwareMaven 16y ago
Also known as "We wanted delicious.com from the beginning, but couldn't afford it. Now we are big enough to pay for it." ;) I always liked the hack (I still us it; it's shorter), but I'm obviously not an average user. You are completely right that being "clever" in your domain (or really anything regarding your product) is often not a great plan.
- joshu 16y ago
  Actually, we'd bought the domain in 2005. It seemed like the right thing to do later on. Remember that nobody had really done domain names like that (maybe cr.yp.to? i also have had burri.to for 15 years...) in a big way before, so it wasn't clear that it was a bad idea at the time. Some of the other domains, like http://delicio.us/ http://delicio.us/ worked correctly too. I wonder if Yahoo! kept them all.
  - Revisor 16y ago
    Hi Joshua, thank you for chiming in. Can you estimate how much users/visitors you lost due to the complicated domain name?
SoftwareMaven 16y ago
Also known as "We wanted delicious.com from the beginning, but couldn't afford it. Now we are big enough to pay for it." ;) I always liked the hack (I still us it; it's shorter), but I'm obviously not an average user. You are completely right that being "clever" in your domain (or really anything regarding your product) is often not a great plan.
semanticist 16y ago
I use semantici.st for my email and blog, and it's a real chore. The ccTLDs used in domain hacks are frequently expensive at renewal time and reading your domain out to people verbally is a huge pain. If I was starting over, I'd pick something else.
whatusername 16y ago
depends on who you are marketing to.. Geeks not so much -- try to go general public though and you want an easy to spell .com // I'm still jealous of Matt Mullenweg's personal domain though: ma.tt is a pretty awesome domain hack.

by Revisor 16y ago

SoftwareMaven 16y ago

Also known as "We wanted delicious.com from the beginning, but couldn't afford it. Now we are big enough to pay for it." ;) I always liked the hack (I still us it; it's shorter), but I'm obviously not an average user. You are completely right that being "clever" in your domain (or really anything regarding your product) is often not a great plan.

joshu 16y ago
Actually, we'd bought the domain in 2005. It seemed like the right thing to do later on. Remember that nobody had really done domain names like that (maybe cr.yp.to? i also have had burri.to for 15 years...) in a big way before, so it wasn't clear that it was a bad idea at the time. Some of the other domains, like http://delicio.us/ http://delicio.us/ worked correctly too. I wonder if Yahoo! kept them all.
- Revisor 16y ago
  Hi Joshua, thank you for chiming in. Can you estimate how much users/visitors you lost due to the complicated domain name?

SoftwareMaven 16y ago

semanticist 16y ago

I use semantici.st for my email and blog, and it's a real chore. The ccTLDs used in domain hacks are frequently expensive at renewal time and reading your domain out to people verbally is a huge pain. If I was starting over, I'd pick something else.

whatusername 16y ago

depends on who you are marketing to.. Geeks not so much -- try to go general public though and you want an easy to spell .com // I'm still jealous of Matt Mullenweg's personal domain though: ma.tt is a pretty awesome domain hack.