Question

Topic: Branding

Easy To Remember Or Unique?

Posted by Clive Fernandes on 12/20/2007 at 3:09 AM ET 500 Points
Hey all,

My startup company is developing a sports community online for cricket fans in India. We have been running a test site from past 3 months called cricket247.in. We recently got funded and so now work will begin in full steam.

The dilemma here is that we also acquired the domain "cric6.com" and are now contemplating whether this would be a better name/url for our community.

I am listing the Pros/Cons of either as I see them and hoping for your thoughts and suggestions on the same.

Cricket247.in

Pros:
1. I feel this name has more character, meaning and is unique.
2. A vote on our test website by our fans show more fans prefer cricket247.in

Cons:
1. The .in domain adds another element to remember in this URL, and we can lose traffic to the person who owns .com later.
2. The url is slightly cumbersome to vocally share with someone.


Cric6.com

Pros:
1. Short, catchy and crisp domain
2. We also own cricsix.com - so no issues with confusion over the "6" in the domain.
3. The number 6 holds significance in cricket.

Cons:
1. Sounds very "me too" - there are a lot of variants of cricket sites starting with the term "cric"

Your thoughts?

Best Regards,
Clive Fernandes
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by BlueSage on 12/20/2007 at 4:09 AM Accepted
    Hi, I had to look up what cricket was! Looks a lot like
    baseball. Except for the bases vs the strip.

    You are right, darn near everything is taken.

    If I had to choose one, I would pick cricket247

    However, cricketplayerz.com is available

    as is, cricketsix.com and cricketbatters.com

    the first one would have explaining also with the Z, which
    isn't fun when that has to be done.

  • Posted by Harry Hallman on 12/20/2007 at 5:47 AM Member
    You can buy both URLS and point them to the same site and avoid others from using it. In fact. you should get every URL that you think others might use.

    Also listen to your fans.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 12/20/2007 at 9:39 AM Accepted
    cricket247.in is better. It's less cryptic. You already have members at this site, and they weighed in. If your customers are online only, then they'll be emailing your website by copying/pasting. The concern is if people can't remember it, what do they remember. I would be concerned about confusion with cricket247.com, for example.
  • Posted on 12/20/2007 at 11:37 PM Accepted
    hi- Being from India- i can vouch that a competitor website, Cricinfo is very very popular. So any url starting with Cric with run into the problem of being misunderstood as cric info.
    however between 247 & 6 i will suggest 6. 247 has to be interpreted as 24 X 7... too much trouble.
    Hope this helps.
  • Posted by Clive Fernandes on 12/22/2007 at 6:00 AM Author
    Thx for all the replies guys.. Have some additional info to share with you.

    What has happened in the past few weeks is that the gap in the poll I had put up for the fans to choose between cric6.com and cricket247.in is getting smaller.

    cric6 43%
    cricket247.in 57%

    Looks like most of the newer members to the forum ( people who haven't been using the domain cricket247.in for a while) are leaning more towards the shorter cric6.com

    Also, I'm thinking that trademarking the term cric6 would be more feasible than trademarking cricket247 who's .com is already owned by someone else!

    Your thoughts...

    Clive
  • Posted on 12/24/2007 at 1:39 PM Accepted
    Hi Clive,

    I would use Guy Kawasaki's rule for marketing and make domain names as simple and easy to remember as possible. cricket247.in conveys the name of the business, 24x7 nature and that it is for india. so go with that and make other url's point to it.

    as for branding, I would not compromise and buy the cricket247.in domain and brand using a tag line saying something like "cricket24x7.india" with the dia in this in a different color - my 2 cents.

    In branding, never compromise as this can hurt you.

    hit a six!
  • Posted by Clive Fernandes on 12/26/2007 at 5:05 AM Author
    Dear Shiva,

    Won't cric6.com adhere more to Guy's rule of a simple and easier to remember domain?

    Regards,
    Clive Fernandes
  • Posted by Clive Fernandes on 12/27/2007 at 2:49 AM Author
    KSA,

    Cric6 is actually a .com - plus we also registered cricsix.com to counter possible confusion.

    Regards,
    Clive
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