3 ms·

"I’ve seen the incredible power of time passing and the importance of the small choices we make every day. Its crazy to realize the success or failure of a com

by larrys 14y ago

"I’ve seen the incredible power of time passing and the importance of the small choices we make every day. Its crazy to realize the success or failure of a company is a collection of days and the things we decided to do or not do on those days. But that’s it. It really is like poker or chess – trying not to make mistakes" Well for the sake of others here as well as yourself let me point out something that you need to take action on for a choice you have already made. You've chosen to name your site and use "refer.ly" because you don't have "referly.com". Now the name "referly.com" is owned by someone in Mountain View so maybe that's your partner and you simply haven't forwarded it to your site. But I've seen this happen so many times I have to point out that it's a huge mistake to not lock up the .com name and to go by a .ly name. Not that people haven't done it. Not that people who have done it haven't been successful. But unless there is a super compelling reason it's definitely something you want to avoid. It's just going to cost you money and/or problems down the road when you need to buy the name. I understand that there is an entire group of entrepreneurs out there that think domains don't matter for this or that reason. But they do matter and it's not that difficult to keep that in mind before you get to attached to your branding.

dmor 14y ago
Thank you, I have been working on that for quite awhile now. I have owned refer.ly for 3 years and began pursuing the .com domain as soon as I decided to turn it into a business. Also, our product is (currently implemented as) a link shortener so the .ly domain choice has served us well
- larrys 14y ago
  Feel free to write to me if you need any advice.
- quellhorst 14y ago
  The iphone virtual keyboard has a button for '.com' that is much easier than typing .ly
citricsquid 14y ago
Although I agree with your view in general, their case is slightly different. Their entire product is at its core URLs, while it's advantageous to obtain the .com of their name in this case I don't believe it's the end of the world nor will it be a big issue. With a site like Twitter word of mouth is important and valuable, but with a site like refer.ly where all encounters with the site will come with a URL it's no big issue.
- larrys 14y ago
  - They are partnering with businesses and many of those businesses aren't familiar with .ly to the extent that tech people are. http://refer.ly/business http://refer.ly/business The local pizza shop probably isn't aware of bit.ly. Which now uses bitly.com (bit.ly redirects.). Ditto for recur.ly -> recurly.com. - Their current branding shows "referly" not "refer.ly" - Email addresses at the company are @refer.ly and could easily get addressed to @referly.com - best case scenario it bounces (and the bounce is noticed). Worse case scenario the email is read by someone else. - You are underestimating the amount of word of mouth in a domain being passed along. You don't want to have to spell it out that's refer dot .ly anymore than you want to call it "referlee.com" and have to spell that out. - A mainstream media article on the company will throw off potential customers that aren't familiar with .ly domains - Ditto for mention on any TV etc. Swimmers shave their body hair to gain any additional advantage in speed they can. Definitely worth avoiding problems in this area. The name of a company is always an important issue to consider.

by larrys 14y ago

dmor 14y ago

Thank you, I have been working on that for quite awhile now. I have owned refer.ly for 3 years and began pursuing the .com domain as soon as I decided to turn it into a business. Also, our product is (currently implemented as) a link shortener so the .ly domain choice has served us well

larrys 14y ago
Feel free to write to me if you need any advice.
quellhorst 14y ago
The iphone virtual keyboard has a button for '.com' that is much easier than typing .ly

citricsquid 14y ago

Although I agree with your view in general, their case is slightly different. Their entire product is at its core URLs, while it's advantageous to obtain the .com of their name in this case I don't believe it's the end of the world nor will it be a big issue. With a site like Twitter word of mouth is important and valuable, but with a site like refer.ly where all encounters with the site will come with a URL it's no big issue.

larrys 14y ago
- They are partnering with businesses and many of those businesses aren't familiar with .ly to the extent that tech people are. http://refer.ly/business http://refer.ly/business The local pizza shop probably isn't aware of bit.ly. Which now uses bitly.com (bit.ly redirects.). Ditto for recur.ly -> recurly.com. - Their current branding shows "referly" not "refer.ly" - Email addresses at the company are @refer.ly and could easily get addressed to @referly.com - best case scenario it bounces (and the bounce is noticed). Worse case scenario the email is read by someone else. - You are underestimating the amount of word of mouth in a domain being passed along. You don't want to have to spell it out that's refer dot .ly anymore than you want to call it "referlee.com" and have to spell that out. - A mainstream media article on the company will throw off potential customers that aren't familiar with .ly domains - Ditto for mention on any TV etc. Swimmers shave their body hair to gain any additional advantage in speed they can. Definitely worth avoiding problems in this area. The name of a company is always an important issue to consider.