I am very pleased to announce that King Design is now Crowd Favorite, Ltd.
I have been doing business under the “King Design” moniker since 1997. When I started, I was offering web design and hosting services. I’ve long since graduated to software, hosted web products and services, user interface design and consulting along with web development (and I rarely do design work anymore). King Design just isn’t an appropriate name anymore.
I’m working on putting the finishing touches on the new logo, web site, business cards, etc. and hope to unveil them next week. The official paperwork is all done, but it will take a little time to get all the other stuff switched over.1
The only thing slowing me down in the transition right now is the domain. I had high hopes that I could purchase ‘crowdfavorite.com’ from the fellow who bought it in 2002 and has never used it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen right now.
I’ve got a few alternative domains that I think are suitable – these three appear to be the best options. Please vote for the one you like best and add a comment as to why you prefer the one you do.
Each of these options has pros and cons, I’m curious to know which you think are most important. It could be an interesting debate.
I’ve been thinking about renaming the business for a while, but recently it was brought to the forefront. Fellow Hiver Sean Porter has the Best. Business card. Ever.
It’s cheeky and fun – I love it.
As I guessed, Sean says it helps his clients self-select themselves as well. If they don’t smile or chuckle, or if it offends their uptight sensibilities, then they probably aren’t the kind of client that Day Job is looking for (or that I am looking for).
I wanted to have a more interesting and fun business name, and one that is less descriptive (so that it won’t become inaccurate as things naturally evolve over time. Crowd Favorite fits the bill nicely.
- I’ll talk a little more about the switch and some techniques I plan to use to make the migration as smooth as possible in future posts. [back]
This post is part of the following threads: Life Events, Crowd Favorite – ongoing stories on this site. View the thread timelines for more context on this post.
crowdfavorite.net, for sure! Next to .com it’s the most logical thing. when you’re gonna use the ltd in your domain, people will think it’s to long to remember!
btw!
Congrads on the move!!
Alex, i voted for the dotnet address. to me option 2 is out. it’s just too cumbersome to say “crowd-favorite-ell-tee-dee-dot-com”. and while the third option keeps you on the “dot-com” side of things, it gives folks two names to remember. the name of your business and the name of your website.
of course, the problem with the first option is that folks who type in crowd-favorite-dot-com might be confused at not getting what they expected, and might not remember its a “dot net”.
personally, i’d feel better with the business name in the URL. and for me, dot net names are just as common as dot com names, and don’t carry nearly as much “second rate site” baggage as they used to.
good luck with the decision and with the new business (name)!
Good call on your part. I agree that .net is hardly second best and makes good sense. I kind of like the crowdfave call, but it doesn’t quite click. The only caveat that I have with crowdfavorite.net is that I spell it crowdfavourite without thinking and there’s a few in the English-speaking world who also might do the same. Pity that its one of those words. That’s probably only a tiny consideration and I say go with the .net.
Godspeed.
crowdfavorite.net is probably your best option, but domains are cheap, so theres no sense it not buying them all (if you haven’t already that is). Hopefully in due time you’ll be able to purchase crowdfavorite.com from the current owner. As someone else already said, crowdfave.com does have a nice Web2.0 ring to it, but it doesn’t scream out professionalism to me. All depends on your target market I suppose.
I actually selected .net for my domain over .com by choice. A part of me always sees the .net sites as ones with a leading edge, I suppose because they sometimes tend to be the newer sites as many .com domains are taken.
For the sake of Crowd Favorite – you are on the leading edge of web technology. I think the .net wins.
Great idea polling your readers on this one. Best of luck to you as your business moves forward!
Shawn– I thought of the european spelling as well and registered that variation.
Justin– yep, I’ve actually got the following registered:
crowd-favorite.com
crowdfav.com
crowdfave.com
crowdfavorite.biz
crowdfavorite.info
crowdfavorite.net
crowdfavorite.org
crowdfavoriteinc.com
crowdfavoritellc.com
crowdfavoriteltd.com
crowdfavourite.com
crowdfavourite.net
Bryan didn’t mention that he and I have this thing for .net names. 😉
Anyhow, I think the .net is a good choice.
Hmm, ‘crowdfave.com’ is gaining on ‘crowdfavorite.net’, but no one is commenting on why they are choosing it. 🙁
We are big believers that the more yourself you are in advance, the better clients you’ll get and the happier everybody will be (slightly more here).
The web is definitely in boom cycle right now (there is definitely a potential embarrasment of riches), but for many there is an opportunity to build the businesses we want. Down with enterprise! Down with dotted-line reporting! Down with this thin veneer of passive-aggressiveness we call “professional”!
My vote’s for the .net — the only value a domain name really has anymore is speaking it to someone.
I think branding issues are very important, and that means having as much synergy between the company brand name and the website domain name as possible.
.com’s are always a strong branding option, but I wouldn’t personally give much weight to .net, .org, .biz or .info in these terms.
In that regard, crowdfavourite.com seems to be the strongest domain name option at present for branding purposes.
2c.
Brian– don’t you also think it’s important for people to be able to type it without misspelling it? That seems like a fatal flaw for the ‘favourite’ variation.
I like crowdfave.com, simple, easy to spell, and the typography works so much better with ‘fave’ than ‘favorite.’
I voted for the .net as well. Yeah, Geof, we do a have a thing for .nets. 🙂 But it keeps the names synced up, and eventually the .com name will come available, and you can then rather seamlessly transition to it if you so desire.
To my mind, it’s much easier remembering the “.net” part than to remember to add “ltd” or to remember just how the name is shortened.
I imagine you’d take international work if it came to you, but my guess is that in general, your market is US based, so I think ‘favourite’ would be a bad decision based on that. I think some of the .com-need is starting to die down. So many are bought up and the speculators are sitting on them hoping for too much money. So for now at least, .net seems like a good option. I agree with you Alex, for now, I think it would be a branding mistake actually to go with ‘favourite’ given my assumption on your intended market. I personally just dislike the european spellings of words like that anyhow, heh.
I voted for crowdfavorite.net. If you absolutely felt you had to have a .com, then I would go for crowdfave.com. I just don’t like the ltd. It’s kind of like … I, in general, don’t care of you’re a C Corp, a LLC, or any of that other stuff. The ltd thing is going to drop off in my mind. crowdfave.com, I could probably remember.
I still think crowdfavorite.net is the best choice for what you’ve supplied to choose from (and no, that is not meant to imply I have some other idea that would be better)
Of the options available, voted for crowdfave.com but did not really like any of the options!!!
Strongly suggest you DON’T use crowdfavorite.net … people will look for you at crowdfavorite.com.
How about:
– thecrowdfavorite.com
– crowdfavored.com
If you like one of these, be quick – all variations are available ……. and counting!!!!
OK, registered thecrowdfavorite.com/net/org
I have a concern that folks will mistype thecrowdfavorite.com as just crowdfavorite.com since they are both .com. In this regard, crowdfave.com may be better.
However, crowdfave.com suffers from the “how was that abbreviated again?” problem.
crowdfave.com seems like it’d be quirkier / funner / catchier on a business card.
Ashame there’s no .te TLD.
cro.wd.fav.ori.te
Okay, okay, maybe not.
I actually did consider using ‘.it’ as crowdfavor.it.
But ditched it because it would be hard to say and have people remember what to type.
Stick with the .net domain, as the company name and domain should be the same, IMHO, unless you are willing to rename the company to Crowd Fave.
Someone would also like to point out that King Design was a perfectly acceptable name, as design is a very generic term.
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CrowdFave.com. Not just because .com is king (no pun intended) – but also because – if you go with CrowdFavorite.net – you have no guarantee that for instance, the current owner won’t sell the domain to a porn blogger you would inevitably end up sending *your* visitors to every month – as people tend to type and link to .com versions of domain names rather frequently. In fact so much so that, if you were to go to with CrowdFavorite.net, given the popularity of your current site, the owner would start to get a nice stream of PPC income just by putting up an ad-filled parked page on CrowdFavorite.com.
There are multi-million dollar business empires today that were made with domain squatting in the twilight years of the internet.
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