Boing Boing wrote an article that gives some pretty mediocre advice about domains and branding

boingboing-logo

I was a bit surprised to find an article in Boing Boing, a pretty darn popular blog, telling people that .COM is saturated so they should brand with .TECH. The article seems to completely gloss over the fact that people can still buy .COM domains even if they’re taken, let’s be honest, tons of names sell every single day in the sub $1,000 range that are part of the “saturated” .COM market.

At the same time, the article misses the fact that there are a lot of other new gTLDs out there. I would say the better way to approach an article like this would be to at the very least say, if you feel like .COM isn’t an option, there are plenty of other choices out there, .TECH, .IO, .ME, .CO, and .XYZ have been popular with startups, app makers could benefit from .APP, subscription services with .CLUB.

To say that because you can’t get a .COM you should pick a .TECH just seems weird to me and this article read like a giant advertisement. Heck – they even through in a price promotion directly in the article:

“The web is vast, but real estate is limited even in this digital space. As such, there’s a major saturation of .com domains online, preventing new players from getting their first choice domain name and ultimately forcing them to rename products or rebrand entirely just to build their digital footprint. However, choosing a .tech domain name for your brand can help you sidestep much of the saturation. You can register and use a .tech domain name for 10 years through Radix, all for $54.99.” (Source – Boing Boing)

One point I should make as well here. I actually think .Tech is a perfectly fine domain for a tech startup, and I’m a reader of Boing Boing, they’re both a-okay in my book. That being said, this article really misses the mark IMO and doesn’t give readers very good branding advice if they’re thinking of going the non .COM route.

I can tell you that as a lawyer, I’d rather have Morgan.Lawyer than Morgan.Tech. If I’m starting a subscription box service for cat toys, I think CatToys.club makes a lot more sense than CatToys.Tech. If I’m starting a yoga studio in Berkeley, I’d rather have Berkeley.yoga than BerkeleyYoga.Tech.

Now if I’m starting a software company, and I want to call that company Bongo, and Bongo.com is taken (it is – duh) then sure, Bongo.Tech makes sense. My point is a simple one – Boing Boing fell off the wagon here and ended up writing an article that gives pretty bad branding advice. I think one of their readers summed it up in the comment section:

boing-boing-comment

But maybe that’s just me and deerpig. What do you think? Comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton