4 ms·

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 .c

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.