MappingTheWeb //

At some point in time, many of us are forced to choose a domain for a specific need - whether it be for an online company, a blog, or a web application. Some domains are clever and remarkable, while others languish. I’ve chosen several domains over the years and I’ve come to some important conclusions. Here is a list of the 4 rules I abide by (and advise others to abide by) when choosing a domain name:

1. Must be a .com - Forget what everyone says about .net or .tv or whatever. If you are truly looking to make an impact on the web, a .com is a must. Exceptions can be made for non-profits (a .org is a better choice) and for localized companies/services, where a country specific domain may be chosen.

2. Must be relatively short - I understand that 5 and 6 letter domains are hard to come by nowadays, but that’s not what I’m talking about. As a rule of thumb, I wouldn’t choose a domain longer than 15 letters or so. It may be hard for others to remember. You must also keep in mind that the longer the URL, the more likely it may be misspelled. In other words, if your URL is http://www.firefightersassociationofnorthamerica.com/, you may want to rethink your choice.

3. Must NOT contain dashes - Simply put, dashes are no-no in the world of top-level domains. Unless you’re creating mindless SEO-tailored landing pages, domains containing dashes should be nixed. In all likelihood, you will be driving traffic to the domain without the dashes. Moreover, I find that they take away from the professionalism of the site and/or service.

4. Must be memorable - Generic domain names are not only boring, but also dangerous. Their brand recognition is minimal and customer loyalty isn’t likely to be as strong. Generating a more remarkable, memorable domain name that can be branded is key. The loss in SEO juice will be more than compensated by an increase in brand equity and perception. After all, who’s going to remember a site called http://www.menstailoredsuits.com/? Not me… would you?

I hope this facilitates your quest for the ultimate domain name. If your choice fits all 4 criteria listed above, congratulations.

How do you choose a domain? What criteria do you use when searching for the perfect name?

Historically, if you’re looking for a mortgage, you head to your local bank to get the best available rate. Next you may visit several other competitor banks to find out their rates. Some people even make use of a mortgage broker. In any case, the purchase of a home is usually the single biggest purchase in a given individual’s life. For that very reason, the research and due diligence leading up to the decision cannot be taken mildly. In many cases, people don’t put enough time and effort toward the cause and end up with an inflated rate that puts a severe damper on their finances for years to come.

SmartHippo wants to change the way we think about and deal with mortgages. The goal of the company is to bring transparency to the financial services industry by providing an unbiased look at mortgage rates. How so? Essentially, the site is powered by users. These individuals post rates depending on their profile and geographic location. Banks and mortgage companies can also post rates (SmartHippo becomes a marketing outlet for them). When a user wants to ‘compare rates’, a snapshot of current conditions is generated based on the user’s geography, credit score, equity, etc…

So how does one know if a rate is accurate? Rates receive votes and comments by the community, akin to Digg submissions. Assuming a community-controlled system works, the bad rates will be weeded out and the good rates will rise to the top.

Users can also ‘get a quote’. This is different from comparing rates. In this case, a user enters their criteria and contact information, and instantly gets matched with up to four lenders who will contact them with a personalized offer. Strict security and privacy policies are present site-wide. This allows users to remain anonymous at all times if preferred.

Because the site is geographically-sensitive, users can discuss their experiences with other local mortgage hunters. A forum provides a great place for vent or recommend a given financial service company.

I had the pleasure of chatting briefly with the CEO, upon which I had one issue in particular. It went something along the lines of this: for the most part, people only buy one house during their lifetime. Assuming they use SmartHippo to capitalize on rates and the purchase has been completed, why would they want to come back to the site? In other words, SmartHippo no longer serves a purpose to that individual. “Not so fast…”, he tells me. The company is planning to diversify in other financial services areas, including insurance, stocks, mutual funds, etc… This helped answer my question concerning repeat visitors and site “stickiness”.

Interestingly, the service is free to use. If I’m not mistaken, revenues will be generated via targeted advertising. In addition, SmartHippo is only available to US consumers at this point in time. Ironically, the company is based out of Montreal. Plans have been made to enter the Canadian market in the near future, although the US provides a much larger base at the present time.

I think SmartHippo is a great idea that merits further scrutiny. I look forward to a time when it available in the Canadian market and I can make use of the service. The concept and basis are very new and fresh. It will be interesting to follow adoption and acceptance of the service as the industry progresses from a traditional model to a more current, innovative one.

New start-up LingoZ has an ambitious goal in mind. They’re looking to build a dictionary from scratch. Thanks to the new concept of crowdsourcing (or user-contribution), LingoZ plans to harness users in an attempt to redefine the traditional ‘dictionary’ space.

Why would anyone want to enter an area dominated by such big names as Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster? Simply put, they don’t plan on competing in the same way. The traditional players function in a stagnant manner. They are not dynamic. Obviously, definitions do not change much over time, but context, slang, and new words are appearing all the time. This is the reason for being for LingoZ. As the company puts it:

“We aim to prove that a user contributed dictionary who is subject to the community moderation can be as accurate and of high quality as a “regular” dictionary, while evolving and being updated faster than any other source.”

Registered users can do one of a number of things, including:

1. Add a new term
2. Define an existing term
3. Vote on definitions

Currently, the site supports 8 languages. They include English, Hebrew, Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch.

So why would anyone want to edit or contribute to the site? Notoriety is key. As is the case with most sites that do not offer monetary compensation, LingoZ has done a good job of outlining the main incentive of participation:

“Users who are highly praised will gain credibility and enjoy visibility within the LingoZ community.”

The way I see it, LingoZ is to dictionaries as Wikipedia is to encyclopedias. Both will hail their criticisms, due to sourcing from so-called amateurs. Opinions and personal angles may be taken, but a community-controlled and -patrolled system should essentially weed out all the discrepencies. What’s also interesting to note is that SEO will probably be a main traffic driver, somewhat akin to Wikipedia as well.

Negatives aside, many will embrace these new dynamic mediums. Definitions, phrases, and references do change from time to time. Furthermore, new additions and words are appearing all the time, especially in this new era of technology and science. A reluctance to accept or accommodate for these trends may ultimately lead to the demise of traditional giants.

Montreal-based Defensio launched on November 7th to much fanfare. The company promises to “end annoying comment spam”. This is a great goal that we can all get behind (except the spammers, of course). The Akismet rival cannot guarantee better results than its popular counterpart, but early testing has indicated that performance is high and improves over time.

Defensio touts an average accuracy of 99.56% and product characteristics such as:

• Easy management
• Personalized filtering
• Transparency through statistics

Blogging platforms supported include:

• Wordpress
• PixelPost
• Umbraco
• Drupal
• Mephisto
• Movable Type
• TextPattern

In addition, developer plug-ins are available for:

• Ruby on Rails
• Microsoft.NET
• Java
• PHP
• Python

An API allows developers to integrate Defensio into their own application(s). Specifications are available here: Defensio API Specifications. 

To follow company progress, visit their blog and/or add the feed to your reader. I have yet to download the plug-in for this Wordpress blog, but once I have I will give you all an update. Until then, feel free to try it on your own blog and let me know how it goes…

Every hot Internet space goes through an evolution. There is an initial acceptance stage, followed by hyper-growth. Recent spaces that fit this description include micro-blogging, online video, and social bookmarking.

Buzz and exposure in these areas exceeds that of most other areas. Furthermore, acquisitions have taken center stage. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are the usual suspects, but traditional media companies (Fox, Viacom, etc…) are beginning to recognize that the web is going to play a vital role in the progression of media.

High valuations are also an indicator of a hot sector. They may reflect actual value, factoring in future growth and earnings, but often these stratospheric numbers are pulled out of the air by Kool-Aid drinking analysts.

So… back to the title of the post… what is the next hot space?

We’ve been hearing a lot about ’semantics’ and the ’semantic web’, but when is there truly going to be an app or service that regular people can use that leverages this technology? It’s been talked about for years now, but we have yet to see much progress (at least in my mind). New search engines Powerset and Hakia promise to revolutionize search using semantics - I guess time will tell.

Platforms and aggregators seem likely poised for success. They bank off raw data and information to create interesting, value-added services. The Facebook platform is a great example of this. Now, MySpace and Bebo have introduced similar platforms.

Perhaps, simple apps or feature-specific apps (think 37signals) will be the future. Keeping it simple and not over-crowding the offering with useless features is more complicated than it seems. Though this cannot be classified as a given space, it is more of a strategy that can be applied to any space.

To me, it seems that the most successful apps will either be more complicated or more simple than current services. This may seem like a generic statement that covers all bases, but I’ve been amazed (and unimpressed) with the majority of recent offerings.

What do you think the next hot space will be?