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More companies finding someone owns online rights to their name
Tuesday, April 04, 2000 By Todd Spangler, The Associated Press
What comes first, the dot or the com? The answer, in corporate America, better be both. Image-conscious businesses are racing to jump onto the Internet bandwagon, only to find that their seats are already taken.
Louis Piconi may not be happy about having to change his company's name just so he could create a Web site with the same name. But Sean Davidson would hope Piconi understands it's just business.
Davidson is co-founder of Businessdomains.com, a Mount Lebanon concern that's banking on the willingness of companies and municipalities to fork over cash for the rights to use their names on their own sites. Davidson and colleague Ward Allebach started their business three months ago.
For $70 apiece, the pair bought the rights to dozens of names of potential Web sites that local municipalities and companies might want, including Shaler.com, FoxChapel.com, MountLebanon.com and Mount Lebanon.com, as well as GroupHomes.com and SpeedyTaxes.com.
Any community or business wishing to use those names can get them from BusinessDomains.com -- for $10,000. Their first client: airline giant Skymall.com, which bought the rights to LowestAirFares.com from the pair.
--Post-Gazette
Or, to put it another way, folks are learning that you may be master of your domain, but that is no guarantee you are master of your domain's name.
"If your company identity and your domain name have a slight difference, you're indicating to people you don't have your act together," said Griffin Stenger of Concept Farm in New York City. "Domain names are much more than an address. It's all things in one: your brand, your reason for being."
With so many Internet names already taken, many companies -- both those with a history and those who are just starting -- are figuring out that their corporate IDs better match their domain names. Otherwise, someone typing one company's name on the Internet will land on someone else's site. Meanwhile, the company's left to linger in nowhereland.com -- or not, since that site name leads to somewhere else, too.
CoManage Corp. in Wexford found the domain name it wanted -- www.comanage.com -- was taken by a small Virginia software company. The Wexford tech company has had to settle instead for two not-nearly-as-satisfying addresses: the less prestigious www.comanage.net and www.comanagecorp.com, even underlining the latter address on its business card to call attention to the unusual domain name.
CoManage Chief Executive Officer Dave Nelsen said his company has a standing offer to the Virginia firm to purchase the domain for $10,000 and a pool table. So far, no deal.
The choice, according to corporate executives, marketing consultants and companies that specialize in registering domain names, is relatively simple: Either pay through the nose for the name that you want, or settle on a domain name -- the equivalent of a Web address -- you can afford and change your corporate identity, logo and letterhead.
"This cybersquatting is definitely a negative," said Lou Piconi, chief executive of Pittsburgh-based WiredOrg.com, who knows from recent experience.
Piconi had an idea for a company to be called "Digital Triangle" -- a play on Pittsburgh's "Golden Triangle" -- which would specialize on supplying secure business tools on the Web, particularly through existing business associations. Problem was, "Digital Triangle" was taken.
He tried to negotiate with the owner.
"We started with a couple of hundred bucks. He got to the place where he was asking for $100,000," Piconi said. "We decided not to go with that name."
"My Digital Triangle" was available, but Piconi and his consultants at a Pittsburgh firm, Zer0 to 5ive, talked him out of it. They finally settled on "WiredOrg.com," figuring that was a better fit.
In the end, Piconi said he was convinced the new name was better than the old.
But it required the new company to reincorporate before it even got started, opening new bank accounts under the new name and performing a host of other housekeeping measures, including getting rid of promotional T-shirts that had been printed.
And that was only after looking at as many as 100 new names.
"We were just backed into a corner. There was nothing else we could do," said Piconi.
Stenger and his partners at Concept Farm, which does advertising and marketing, had their heart set on the name "IdeaFarm.com." They had even done a business plan. But it was unavailable.
The firm went through 60 names, using the firm Register.com to scout new names.
"When it wasn't available, it was, 'Oh, that guy, he's an idiot.' When it was available, then you think maybe we don't want it," Stenger said.
There's no trick to getting a domain name. One of the most popular sources, Network Solutions, allows you to register your name for two years, for just $70. The problem is finding the available name that you want.
Having a Web name that doesn't match your corporate name is a little like entering the federal witness protection program.
"It's critical that the two match. Someone's domain name is and probably should be the company name," said Richard Forman, president and chief executive of Register.com. "To do it otherwise, that just doesn't fly anymore."
Take the case of Onyx -- now OnX -- a Canadian firm created 17 years ago, specializing in Internet and Web applications for businesses.
Three years ago, a man called the company, telling one of its founders, Phil De Leon, that he owned the rights to the name "Onyx" and was ready to auction it off.
Bidding started at $150,000, De Leon said. It quickly jumped to $175,000.
No thanks, said DeLeon.
So the company settled on OnX and spent millions rebranding its products.
DeLeon believes the change was for the better: Sure, the company had to change letterhead and logos, but it also led to a marketing campaign to get the name out and reinvigorate business.
But, given the business he is in, DeLeon says he should have figured this out in advance.
"You'd think I'd know about this name thing," he said.
Associate business editor Ken Zapinski contributed to this story.
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