[GTALUG] TLDs

[Karen Lewellen]

Hi Evan,
Lots of great stuff here.
My late father used to joke that our family could only afford the letter e, 
so no   letters like y , u  or so forth.
Curtain Up Distribution produces programs on musical theatre, so the 
connection  resonates with our show content.
I got karenlewellen.com more than 20 years ago now.  at that time, I do 
not feel   using punctuation marks in domains was that popular?
I might just have to snap up karen-lewellen.com however.
Kare



On Thu, 25 Jul 2024, Evan Leibovitch wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 25, 2024 at 12:03 PM Karen Lewellen via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
> wrote:
>
>
>> I have a personal website, that I originally set up using my name,
>> instead of  the name of my production company which  is g. a. f.
>> Entertainment.  I do have the domain gafentertainment.com but it is not
>> hosted anywhere.
>> Lewellen is welsh, and there are several different spellings.
>
>
> All of the Welsh Llewllyns I know (a few, from my wife's history) have four
> Ls and a Y in their spelling.
> (But then I'm not one to talk. There are more Leibowitz's than Leibovitch's
> out there, but they all trace the same Romanian roots.)
>
> I got leibovitch.ca and evanleibovitch.com ages ago but have never really
> used them. The latter I may keep for defensive purposes just in case I
> really piss someone off; I'm getting old but there's still time.
> A surprising number of domains are unused and just kept for defensive
> purposes (ie, I won't use it but I don't want anyone else to have it
> either).
>
>
>> Imagine my surprise   though learning there is another karen lewellen.
>> My own site being
>> www.karenlewellen.com
>> Meant the other person ended up creating itskarenlewellen.com instead.
>>
>
> Or she could have done karenlewellen.ca (if she was Canadian),
> karenlewellen.co.uk (if British), karenlelellen.org or
> karenlewellen.something-else
>
> That's the whole point of the new TLDs, dot-com doesn't have to be the
> make-or-break TLD anymore (though it is still the preferred default).
> My solution these days to unavailable first-choice domains is to add
> punctuation, for instance karen-lewellen.com is available and works fine.
>
> Do not get me started on the gmail problems, I still get her stuff
>>
>
> That's the biggest flaw of domains versus search. Search engines can add
> context such as location.
>
> There is only one joespizza.com in the world and it's in Los Angeles. The
> most famous Joe's Pizza had to settle for joespizzanyc.com because the
> California place registered first.
>
> But searching "Joe's Pizza near me" will almost always come up with
> something more useful wherever you are, when used here offering one in
> Brampton (joesbigpizza.ca)
>
>
>> When the nonprofit organization I worked for first chose a name  the idea
>> was to hype the name of our flagship radio series, Curtain Up!
>> As we distributed Curtain Up!  our founder decided curtain up distribution
>> was  a fine name..but this was before we had a web presence.
>> giving my work email address is quite a dance,  our site is
>> www.curtainupdistribution.org
>> ahem.
>>
>
> Domain names are the least of this organization's problems, as a casual
> search reveals the term "curtain up" is used in major contexts within the
> London and Broadway theatre scenes.
> Good and distinct naming for an organization is way more off-topic and out
> of scope than this thread has already evolved. Any domain problems here are
> symptoms and not causes.
>
> My point is that there really can be far more than vanity in a domain
>> name, especially  when you want to be found, and fund raise, and so forth.
>>
>
> You're confusing domain names with corporate identity.
>
> A domain name is just a tool, not the identity, except for those few and
> diminishing companies whose domain name IS the company name (such as "
> pets.com").
> Creating a functional corporate identity, which includes but is not limited
> to branding, is a much bigger deal than the domain name chosen.
>
> - Evan
>