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Could One Build A Business Off Nothing More Than A Great URL?
Back in July I was in Orlando for the Affiliate Summit. I went to one of the presentations given by Dave Taylor and in the Q&A session one of the back and forths ended with a person saying to Dave, ”well I’m not famous on the Web like you are.” Right then and there I opened up my laptop, fired up my aircard and went to Godaddy. I searched for the URL www.famousontheweb.com. To my surprise it was available! Yes, of course I bought it.
Here’s my question. Can a business be built off a great URL alone? I know that the general rules of business and laws of the universe still apply but could you take a great URL and build a cool business around that URL? Did the founders of shop.com come up with the idea of an online store then buy shop.com or did they get the URL and decide to open up shop because they had such a great URL? Did the founders of dog.com acquire the URL then decide that since they owned dog.com they might as well open up an online store for all things related to dogs?
What should I do with famousontheweb.com? I have a couple of cool ideas for something fun on the side. What would you do with it? Is it even that great of a domain name? Maybe I’m up in the night.
Don’t be shy - let me know your thoughts…
It certainly depends on how much work/effort you want to put into it. Something that instantly comes to mind is the Million Dollar Home Page. Was it cheesy? Certainly. Did it work? For the first one to try it? Yes.
But rather than having companies compete for screen real estate (something that (with a scroll bar) is a non-limitation, I would have them compete for time. Hold an auction (maybe ebay) for the right to be ‘Famous on the Web’. The winner would then be able to have their banner, logo, hyperlink, whatever featured prominately dead center on the page. They would stay there until somebody else came along and outbid them (perhaps a time span is needed after which a new auction is automatically started).
The only way to make that really successful, however, is to have some pr juice working for you - face time on FamousOnTheWeb only becomes valuable if there are people willing to compete.
Considerably more work is to create a Digg for Viral media. For example, FamousOnTheWeb could be a destination to go to for breaking Internet phenoms like ‘Ask a Ninja’ or ‘Lonely Girl15′. People submit urls for new acts and then vote which ones are most popular. It would be fun graphing over time, say, HomeStar Runner’s popularity.
Anywhoo - I definately would love to hear what you end up doing. Make sure to blog it!
Left by Matthew Reinbold on 09/28/2006My two cents: no. A real business is built on a value proposition, on understanding your value proposition and how you differentiate from your competitors, and so on…
Left by Dave Taylor on 09/28/2006Dave:
If a URL were truly that great (not that the one I have is) - wouldn’t the value proposition be obvious?
By the way, are you at the portable media and podcasting show in Ontario? If you are, I’d love to meet you again.
Left by ctknud on 09/28/2006Matt:
Awesome ideas! You really got me thinking!
Left by ctknud on 09/28/2006I think I’m in the middle on this one. Isn’t this somewhat indicative of dot com business mode, that an online presence alone will carry an idea?
An awesome URL is a great tool, but I think like all business endeavors, the idea (or URL, or product, or whatever) is only really worth 5%… until it’s executed. Then, who knows?
And for whether it’s the URL that then inspires the business idea, or vice versa, it’s a bit like the chicken & the egg… these ideas can be so organic that it’s hard to tell.
Left by Carolynn Duncan on 09/29/2006I think a good domain can make a huge difference in the success of a business. I also agree that a good domain can be a very powerful value proposition. The best example of the value of a domain name is those domaineers who buy and sell high value domains. Most of the time they don’t even put up a real site. They just slap up one of those lame place holder pages with affiliate links for Google or Yahoo and they rake in the cash just from domain typeins. I read an article a little while back about the owner of cellphones.com or something similar and they make a couple thousand dollars a day simply from typeins. They could make so much more if they built a real business out of it, but they’re lazy and besides, my point is that a domain has the ability to drive a lot of traffic/customers/value/all that good stuff–so yeah, I think a domain can be enough to make a business succeed. If you can get a hold of such a domain, great. For the rest of us, we have to build a great brand around our products/services and create our value proposition and awareness the old fashioned way (hard work).
Left by Dave Bascom on 10/02/2006