For all of us in the domain industry finding a domain name may seem like an easy task and in many cases something that we all do every day. We all have our own ways of doing it often utilizing niche tools or custom processes we’ve developed ourselves over the years. Now put yourself in the shoes of a normal person who runs a company and wants to find a great domain, where do they start? In most cases entrepreneurs start with a registrar where they begin randomly typing in domains that sound good to them.
The problem is that most of the domains they want are taken, they have no idea how to find-out if one is for sale, and there’s not much ideation going on behind the scenes to help them find a domain that really speaks to their business. NameMedia, the company behind one of the top domain sales platforms on the planet, Afternic, has now created a tool that fills the gap that has been around, well forever, and now makes it easy for entrepreneurs and business owners to find the right domain.
I started this post with the word “Innovate” three times because just like in the housing world “Location” is the key, in the domain space, innovation is the key and NameMedia hit the nail on the head with their new brand name generator aptly called NameFind.
NameFind helps entrepreneurs find the right domain by looking beyond just domains and including things like Trademarks and Social Media which are all part of the package. Think about it, if you find the perfect domain but you can’t get the corresponding Twitter or Facebook names then you might not have the full brand presence that you want. NameFind generates brand names and then shows you if those names also have Twitter and Facebook handles available as well.
I’ve never seen anything like this before and something tells me this is going viral since there are some very slick social features built-into the platform to allow people to share their potential brand name ideas with friends via social media as well. Of course talking about it is one thing, but as you know I love case studies so let’s run through one right now.
Suppose I’m starting a business that is focused on cars and I want to find a good car-related domain. Using the traditional method of just randomly guessing available domains and entering them into a registrar and then checking Twitter and Facebook could take a long time, and in the end you could miss some great names since you don’t know which domains that are taken are also for sale. Take a look at what NameFind shows when you type in “cars”:
What you get is a great list of suggested domains along with a nice column for Facebook and Twitter so you can see if the corresponding social media accounts are also available. If you have a certain budget you can enter it as well so you can filter and show only names within your price range.
The interface is slick and streamlined and gives a hint of what’s to come with the brand new site design that Afternic has underway as well which will be debuted very soon. What is clear here is that Afternic is innovating, the gears are turning and once again NameMedia is creating things that help both business owners and domain investors and connect-the-dots in a process that can often be confusing and daunting to many.
Hats off to all the awesome people at NameMedia who I’m sure have been working very hard around the clock to make all of these innovations happen. I can’t wait to see the new site, and better yet I can’t wait to use it myself! Stay tuned, there’s a lot more to come because with a company that’s innovating like this, it’s hard to stay still!
