Via LifeHacker:
“New web service Nombray is out to help folks establish their online identity by registering their name-based domain. Enter your name into the Nombray search engine and register the various available combinations of vanity URL available. (For example, a search for my name returns GinaTrapani.name, GinaTrapani.us, GTrapani.com, etc.) Then, register the URLs of your choice for $20 apiece, and use Nombray’s simple web page designer and hosting service to link to the various social networks and profiles you’ve set up across the web.”
Personal branding domain names are extremely important. The issue was discussed on the web many times already as well as on this blog.
Owning a portfolio of family based domain names I can tell you that we constantly are getting emails that are intended to others, as many believe the correct contact must own their family based domain names. If you still do not own your identity as a domain name I urge you too. And if possible, get your lastname.com as well, although that may be hard or impossible at times.
Back to Nombray, pricing on their site is a little high although I’m guessing their target audience is unsophisticated web users for the most part. All in all, seems like a well executed design as well as a simple and clear enough concept here. If they do make a dent and get users to understand domain names a little better that is good to all domain owners, as it is raise awareness, increase value.
Wishing them the very best,
Sahar
sounds kind of expensive to me… but maybe thats just me
I’m sure the company name is a play on the Spanish word nombre (name) This will obviously lead to some confusion for them. Seems ironic that a vanity domain company picks a word play name that is going to be a typo.
Everyone should own their name.com and their kids names.com.
I hope this doesn’t seem to self promotional but I just changed over my SearchDomainsForSale.com site to RobSequin.com.
I am my brand and with my name .com, no one else can be me .com.
@Rob
But if you die, knock on wood, who would want to buy or operate your business under your name…
your business is limited to you, and your name.
That is a good point but law firms, ad agencies and other partnership type of businesses use personal names for their business all the time.
In my case, I am the business. Related people are hired or subcontracted and not in a position to take over for me so if I go, the brokering and consulting would be referred away but the domain sales, renewals and acquisitions are planned for.
Every business has to choose it’s brand, for me, my name .com works well into the foreseeable future.
PS Sahar, if there is anyway to enable email notifications of follow up comments, please enable by default. I would not have seen this comment if I did not come back to visit this article again.
Look…for approx $20/yr it is actually a very good offering.. It definitely has it’s place on the web and I wish the guys running that service all the best. We need more products/offers doing more cross selling and integrating domains as part of it.
I entered a number of different names and it produced - “not available”.
I made up names that I was sure they were not taken. “not available”.
I checked verisign for a number of them. They were all available.
Maybe, it was just a temporary disconnection from the registrar they are using. Or, they have a big problem.
The concept is very good. And, I don’t think the price is bad for the average consumer.
It is interesting that the major registrars had not thought of this approach first.
The $20 covers both the domain name and the rest of the service, which makes it easier to set up and track your personal brand. If you already own a domain name and want to use that, then we just charge $10/year. Hosting for blogs could cost you much more than that.
As far as the spelling of Nombray, for trademark purposes it’s better to choose a spelling you can own. I feel lucky to have a seven-letter domain name in this day and age.