What's in a Name? Bill Sweetman's YummyNames
What's in a Name?
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I was talking with Bill Sweetman, the man behind YummyNames, the latest of Tucows ventures, recently. Tucows is one of the oldest internet brands with a primary business in wholesale domain registrations, email services and the like.
How does YummyNames fit in? It's the portfolio side of the business. Tucows owns thousands of domain names that -- like high value real estate -- take the concept of "location, location, location" into the 21st century.
Planning a product or service launch? Go to YummyNames and search for words, terms and phrases that are relevant. YummyNames makes these names available to marketers and advertisers either through direct sale or leasing models.
For example, a branding company has a chain of gourmet wine stores as a client. YummyNames can offer them CORKED.com as part of a marketing run or on a permanent basis, the latter being the primary business model (the sale of domains). All names in the YummyNames listings are generic domain names free of trademark association that Tucows has had in inventory for many, many years.
Bill Sweetman came up with the YummyNames idea when colleagues kept contacting him regarding expired domain names. They wanted to know how to get them back, where to go, what to do and the challenges exploded when they were dealing with premium names. Sweetman wanted to make the process as easy as possible and has a two-fold suggestion for companies.
First, safeguard your assets. Insure that there's a dedicated person or team in your company administering domain names.
Second, develop a multi-domain name strategy (and this goes beyond the .com, .org, .net strategy). Choose domain names that mean something to your audience. Marketers need to consider domain names as early in the process of launching a campaign or brand as possible. The earlier you are in the process the more power and control you have over the domain name.
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