Company Name

[jonsimons]

Hi...

Im really stuck for ideas on a good company name...

We are going to sell all extreme sports products.

'Big Boys Toys' - I know this has already been used etc, but a name like this would be good?

any ideas?

[sim]

i'll sell you Po2.net for $9,000. EA sports Po2 kinda similar

[lhoudini]

what about Xtreme-All or Xtreme Products,Xtreme Toys!?At least something to hint at what you are offering.........

[markae]

What about "Boys will be Boys"

[popads]

I think you can try using the word "Driving", since boys like cars and driving.

[Emancipator]

any reason you dont go with Cheshire Extreme Sports?

[Michael Bosse]

Hi Jon,

Here are a few idea's you can throw around to get your
creative juices flowing.

-Max Athletics

-Percision Sports Gear

-Full Throtle Sports

-Jock Junk (This one just makes me laugh )

-Contender Sports

I hope this helps you find something better.

Glad to help,
Michael Bosse

[Martin Newton]

How 'bout:

- ExtremeSpeed
- TorqueToys
- Velocity Gear

Hope these helps!

_________________________________________
SPORTSBETTING.COM
Affiliate Program

http://www.sportsbetting.com/affiliates/index.html

[rcauvin]

Consider the advise of renowned marketing expert Al Ries:

1. Avoid generic and common names. According to Ries, a good brand name is a proper name that people use as if it is a common name. ("Google" is the most popular search engine, not "search.com". It's such a good brand name that "google" has become a verb.)

2. Avoid acronyms.

3. Favor names with slight shock value. ("Yahoo!" gets your attention without being generic.)

4. Avoid names with too many syllables.

5. Favor names with "alliteration, repetition, and rhyme". ("Amazon", besides having some shock value, is also easy to remember due to its rhythm.)

Also, do some market research and product management. Publish a survey and profile your prospective buyers and users. The results of such a study might help generate some ideas.

[John Scott]

http://www.internet-marketing-resear...f_branding.php

Authors Al and Laura Ries again go overboard in their brand fanaticism. According to the authors, Pets.com went under because they used a keyword domain. And all this time I thought hundreds of dotcoms went under because they were fiscally irresponsible and spent millions of dollars promoting sites that had a snowflake's chance in hell of recouping advertising expenditures.

Pets.com spent $20 million a year on advertising. A tiny amount of market research would have saved them millions: consumers aren't going to, and never will, flock to the Internet to buy dog food.

WebVan.com rushed into the same folly. Consumers like to see, feel, touch, fondle, and otherwise molest their fruits and vegetables before buying.

Although the brand chauvinism evidenced in this book is mind-numbing, it is still a very intriguing read. I highly recommend The 22 Immutable Laws Of Branding.

Al Ries does indeed understand the value of brand. However, he does go overboard on a regular basis. Especially where Internet marketing is concerned. Google could have had the same success using the domain "search.com" - it's not the domain that made Google popular, it is the quality of the SERPs and the PR feature.

That said, I do recommend unique, brand-building domains. Although keyword domains can be branded, a unique domain makes brand building easier.

[alpha3m]

stick with a domain name that targets your visitors, as john stated, get a name that will be easily brandable.

my creative portion of the mind isnt workin at the moment, if i think of something useable.. ill let ya know

[Igor Salindrija]

http://www.whois.sc/

Maybe can help.

[rcauvin]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

http://www.internet-marketing-research.net/22_immutable_laws_of_branding.php

This excerpt from the review distorts what the book actually states. It does NOT state that Pets.com went under because of their generic name. In fact, the company still existed when the authors wrote the book. The book gives Pets.com as one of many examples of dotcoms with generic domain names.

Originally Posted by JohnScott

Google could have had the same success using the domain "search.com" - it's not the domain that made Google popular, it is the quality of the SERPs and the PR feature.

It would have been a shame if Google had chosen "search.com" as their brand name. Then we couldn't have added "google" as a verb to the English language.

Originally Posted by JohnScott

That said, I do recommend unique, brand-building domains. Although keyword domains can be branded, a unique domain makes brand building easier.

That's sound advice. You're not going "overboard in your brand fanaticism" there, John.

[John Scott]

This excerpt from the review distorts what the book actually states. It does NOT state that Pets.com went under because of their generic name. In fact, the company still existed when the authors wrote the book. The book gives Pets.com as one of many examples of dotcoms with generic domain names.

rcauvin,

From the book:

The Internet is so young that we haven't had the fallout that for sure is coming. Some samples of this common-noun craziness are as follows:

• In automobiles, we have AutoConnect.com, Autosite.com,
AutoTrader.com, Autoweb.com, Cars.com, CarsDirect.com,
and CarOrder.com.

• In banking, we have Ebank.com, Telebank.com, and
Netbank.com.

• In diamonds, we have eDiamonds.com, InternetDiamonds.com,
and WorldDiamonds.com.

• In employment, we have ComputerJobs.com, Gotajob.com,
Headhunter.net, and Jobs.com.

• In facsimile, we have eFax.com, Fax.com, and Jfax.com.

• In finance, we have 401k.com, eCoverage.com, eCredit.com,
Loansdirect.com, eHealthinsurance.com, eLoan.com,
Loanwise.com, Mortgage.com, and Studentloan.com.

• In furniture, we have BeHome.com, Decoratewithstyle.com,
Ezshop.com, Furniture.com, FurnitureFind.com,
Furnitureonline.com, Housenet.com, and Living.com.

• In groceries, we have Food.com, NetGrocer.com, and
HomeGrocer.com.

• In health and nutrition, we have eDiets.com, eNutrition.com,
HealthQuick.com, and onHealth.com.

• In pets, we have Petco.com, Pets.com, and Petstore.com.

• In postage, we have E-Stamp.com, Stamps.com, and
Simplepostage.com.

• In prescription drugs, we have Drugstore.com,
YourPharmacy.com, and Rx.com.

• In real estate, we have Cyberhomes.com, eProperty.com,
Goodhome.com, Homeadvisor.com, Homebid.com,
Homegain.com, Homes.com, Homeseekers.com,
Homestore.com, Myhome.com, Ourhouse.com, Owners.com,
RealEstate.com, and Realtor.com.

• In shopping, we have IStopShop.com, Buy.com,
BuyItNow.com, Netmarket.com, NowOnSpecial.com,
ShopNow.com, and Shopping.com.

• In travel, we have Cheaptickets.com, Lowestfare.com,
TravelHoliday.com, and Trip.com.


These are not generic names picked at random from the millions of dotcoms on the Internet. These are serious sites backed by serious venture capitalists and supported by millions of dollars' worth of advertising.

• Art.com is spending $18 million this year on advertising.

• AutoConnect.com is spending $15 million this year on
advertising.

• CarsDirect is spending $30 million this year on advertising.

• Drugstore.com is spending $30 million this year on advertising.

• Homestore.com is spending $20 million this year on
advertising.

• Living.com is spending $20 million this year on advertising.

• Pets.com is spending $20 million this year on advertising.

• Petstore.com is spending $10 million this year on advertising.

• RealEstate.com is spending $13 million this year on
advertising.

• Rx.com is spending $13 million this year on advertising.


These CommonNameDot.coms are just a small sample of the thousands of Internet companies trying to spend their way into the prospect's mind. For the most part it is money down the rat hole. There's no way that even a small percentage of these common-name sites are going to make it.

Emphasis is mine. Note, again:

There's no way that even a small percentage of these common-name sites are going to make it.

Why would the common name have an affect on a business surviving or going under? IT DOESN'T! Did General Electric go under? Did Burger King go under? Did Internet.com go under? No.

If I chose to operate my hosting co from hey-we-sell-hosting.biz, I could do so. The domain is a very, very, very little part of the equation. Hyphenated domains can be branded. Keyword domasins can be branded. Brand is not dependent on a unique, made-up word. I could use hey-we-sell-hosting.biz and brand it just the same.

Just my here.

[maxim]

whats wrong with i-sportsXtreme or extremesportsweb
or burnoutsports OR xxxsports or dangersports or i-xproducts
OR Iadventureproducts OR sportsxxx OR sportsX

......i havnt checked availability for any of these because im not that bored :wink:

anyway back to work

[maxim]

by the way mate I like the go-ped site...i used to have one, there f-cking awesome fun!

[John Scott]

"Cars" is not a good name for an automotive dealership. And Cars.com is not a good name for a Website that sells cars.

This is from the same book. It's mind-boggling. On the Internet, a domain like cars.com is great for a car related site.

18,7160 cars.com

- Overture

A domain like "cars.com" will get tens of thousands of type-ins every month, even from people who have never been to the site before. The same thing happens with "jobs.com" snd "drugs.com", which get a huge amount of type-ins from people who don't even know weather a working site exists at those domains.

[rcauvin]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

Emphasis is mine. Note, again:

There's no way that even a small percentage of these common-name sites are going to make it.

John, the review of the book stated, "According to the authors, Pets.com went under because they used a keyword domain." This statement implies that the book attributed the demise of a particular company (after the fact) as occurring solely or primarily due to the genericity of its domain name. Do you not consider this implication a distortion?

Originally Posted by JohnScott

Why would the common name have an affect on a business surviving or going under? IT DOESN'T! Did General Electric go under? Did Burger King go under? Did Internet.com go under? No.

Hmm. I'll give you Burger King. But at this point, most people seem to refer to "GE" instead of "General Electric". I'd hazard that fewer than 1% of the population knows what Internet.com does. It's also interesting that almost nobody knows what's at books.com, search.com, or portal.com.

Originally Posted by JohnScott

If I chose to operate my hosting co from hey-we-sell-hosting.biz, I could do so. The domain is a very, very, very little part of the equation. Hyphenated domains can be branded. Keyword domasins can be branded. Brand is not dependent on a unique, made-up word. I could use hey-we-sell-hosting.biz and brand it just the same.

While you correctly point out that keyword domains are not impossible to brand, I think you underestimate the difficulty of doing so. It looks like our disagreement is a matter of degree.

[rcauvin]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

A domain like "cars.com" will get tens of thousands of type-ins every month, even from people who have never been to the site before. The same thing happens with "jobs.com" snd "drugs.com", which get a huge amount of type-ins from people who don't even know weather a working site exists at those domains.

Undoubtedly. But as the book states just before the passage about Cars.com:

"In the absence of competition, people will buy from a site with a common name. But as sites are set up with strong 'proper' brand names, the common-name sites are going to dry up and blow away."

Care to make any predictions about the future of Cars.com?

[maxim]

Anyone here ever heard of sex.com , I mean christ i hate to break it to some of you but common name domains do have a pretty good head start sex.com clearly has a head start over something like sex-is-over-here-for-free.com or any other non common domain that is a fact. and I also know specifically that although pets.com failed initially it is in fact now doing well under different company (petsmart.com) it was serious bad management and bad(aweful!) allocation of funds that brought it down. They had a call centre for christ sake with like 100 people taking orders but the orders wern't actaully there because there wasnt a market/or wasnt half the market they thought there was at the time (but its still a good domain!). Johnscott was correct in his analysis of common names they get the 'type ins' which are about as targeted as you can get, sorry. even if they dont buy the first time theyll know where to go if they need to and they sure as hell can tell their friends pretty easily too! Competition is a factor but atleast the common name is gonna get the first look in so if their site is quality then hey their laughing all the way to the bank. This doesnt mean those wihtout common names are finished it means they have to have better sites and have to put in more effort than the big boys and most of all exploit there niche!!! NICHE NICHE NICHE!! if you have a good one the name is irrelevant at the end of it all.

phew! (i wipe my brow)

max.