4 ms·

I don't think name as domain is important anymore since it's pretty much a numbers game - it is unlikely you'll get your name as a .com domain(the only domain t

I don't think name as domain is important anymore since it's pretty much a numbers game - it is unlikely you'll get your name as a .com domain(the only domain that matters if you want more than a toy website) is going to either be squatted on or already occupied. There needs to be some sort of TLD with authentication. Let's call it .name You only get .name if you do a KYC/register with the government.In case of collision you get bidding wars, however the money goes to a non profit internet charity. Instant SEO and a guarantee that you actually get to have a web presence without gatekeeping.

vidarh 7y ago
Of course there is actually a ".name". I co-founded the company that set it up, and the original idea was to share the second level so you'd get full control over firstname.lastname.name with e-mail forwarding from [first name]@[last name].name. This followed an e-mail service (Nameplanet) we set up when two of us were discussing how we were both basically blocking a whole [lastname].[tld] domain for ourselves. Unfortunately .name largely proved too hard to communicate quickly enough, and meanwhile it's clear that people for the most part don't mind weird addresses and/or don't have an issue with seeing e-mail addresses as transient. Which I find quite weird, given I've had the same e-mail address for 20 years at this point. Today .name is operated by Verisign, and second level registrations were enabled years ago, and I do occasionally see them, but the original concept really was part of a wave of people talking about "digital identities" on the net that just died off, in part I think because it seems most of the time peoples identity is much more fluid outside of very official circumstances. E.g. you don't necessarily always want your e-mail address to give away your full name, or your name at all, and in the more formal contexts (e.g. work) you often have another e-mail address anyway and/or your e-mail address is not an important element. Incidentally, in retrospect I wonder if ".nom" or ".nym" or one of the other proposed names would have been (marginally) easier - people often hear ".name" and think it's a placeholder for a name, especially when you try to explain that your e-mail address is [your first name]@[your last name].name. I use my .com of the same format, and it seems to lead to fewer questions than when I also had/used my .name.
- icebraining 7y ago
  I have to say, .name always bugged me because it's dependent on ignoring all of us who share the same first+last names with others. It's like a TLD that purposefully implements [1]. At least the other TLDs are free-form, they don't purport to be some sort of registry of people. [1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...
  - vidarh 7y ago
    It didn't ignore it - we had lots and lots of long discussions about it, and the precursor - Nameplanet - was founded exactly because the alternative was worse; some of the most popular last names are shared by many million people, and a single person per TLD was able to make use of it. By sharing the second level, magnitudes more people would potentially be able to share it. My last name is extremely rare, but it's still ~400-500 people that share my last name; enough to exhaust all current tlds. When we founded Nameplanet, we did an extensive exercise to model it, and we bought ~60,000 domain names to maximize coverage of popular last names, and for very popular last names that obviously gave better coverage than .name, but in terms of first name / last name combinations it was better. Even for people facing collisions, it still meant much simpler addresses a lot of the time. Your objection is actually largely the opposite of the bigger problem in adoption: The number of people who want their name as their address is much smaller than we thought.
- kenneth 7y ago
  My email is my [first]@[last].com. I constantly have to explain to people that I am indeed saying [first]@[last].com and not [first].[last]@gmail.com. Ughh. Still, worth it. I love my email address!
  - mxuribe 7y ago
    I have the same thing, and it gets really annoying when your TLD is not, say, .net/.org/.com, and you're interacting with non-tech-savvy people like in your local municipal office, etc. It's funny how so many people assume that your email will be something@gmail or something@yahoo...But then you ask them how their work email is structured, and then they respond: oh, yeah, i never thought private people would have their own email addresses!" I would expect this in the early 2000s, but now in 2019!?! It's surprising and annoying - because you have to spend extra seconds explaining stuff to people, and getting them to "believe you" that, yes, that is my personal email address.
davemp 7y ago
It's not terribly unlikely for some combination of first-name|last-name|initials|shortened-name to be available in `.com`. I've registered myself and a few friends/family for emails that way. I had the best results were with [first initial][second initial][last name], ex: John Smith Doe --> jsdoe.com Then you can email with john@jsdoe.com, which makes it more clear that the js are initials.

vidarh 7y ago

Of course there is actually a ".name". I co-founded the company that set it up, and the original idea was to share the second level so you'd get full control over firstname.lastname.name with e-mail forwarding from [first name]@[last name].name. This followed an e-mail service (Nameplanet) we set up when two of us were discussing how we were both basically blocking a whole [lastname].[tld] domain for ourselves. Unfortunately .name largely proved too hard to communicate quickly enough, and meanwhile it's clear that people for the most part don't mind weird addresses and/or don't have an issue with seeing e-mail addresses as transient. Which I find quite weird, given I've had the same e-mail address for 20 years at this point. Today .name is operated by Verisign, and second level registrations were enabled years ago, and I do occasionally see them, but the original concept really was part of a wave of people talking about "digital identities" on the net that just died off, in part I think because it seems most of the time peoples identity is much more fluid outside of very official circumstances. E.g. you don't necessarily always want your e-mail address to give away your full name, or your name at all, and in the more formal contexts (e.g. work) you often have another e-mail address anyway and/or your e-mail address is not an important element. Incidentally, in retrospect I wonder if ".nom" or ".nym" or one of the other proposed names would have been (marginally) easier - people often hear ".name" and think it's a placeholder for a name, especially when you try to explain that your e-mail address is [your first name]@[your last name].name. I use my .com of the same format, and it seems to lead to fewer questions than when I also had/used my .name.

icebraining 7y ago
I have to say, .name always bugged me because it's dependent on ignoring all of us who share the same first+last names with others. It's like a TLD that purposefully implements [1]. At least the other TLDs are free-form, they don't purport to be some sort of registry of people. [1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...
- vidarh 7y ago
  It didn't ignore it - we had lots and lots of long discussions about it, and the precursor - Nameplanet - was founded exactly because the alternative was worse; some of the most popular last names are shared by many million people, and a single person per TLD was able to make use of it. By sharing the second level, magnitudes more people would potentially be able to share it. My last name is extremely rare, but it's still ~400-500 people that share my last name; enough to exhaust all current tlds. When we founded Nameplanet, we did an extensive exercise to model it, and we bought ~60,000 domain names to maximize coverage of popular last names, and for very popular last names that obviously gave better coverage than .name, but in terms of first name / last name combinations it was better. Even for people facing collisions, it still meant much simpler addresses a lot of the time. Your objection is actually largely the opposite of the bigger problem in adoption: The number of people who want their name as their address is much smaller than we thought.
kenneth 7y ago
My email is my [first]@[last].com. I constantly have to explain to people that I am indeed saying [first]@[last].com and not [first].[last]@gmail.com. Ughh. Still, worth it. I love my email address!
- mxuribe 7y ago
  I have the same thing, and it gets really annoying when your TLD is not, say, .net/.org/.com, and you're interacting with non-tech-savvy people like in your local municipal office, etc. It's funny how so many people assume that your email will be something@gmail or something@yahoo...But then you ask them how their work email is structured, and then they respond: oh, yeah, i never thought private people would have their own email addresses!" I would expect this in the early 2000s, but now in 2019!?! It's surprising and annoying - because you have to spend extra seconds explaining stuff to people, and getting them to "believe you" that, yes, that is my personal email address.

davemp 7y ago

It's not terribly unlikely for some combination of first-name|last-name|initials|shortened-name to be available in `.com`. I've registered myself and a few friends/family for emails that way. I had the best results were with [first initial][second initial][last name], ex: John Smith Doe --> jsdoe.com Then you can email with john@jsdoe.com, which makes it more clear that the js are initials.