Tech World Buzzing With Mobile Payment App Cover, Should They Care About Cover.com?

Cover Site

The tech world is buzzing today about new mobile payment app Cover which launched today in New York City. For many people Cover is a dream come true, pay your bill at a restaurant without waiting for the bill. It might feel like you’re “dining and dashing” at first but in the end it should help make restaurants more efficient and let’s face it, as consumers we’ve been waiting for this for a while now.

When asked about the market opportunity, Cover co-founders told Venture Beat:

“Mobile payments is an enormous opportunity but hasn’t taken off in the U.S.,” cofounders Andrew Cove and Mark Egerman told VentureBeat. “Mobile payments products thus far haven’t provided a better experience than using a
credit card

. We are the first mobile payments product that improves the overall customer experience. We don’t just replace one form of payment with your phone — we completely eliminate the payment step altogether.” (Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/01/cover-launches-in-nyc-to-let-you-pay-restaurant-bills-with-your-phone/#pOMJMkHtxm5kejSB.99)

The mobile payment space is still in its infancy and I am still always amazed that companies like Pay Pal have not moved faster to get traction in this space. That being said it’s hard, changing the way people and restaurants work takes a lot of time. That being said, I think the founders of Cover hit the nail on the head with the concept of eliminating the payment step altogether. It has to be easy, really easy, and it sounds like they have done just that.

Now for the question that I posed in the title, should Cover care about Cover.com?

While most Domainers might immediately say, “Of course! Their company is called Cover, they should own Cover.com.” I think it’s not really necessary. This is an app and people look for apps in their respective app stores. Vine was able to get record-breaking download and engagement numbers and they didn’t care about Vine.com, why should cover care about Cover.com?

That’s the million dollar question and one that I’m sure Cover is asking themselves right now. While I could see them moving to cover.co or similar since PayWithCover.com is a bit long, taking the leap to the .COM just might not be in the cards.

The world is changing. If it was 2001 I’d say they need Cover.com because back then all you could build was a website. Now app-makers around the world need to decide what value they place on a domain name. While I do think they should have some form of a “cover” domain, i.e. cover.co, cover.me, etc. I’m not sure they need the .COM.

What do you think? I have a pretty even split of Domainers and Startup people that read my blog so I’m very interested to hear what both sides think! Comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton