Flickr, Flicker and the New Entry Barrier
Over on the DomainTools blog, a must read BTW if you’re interested in domains, Jay wrote a post regarding startups and domains. He cited a couple of examples showing the challenges that startups face when establishing their web presence.
He started off by telling the tale of Estately.com. The business was originally launched under the domain ShackPrices.com. Jay’s first comment was about the unintentionally implied meaning of the shackprices domain. “Does his company give prices for run down houses?” ShackPrices ultimately ended up buying Estately.com for a few thousand and rebranding. According to Jay, they subsequently started getting calls from VC firms.
Now, Jay is a much more knowledgeable man than myself when it comes to domains. MUCH more. But was the sole reason the VCs started calling the domain change. ShackPrices vs Estately? At least ShackPrices makes sense to me and uses real words. Estately? I don’t know what that provides. ShackPrices gets people in the door. You have a decent understanding of what it provides. Prices for real estate. Whether it’s prices for shacks or not, it will at least get you to enter. Hell, I’m at least curious to see how much a shack costs! As Jay said, once he got in the site, he was very impressed with the interface and functionality. ShackPrices.com is memorable and easy to spell. I understand the argument that people are not looking to buy a shack and would rather buy an estate.
Jay also pointed out Flickr.com/Flicker.com. Flicker.com is now reportedly receiving 150k visitors per month and just turned down a sales offer of $700k. Think about all that traffic Flickr may have lost. I say may because once they get to Flicker.com and realize that’s not what they’re looking for, they may back out and go to a search engine and find what they’re looking for. I agree with Jay. Flickr should have gone out and bought the misspelling (which is actually the RIGHT spelling). That’s basic web marketing right there. If you’ve got a domain, get as many related misspellings as you can.
But I wonder what Jay would have said had the founders come to him at the beginning and said, “We’re starting a photo sharing site and are thinking about getting Flicker.com.”
Most of those Web 2.0 domains drive me crazy. They’re just God awful. In my opinion, they’re really putting themselves behind the 8 ball from the get go with getting super obscure, misspelled domains. Sure, the folks in the Valley might remember some of them, but what about the larger potential user base?
Many of these startups all have the same response. “But all the common domains are taken and they’re really expensive now.” As some of the rich domainers say, “You’ve got to open your wallet now.” Domains have become a real barrier to entry for startups. Sure, you can get Hoobyjoobr.com for $8 but does that help you or ultimately hinder your growth? It all depends on what you make out of it. It’s not as good an easy generic, but not all of us have the cash initially to buy it.
I just see the ShackPrices/Estately and Flickr/Flicker decisions going in opposite directions. ShackPrices is going to a close-but-no-cigar generic but Flickr IS that close-but-no-cigar and should be moving to the actual cigar.
So, Galen at Estately.com…. if you’re down on ShackPrices.com and want to sell, just let me know 
Hi,
Is there some famed character named Andy Sweet and if so could you please tell me a little about him…good, bad, a crook, a saint…you know that sort of thing. If someone said “he’s an Andy Sweet” what would that mean.
Thanks so much. Your response will be most appreciated.
Suzanne
*AS – Suzanne, I don’t know of any ‘famous’ Andy Sweets. There are a lot of good Andy Sweets out there. I know one’s an eyewear designer, one’s a baseball player, a tech executive, a school principal, a guitarist, a DJ and one’s me. I don’t know of any mass murdering or bank robbing Andy Sweets.