6 ms·

One letter domains has the same issue as many of the gTLDs, they aren't particularly useful in terms of brand recognition. X.com is pretty stupid as well, you c

One letter domains has the same issue as many of the gTLDs, they aren't particularly useful in terms of brand recognition. X.com is pretty stupid as well, you can't meaningfully use it as a brand. Take bob.builders, it's a perfectly valid domain, but if you see it on the back of a van, even if it's www.bob.builders, it's not recognizably as a website. www.b.com has the exact same problem, even x.com / www.x.com is just weird and looks like a mistake. The one letter domains have the added issue that you have no association that might indicate where the domain will take you.

eli 3y ago
People just google “bob builder” anyway. Domain doesn’t matter so much.
- mikehollinger 3y ago
  > People just google “bob builder” anyway. Today they do. When a domain was $200 to register in the 90’s, people treated URLs like phone numbers were also treated at the time - to be written down, memorized and then typed precisely in (with slashes!) to find whatever Bob the builder was offering. It’s odd to me tbh that phone numbers were solved with contact lists and address books, along with the occasional “new phone, who dis?”
  - delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
    > When a domain was $200 to register in the 90’s people treated URLs like phone numbers were also treated at the time - to be written down, memorized and then typed precisely in (with slashes!) to find whatever Bob the builder was offering This was the case well into the 2000s, if I recall correctly, and even into the mid-late 2010s, when URL shorteners proliferated to manage the complicated URLs generated by Google Forms etc.
  - blowski 3y ago
    > It’s odd to me tbh that phone numbers were solved with contact lists and address books What's odd about that? I didn't really understand your comment.
    - mikehollinger 3y ago
      I can email mike@somedomain.com but I can't "call" or "text" mike@somedomain.com . You can kinda sorta see this now with imessage / facetime, but that's not consistent and implemented in a standard protocol.
      - blowski 3y ago
        So phone numbers could have become more semantic. Instead we have arbitrary phone numbers and wrap meaning around them. I guess it’s been so long that I needed to find and type out a phone number that I don’t think about it any more.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  Okay, but then one letter domains and new gTLDs are worthless. If the domain doesn't really matter why not then get bobbuilder365q.com (or some other TLD that's cheaper).
  - idle_zealot 3y ago
    I guess because if I sw that domain I would assume I was being phished.
    - bluedino 3y ago
      Or linked to an MLM affiliate idlez.amway.com!
  - Joker_vD 3y ago
    > Okay, but then one letter domains and new gTLDs are worthless They are, yes, and it's not exactly new news although the better word would be "pointless" (they're not exactly worthless since some people do pay for them).
  - eli 3y ago
    ".com" looks professional and, more importantly, it very clearly communicates "this is a website address." If it were "bobbuilder.services" it could be a website, but maybe it's an instagram handle or something else. Otherwise you are correct that it doesn't really matter. The main value of gTLDs is that we ran out of decent available .coms a while ago. Single letter domains look cool (I guess) and signal that the org has the money to buy a premium domain. Similar to "mortgage.com"
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  And then your competitor advertises for "bob builder". And then you start whining about how mean google is, even though you were the one who decided to use google as a domain resolution service, which it was not intended for. There's a reason amazon decided to refer to itself as amazon.com until everyone got it, and that probably saves them billions in google ads per year.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    1. As a consumer I'm far better off searching for people and seeing that ad though, so it'd take a lot of effort to make me type the url in directly. 2. Even if people know they want amazon.com, they're still going to search for amazon.com instead of figure out where the url bar is.
  - SargeDebian 3y ago
    > you were the one who decided Most people google everything. A significant number of people google "google" in their browser's search/URL-bar to get to Google.com and search for whatever site they could have gone to directly. Builder Bob isn't going to change the average user's behavior in navigating the web.
  - eli 3y ago
    Yeah, that sucks but it is the current state of the world. Trademark registration would help. You're going to walk around calling your local construction company "bobbuilder.com"? That's a weird vibe for a business that takes place offline. And it doesn't matter because people will still google "bob builder" > There's a reason amazon decided to refer to itself as amazon.com until everyone got it, and that probably saves them billions in google ads per year. OK but they still buy all the top ad spots for "amazon" and "amazon.com"
andrewfromx 3y ago
i think this was true years ago, but now that the general public is internet aware, a billboard with B.com or Z.com would work just fine. In Asia they don't put the .com or .whatever on the ads, they just put the brand name and the general public know to search for that term.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  Maybe, I find that people are still surprised when they need my email and it's just <firstname>@<lastname>.net and not @hotmail.com / @gmail.com or something like that.
  - davchana 3y ago
    I have had people email me at last.first.net@gmail.com (I registered it after few missed emails) instead of last@first.net
    - mrweasel 3y ago
      That is both funny and really sad.
extheat 3y ago
No, I disagree with the idea that one letter domains look wrong. Especially with the many new TLDs, more often than not short URL services use single character domains. Take g.co for example—google uses that in ads everywhere. It’s modern equivalent of calling a short code phone number unrecognizable. But yet most people still instinctively know how to text them for information. However for really esoteric TLDs, I can see why it would be more of a problem, not because the length of the domain, but that the TLD, like .jobs, just doesn’t sound right.
- swozey 3y ago
  When I see a t.co (x.co now?) link I have literally no idea where it's going to take me at all and I am far, far less likely to click one of them knowing that it's a url shortener. This is such a common thing that there are browser extensions/slack(discord/teams/etc) options to unfurl urls.
  - rany_ 3y ago
    Looks like x.co has a minimum asking price of 1 million USD. I wonder who this offer is directed towards ;) See https://x.co https://x.co
    - swozey 3y ago
      That's actually surprisingly cheap. I used to be at a 4 letter .com and we paid over $1mil for it in 2015 back when domains were still worth something.
  - kalaksi 3y ago
    Exactly. I think it also teaches people to trust all kinds of obscure domains instead of trusting only well known ones. It might be even easier to write the little bit longer domain as you don't have to double check correct spelling. Browser will likely fill it in anyway. I just don't see any real benefit.
herbst 3y ago
X.com probably makes sense in the assumption that he turns Twitter into a WeChat clone as kinda 'everything app' which would obviously fail. But as 'everything app' X is kinda a strong brand IMO.
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  Not as strong as i.com.
  - jrockway 3y ago
    Meanwhile, companies actually named Icom: https://www.icomamerica.com/ https://www.icomamerica.com/ It's crazy to me that they didn't buy i.com in the early days.
- sgc 3y ago
  If you abstract from the current porn / nightclub styling of their branding, I agree it has potential.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  If "X" can transition to a WeChat clone, then maybe, until then it's a shitty brand. The media always needs to present is as: "The social media platform X", "X, formerly Twitter" or "Elon Musks X". The last one seems to indicate the Elon Musk is a bigger brand than "X".
  - kaba0 3y ago
    Everything is a bigger brand than X, it is absolutely insanely stupid.
- orwin 3y ago
  I'm not sure. It's very tech-nerd (like me) and tech-bro oriented. The logo as well, I'm pretty sure it please the aestetics of tech bros, but at least some nerds/geek find it stupid, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't bring a lot of new female users. Twitter was already one of the most male-dominated social media (especially outside the US), I think it would be interesting to see the evolution now that this became X. I'd bet a huge majority of new joiners are male (due yo the branding change), and a small majority of 'leaver' are female.
sublinear 3y ago
> X.com is pretty stupid as well, you can't meaningfully use it as a brand. Just "x" alone isn't really the brand. It's more like "x.com" is the canonical name. From that perspective, "x" or "x.com" is about as good as brand recognition can get. It's simple and perfectly descriptive of an "everything app" and payment processing business.
- eli 3y ago
  It's not though. Musk writes it as a single stylized letter and the company name is "X Corp" not "X.com"
  - sublinear 3y ago
    Ah did not know that. This is the only genuine answer in this entire thread!
- bad_user 3y ago
  Except it's missing the "everything" aspect, payments processing, or the support of the Chinese government.
  - vasco 3y ago
    They're working on it (probably minus the china part). Question is if they go bankrupt before then, or if anyone will still use the service by then. https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/05/x-is-now-licensed-for-payment-processing-in-a-dozen-u-s-states/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/05/x-is-now-licensed-for-paym...
- FartyMcFarter 3y ago
  > It's more like "x.com" is the canonical name. It sounds like a porn website. I don't think most business owners would want this as their brand, but I guess Elon is special in this way as well.
  - edgyquant 3y ago
andsoitis 3y ago
> X.com is pretty stupid as well, you can't meaningfully use it as a brand. I don't know that it is self-evident. The open source implementation of the X Window System is provided by the x.org foundation. https://x.org/wiki/ https://x.org/wiki/
- georgyo 3y ago
  X.org is maybe not in the same bucket as X.com. x.org is very tech oriented and the people who visit that site are much more likely to appreciate the unusual domain. It doesn't change the fact that it looks a bit weird. I think any domain that is shorter than it's tld looks a bit funky and requires a second look to process that it is real.
- chimeracoder 3y ago
  > I don't know that it is self-evident. > The open source implementation of the X Window System is provided by the x.org foundation. https://x.org/wiki/ https://x.org/wiki/ I know way more about the inner mechanics of X11 than the average Linux user (which is saying something), but if you had asked me in a different context what x.org pointed to, I would have had no idea. (And then would have said, "oh, right" as soon as you told me the answer). That's the tell-tale sign of a bad branding decision. I'm not going to fault X too much for that since they literally predate the Web[0], and because they're targeting a very specialized audience, but any mainstream company that makes the same mistake in 2023 deserves whatever criticism they get for it. [0] The foundation itself doesn't, but the underlying projects do, and the foundation was formed as a merger so it depends on where you choose to start the clock.
- fluoridation 3y ago
  I mean, "X" is also a bad brand name. X11 is much better.
FireBeyond 3y ago
> but if you see it on the back of a van, even if it's www.bob.builders, it's not recognizably as a website My email address is first@last.me - I now automatically say "no .com" or similar. Too many CS experiences where "we can't find your email address" "try first@last.me.com" "Oh, there it is".

eli 3y ago

People just google “bob builder” anyway. Domain doesn’t matter so much.

mikehollinger 3y ago
> People just google “bob builder” anyway. Today they do. When a domain was $200 to register in the 90’s, people treated URLs like phone numbers were also treated at the time - to be written down, memorized and then typed precisely in (with slashes!) to find whatever Bob the builder was offering. It’s odd to me tbh that phone numbers were solved with contact lists and address books, along with the occasional “new phone, who dis?”
- delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
  > When a domain was $200 to register in the 90’s people treated URLs like phone numbers were also treated at the time - to be written down, memorized and then typed precisely in (with slashes!) to find whatever Bob the builder was offering This was the case well into the 2000s, if I recall correctly, and even into the mid-late 2010s, when URL shorteners proliferated to manage the complicated URLs generated by Google Forms etc.
- blowski 3y ago
  > It’s odd to me tbh that phone numbers were solved with contact lists and address books What's odd about that? I didn't really understand your comment.
  - mikehollinger 3y ago
    I can email mike@somedomain.com but I can't "call" or "text" mike@somedomain.com . You can kinda sorta see this now with imessage / facetime, but that's not consistent and implemented in a standard protocol.
    - blowski 3y ago
      So phone numbers could have become more semantic. Instead we have arbitrary phone numbers and wrap meaning around them. I guess it’s been so long that I needed to find and type out a phone number that I don’t think about it any more.
mrweasel 3y ago
Okay, but then one letter domains and new gTLDs are worthless. If the domain doesn't really matter why not then get bobbuilder365q.com (or some other TLD that's cheaper).
- idle_zealot 3y ago
  I guess because if I sw that domain I would assume I was being phished.
  - bluedino 3y ago
    Or linked to an MLM affiliate idlez.amway.com!
- Joker_vD 3y ago
  > Okay, but then one letter domains and new gTLDs are worthless They are, yes, and it's not exactly new news although the better word would be "pointless" (they're not exactly worthless since some people do pay for them).
- eli 3y ago
  ".com" looks professional and, more importantly, it very clearly communicates "this is a website address." If it were "bobbuilder.services" it could be a website, but maybe it's an instagram handle or something else. Otherwise you are correct that it doesn't really matter. The main value of gTLDs is that we ran out of decent available .coms a while ago. Single letter domains look cool (I guess) and signal that the org has the money to buy a premium domain. Similar to "mortgage.com"
amadeuspagel 3y ago
And then your competitor advertises for "bob builder". And then you start whining about how mean google is, even though you were the one who decided to use google as a domain resolution service, which it was not intended for. There's a reason amazon decided to refer to itself as amazon.com until everyone got it, and that probably saves them billions in google ads per year.
- roenxi 3y ago
  1. As a consumer I'm far better off searching for people and seeing that ad though, so it'd take a lot of effort to make me type the url in directly. 2. Even if people know they want amazon.com, they're still going to search for amazon.com instead of figure out where the url bar is.
- SargeDebian 3y ago
  > you were the one who decided Most people google everything. A significant number of people google "google" in their browser's search/URL-bar to get to Google.com and search for whatever site they could have gone to directly. Builder Bob isn't going to change the average user's behavior in navigating the web.
- eli 3y ago
  Yeah, that sucks but it is the current state of the world. Trademark registration would help. You're going to walk around calling your local construction company "bobbuilder.com"? That's a weird vibe for a business that takes place offline. And it doesn't matter because people will still google "bob builder" > There's a reason amazon decided to refer to itself as amazon.com until everyone got it, and that probably saves them billions in google ads per year. OK but they still buy all the top ad spots for "amazon" and "amazon.com"

andrewfromx 3y ago

i think this was true years ago, but now that the general public is internet aware, a billboard with B.com or Z.com would work just fine. In Asia they don't put the .com or .whatever on the ads, they just put the brand name and the general public know to search for that term.

mrweasel 3y ago
Maybe, I find that people are still surprised when they need my email and it's just <firstname>@<lastname>.net and not @hotmail.com / @gmail.com or something like that.
- davchana 3y ago
  I have had people email me at last.first.net@gmail.com (I registered it after few missed emails) instead of last@first.net
  - mrweasel 3y ago
    That is both funny and really sad.

extheat 3y ago

No, I disagree with the idea that one letter domains look wrong. Especially with the many new TLDs, more often than not short URL services use single character domains. Take g.co for example—google uses that in ads everywhere. It’s modern equivalent of calling a short code phone number unrecognizable. But yet most people still instinctively know how to text them for information. However for really esoteric TLDs, I can see why it would be more of a problem, not because the length of the domain, but that the TLD, like .jobs, just doesn’t sound right.

swozey 3y ago
When I see a t.co (x.co now?) link I have literally no idea where it's going to take me at all and I am far, far less likely to click one of them knowing that it's a url shortener. This is such a common thing that there are browser extensions/slack(discord/teams/etc) options to unfurl urls.
- rany_ 3y ago
  Looks like x.co has a minimum asking price of 1 million USD. I wonder who this offer is directed towards ;) See https://x.co https://x.co
  - swozey 3y ago
    That's actually surprisingly cheap. I used to be at a 4 letter .com and we paid over $1mil for it in 2015 back when domains were still worth something.
- kalaksi 3y ago
  Exactly. I think it also teaches people to trust all kinds of obscure domains instead of trusting only well known ones. It might be even easier to write the little bit longer domain as you don't have to double check correct spelling. Browser will likely fill it in anyway. I just don't see any real benefit.

herbst 3y ago

X.com probably makes sense in the assumption that he turns Twitter into a WeChat clone as kinda 'everything app' which would obviously fail. But as 'everything app' X is kinda a strong brand IMO.

DonHopkins 3y ago
Not as strong as i.com.
- jrockway 3y ago
  Meanwhile, companies actually named Icom: https://www.icomamerica.com/ https://www.icomamerica.com/ It's crazy to me that they didn't buy i.com in the early days.
sgc 3y ago
If you abstract from the current porn / nightclub styling of their branding, I agree it has potential.
mrweasel 3y ago
If "X" can transition to a WeChat clone, then maybe, until then it's a shitty brand. The media always needs to present is as: "The social media platform X", "X, formerly Twitter" or "Elon Musks X". The last one seems to indicate the Elon Musk is a bigger brand than "X".
- kaba0 3y ago
  Everything is a bigger brand than X, it is absolutely insanely stupid.
orwin 3y ago
I'm not sure. It's very tech-nerd (like me) and tech-bro oriented. The logo as well, I'm pretty sure it please the aestetics of tech bros, but at least some nerds/geek find it stupid, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't bring a lot of new female users. Twitter was already one of the most male-dominated social media (especially outside the US), I think it would be interesting to see the evolution now that this became X. I'd bet a huge majority of new joiners are male (due yo the branding change), and a small majority of 'leaver' are female.

sublinear 3y ago

> X.com is pretty stupid as well, you can't meaningfully use it as a brand. Just "x" alone isn't really the brand. It's more like "x.com" is the canonical name. From that perspective, "x" or "x.com" is about as good as brand recognition can get. It's simple and perfectly descriptive of an "everything app" and payment processing business.

eli 3y ago
It's not though. Musk writes it as a single stylized letter and the company name is "X Corp" not "X.com"
- sublinear 3y ago
  Ah did not know that. This is the only genuine answer in this entire thread!
bad_user 3y ago
Except it's missing the "everything" aspect, payments processing, or the support of the Chinese government.
- vasco 3y ago
  They're working on it (probably minus the china part). Question is if they go bankrupt before then, or if anyone will still use the service by then. https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/05/x-is-now-licensed-for-payment-processing-in-a-dozen-u-s-states/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/05/x-is-now-licensed-for-paym...
FartyMcFarter 3y ago
> It's more like "x.com" is the canonical name. It sounds like a porn website. I don't think most business owners would want this as their brand, but I guess Elon is special in this way as well.
- edgyquant 3y ago

andsoitis 3y ago

> X.com is pretty stupid as well, you can't meaningfully use it as a brand. I don't know that it is self-evident. The open source implementation of the X Window System is provided by the x.org foundation. https://x.org/wiki/ https://x.org/wiki/

georgyo 3y ago
X.org is maybe not in the same bucket as X.com. x.org is very tech oriented and the people who visit that site are much more likely to appreciate the unusual domain. It doesn't change the fact that it looks a bit weird. I think any domain that is shorter than it's tld looks a bit funky and requires a second look to process that it is real.
chimeracoder 3y ago
> I don't know that it is self-evident. > The open source implementation of the X Window System is provided by the x.org foundation. https://x.org/wiki/ https://x.org/wiki/ I know way more about the inner mechanics of X11 than the average Linux user (which is saying something), but if you had asked me in a different context what x.org pointed to, I would have had no idea. (And then would have said, "oh, right" as soon as you told me the answer). That's the tell-tale sign of a bad branding decision. I'm not going to fault X too much for that since they literally predate the Web[0], and because they're targeting a very specialized audience, but any mainstream company that makes the same mistake in 2023 deserves whatever criticism they get for it. [0] The foundation itself doesn't, but the underlying projects do, and the foundation was formed as a merger so it depends on where you choose to start the clock.
fluoridation 3y ago
I mean, "X" is also a bad brand name. X11 is much better.

FireBeyond 3y ago

> but if you see it on the back of a van, even if it's www.bob.builders, it's not recognizably as a website My email address is first@last.me - I now automatically say "no .com" or similar. Too many CS experiences where "we can't find your email address" "try first@last.me.com" "Oh, there it is".