If I was trying to buy the .COM there is no way I would mention it:) That would raise the price by 5 times!

Thanks though!

and if you plan to contact the .COM owner
put your .NET on temp PRIVACY Protection
till after everything is done…

someone sees you have the .NET and you want the .COM
you will then be paying at least triple for it – if they even
consider selling it to you…

if you are unable to obtain the .COM

big deal…

move forward anyway…

if you are commited to your project and confident in
your marketing abilities — you can’t be stopped…

and when you do a visual of the domain
or graphics (banners etc) — Feature the .NET part
of the name in a contrasting slap them in the face
nice way … so they REMEBER it’s a .NET

Good Luck on you project…

~Patricia – DomainBELL

Another point I think you are correct on is that even though I can find a use for “minisites” when it comes to a full development a different level of quality is needed and many people are really overlooking that these days.

@T – My talk about the “tax” was more just a discussion I had with someone abot the possibility of something happening like that some day.

In reality I could start a business without any more than a one page website (heck a good portion of the successful iPhone apps developers did this) but that only works for specific groups of people.

There are still alot of niche markets that the customers are still being pulled forward and even though a small portion of people researching it would do so through an app the large majority are going to use search at this point, my goal is to take advantage of search and Facebook….

You are all basing your business models around Google and how products and customers get connected today. This is not a viable platform for the future.

You can build a site on a mobile app, a facebook or myspace page a blogspot or typepad address and many there are more successful then most domains I know.

—-> Owen, I agree completely, but it starts somewhere. In reality the whole reason I start anything with a domain and website these days is for advertising potential, people are comfortable with that. But, and this is something I do not blog about nearly enough, I spend a large portion of my time talking about the impact of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks on how people get information and what decisions they make. And when it comes to mobile apps, you are SOOO right, my seminars actually start with a whole section on the growing use of mobilephones in accessing data. So I am in agreement here wholeheartedly but I have been careful speaking my mind in this area to much:) I know hard to believe:)

Problem is that if you have no budget for dotCOM, you also have no budget to defend yourself against liabilities nor will you be able to sustain yourself when the Global Internet Tax and Licensing kick in of $750 per domain to register then $250 a year to maintain.

—–> Just had a long conversation with a very smart man about a high tax on domain renewals, it hurts to think about it. I am not sure I would agree that not having the budget for the .COM means there is no budget to defend against liabilities. The .COM in this case is owned by a business in the specific niche. Actually if the .COM was available for sale we could of purchased it easily but in this case I would have to buy the whole business…. I do get your point but not sure I would agree.

Plus the TOS of the CCTLDs give you no legal protections to oeprate these domains in the US- plus eventually the TOS of .net and ,org will be enforced for networks and non-profits alike. If a non-profit files a UDRP against a profitmaker on a .org- adios amigo!
—-> To many cctlds to think about, I only really work on one as everyone knows:) I am not sure I would build a major business on a .ORG so no worries there.

—-> I think the major point in your comment though that people do need to understand is that people are changing the way they use the Internet. Facebook to me dwarfs Twitter in its impact on how people do things, and even more so mobile search and apps are even bigger. Search matters but people have to have a holistic approach to anything they do these days. It is not about the domain, it is not about Facebook, it is not about the iPhone, it is really about how you use all of those together.

You can build a site on a mobile app, a facebook or myspace page a blogspot or typepad address and many there are more successful then most domains I know.

Problem is that if you have no budget for dotCOM, you also have no budget to defend yourself against liabilities nor will you be able to sustain yourself when the Global Internet Tax and Licensing kick in of $750 per domain to register then $250 a year to maintain.

Plus the TOS of the CCTLDs give you no legal protections to oeprate these domains in the US- plus eventually the TOS of .net and ,org will be enforced for networks and non-profits alike. If a non-profit files a UDRP against a profitmaker on a .org- adios amigo!

I will say, and this is something @David understands well is that there is a chance that if you are doing major branding campaigns and relying on type in traffic to that site there may be some leakage to the .COM. I am willing to deal with that though.

In this specific instance the traffic is coming from search (mainly) or PPC (minor) so that is much less of an issue.