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Over the years we’ve been on top of many trends, from Spyware, Blogs, Blooks, tubes, and others. Buying trendy domains is a subject which deserves much coverage on its own (I will try to write about it soon) but today I’m going to talk about something I find more challenging, more intriguing: Conceptual Domaining.
What is Conceptual Domaining? Conceptual Domaining is figuring out TOMORROW’s traffic trends (generic/descriptive terms!) based on Today’s hot trends (generic/descriptive, trademarks).
A couple of examples are in place:
1.
2006: New site gaining traffic: YouTube
Site concept: video streaming
Term derivation: TV Tube, Personal TV
Potential Domains:
Primary (natural, generic): TVTube.com
Secondary: YouTV.com, MeTV.com, MyTube.com
2.
2005: New site gaining traffic: MySpace.com
Site Concept: Page creator, social networking
Term derivation: “My Place”, “My Page”
Potential Domains:
Primary: MyPlace.com, MyPage.com
Secondary: YourSpace.com, OurSpace.com, OurPage.com, YourSpace.com
A word of caution: You need to be extremely careful here with local and international trademark laws. My suggestion for you is to stick with generic/descriptive terms and use them in their related descriptive manner.
Happy domaining!
Sahar
Hi Sahar. I felt this post was incomplete. Can you elaborate more on the subject?
How do you feel about fusing two or three different trends?
Examples:
- Myspace meets YouTube: MyTube.com, VideoSpace.com
- Google meets forums: ForumSearch.com
- Forums meet RSS: ForumFeeds.com
- Myspace meets YouTube meets blogs: VideoBlogs.com
etc.
—-answer—-
I was referring mainly to the first in chain (primary associations) and some secondary. The ones you mentioned fall in the same category of “conceptual Domaining” however to me they seem to be further down the chain. The further you go down the chain the more speculative the investment is.
Cheers
Sahar
Or how about taking something trendy and mixing it with something untrendy?
Examples:
- YouTube Boats: BoatTube.com
- Facebook Cats: CatBook.com
- Wikipedia Food: Foodpedia.com
etc.
—-answer—-
That falls into mining in general. I’m a big fan of “search and replace” methodologies, wrote more about it here.
Sahar
“The ones you mentioned fall in the same category of “conceptual Domaining”? however to me they seem to be further down the chain. The further you go down the chain the more speculative the investment is.”
Maybe so…but I get the impression that an idea such as OurSpace.com would be more speculative because the user is already branded for Myspace. Wouldn’t their mentality be “My friends are all at Myspace, why should I join ‘Our Space’?
However, with something like VideoBlogs.com (a hypothetical Myspace meets YouTube meets blogs), if the focus were ‘video blogging’, doesn’t that stand a better chance of survival than a direct competitor?
And I’m asking because I don’t know…Not because I’m debating.
—-answer—-
Hi Tia,
not a problem, it is a constructive discussion.. we all learn along the way (myself included!).
Back to subject, the more speculative it is the less likelihood for the domain to pick up traffic stream. This is why you want to stay closer to the top as possible.
Sahar
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