The browser wars are back on in earnest. For the second time in three months, Internet Explorer made large gains, picking up almost 1 point of market share. Chrome, Firefox, and Safari all lost out, as Internet Explorer 9 won over new users.
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The overflow of quick and witty reaction tweets to the new iPad name proves a name is never just a name. This applies for domain names, too. Here are tips to help you avoid these classic dot-com disasters — poolife.com, therapistsfinder.com or IPallover.com.
DomainNameSales.com, a name registration and web hosting company, created an infographic to teach brands domain name 101.
The first tip is to invest in your domain name as you would secure a primary location for a storefront.
“Don’t cut corners with your online identity,” says Frank Schilling, founder of DomainNameSales.com and an Internet entrepreneur. “A better domain name will lower your lifetime marketing costs.”
A great example of this is Diapers.com, which gets an average of 106 million unique visitors. More than half of these visitors found the site by using “diapers” as a search term. It’s the first thing that comes up on Google before a Wikipedia article about diapers, Walmart.com and Amazon.com.
Short, generic, descriptive and memorable adjectives make great website domains. Skip dashes, long names, broken language and made-up terms.
Many businesses make a mistake by quickly choosing to go with a name rather than weighing all the options, Schilling says.
SEE ALSO: Tea Party Domain Name Could Fetch $1 Million
Using a company name such as MagnoliasCupcake.com may be an obvious choice, but not the right one. Shorter, more memorable names like mycupcake.com and ilovecupcakes.com can make a difference.
Schilling said you should ask, “What message does your domain send?” when considering a branded domain or generic domain.
“Cupcakes.com may not be for everyone,” he said. “But owning the bold, generic single word or multi-word phrase that describes your services sends a powerful message to competitors and industry.”
Just as Facebook has secured numerous anti-Facebook or common Facebook.com typos, Schilling said you should do secure domain names for your brand — or someone you love. The domain guru registered a domain name 10 years ago for his 10-year-old nephew.
“The 7 billionth person has just been born on this planet and, in 10 years, he too will want an email address,” he says. “All these people will eventually aspire to own better names. The time to secure those better names is now.”
What crazy domain names have you seen on the Internet? Tell us in the comments.
Thumbnail courtesy of Flickr, liquene
More About: Business, Domain Names, infographic, Search, startup
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redletterdave writes “Proview Technology, which currently uses the ‘iPad’ name on several of its products including computer monitors, stands to win up to $1.6 billion and an apology from Apple for allegedly infringing upon Proview’s trademarked name to use on its bestselling tablet. Proview International, which owns subsidiaries Proview Technology in Shenzhen and Proview Electronics in Taiwan, originally registered the name ‘iPad’ in Taiwan in 2000 and mainland China in 2001. Proview eventually sued Apple in 2011, and even though the Cupertino-based company retaliated with a counter-suit of its own, Apple lost the case in local Chinese courts. Depending on the court’s findings, Apple could be fined anywhere from $38 million to the $1.6 billion that Proview is seeking. In addition to the money, Proview also wants Apple to apologize. ‘We have prepared well for a long-term legal battle,’ said one of Proview’s lawyers.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.
Let’s face it. Unless you run a small- to medium-sized accounting firm, the motivation for starting your own business probably had very little to do with wanting to use your skills as a bookkeeper. You wanted to use your talents as a graphic designer, or a craft beer brewer or a vintage shop owner.
So it’s only fair that you might have been spending your time on logos, microbrews or scouring flea markets rather than becoming an expert in the potentially complex world of digitally managing your business’s finances. But lurking beneath the perilously cluttered face of the app world are tools that could be useful to you, and a modest investment of time up front could save you a headache down the road.
Here are some tools to check out:
1. Expensify
Unless you enjoy transcribing illegible tips scrawled on crumpled up receipts into an Excel spreadsheet, expense reports are no fun. Luckily, Expensify makes that mind-numbing procedure a thing of the past. Once you install the app on your phone, you simply take a photo of the receipt, and Expensify converts it into a neatly formatted report.
“I don’t hate doing expense reports anymore thanks to Expensify,” says Kenny Herman, VP of business development for SinglePlatform, noting that he saves about an hour a week by using the app.
Expensify is free to use for individuals, and businesses pay $5 per person submitting expenses each month after two free initial accounts. Added bonus: The $5 fee is only incurred if the user actually submits a report, meaning dormant accounts don’t cost you.
2. Chargify
If your product has any kind of online subscription component — even if the product itself is not digital — Chargify (not to be confused with Spotify or Expensify) might be the right for you. The dashboard is designed to allow you to manage coupons and special offers, as well as varying expiration dates and renewal deadlines all in one place. The tiered price points jump up fairly quickly once you pass 500 customers, but one could argue that thousands of paying customers is a good problem to have.
3. InDinero
On a given morning, an ice cream truck owner will likely know off the top of her head how many cones, cups and shakes she sold the day before. But what about how much money she’s spent on gas, windshield wiper fluid or the stray parking ticket that month? Not to mention the ads she put in the local paper, the annual insurance payment and the permits for the street fair coming up in two months. In the aggregate, even very small shops have a lot of moving parts, and it can be difficult to get an accurate snapshot of the financial health of the business in one place. That’s where inDinero comes in. By pulling in information from a small business owner’s various bank and credit card accounts, the online platform provides not only current financial information but also forecasts for the future and suggests budgets.
4. FreshBooks
Invoices are a task almost as fun as expense reports. Whether you create them, receive them or both, it can be a headache to keep everything in a unified, easy-to-monitor format. FreshBooks streamlines this task for small business owners and consultants in part by automating various steps throughout the process. And for the steps they don’t handle themselves, they have partnered with a host of other app providers — including Expensify and inDinero — to make your life as easy as possible.
According to CMO Stuart MacDonald, many of FreshBooks’ users are freelancers and contractors, although it’s commonplace for businesses with up to 50 employees to use the tools. “We think of ourselves as the infrastructure that lets them easily get on with what they want to do,” MacDonald says.
5. Teaspiller
Doing your taxes is one of those things that’s all too easy to put off thinking about until it’s probably too late — perhaps even more so than expense reporting and invoicing. Teaspiller is designed to save the day when you realize that the undesirable task simply can’t be put off any longer. Teaspiller’s tools connect small business owners with tax professionals who are selected based on their particular business’s needs and specializations. You can request a quote in advance to avoid unpleasant surprises. We won’t go so far as to say Teaspiller makes doing your business’ taxes fun, but at least you have access to experts who can help make the process less painful.
More Small Business Resources From OPEN Forum:
– 15 Keyboard Shortcuts To Enhance Your PC Productivity
– 5 Services For Building Websites On A Budget
– 10 Accessories To Boost Office Morale
– Top 5 Foursquare Mistakes Committed By Small Businesses
– How To Use Social Media For Recruiting
More About: chargify, Expensify, finances, freshbooks, Indinero, Small Business Resources, taxes, Teaspiller
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David Rosenberg is Director of Innovation at LBi in the U.S., the world’s leading independent global marketing and technology agency.
For startups, selling advertising agencies on your technology can be fraught with difficulty. As startups emerge from their development cycles, investors begin clamoring to get the prototype to market. What follows is a flurry of meetings with brand marketers and advertising agencies in an attempt to secure funding and a business application for the new product.
Many startups assume that their brilliant, game-changing products will sell themselves. It’s at this point that mistakes happen, destroying any chance of meaningful funding and exposure. As someone who’s been tasked with innovation on the agency side for years, and sat through countless meetings with startups, I’ve compiled a guide to make the most of each agency funding opportunity.
1. It’s Not About You, It’s About Them
This meeting is not about you and your idea. It’s about finding a practical and profitable business application for your product. To avoid that glazed-over look as your audience tunes out, do yourself a favor: help them help you. Do your research on the agency and its clients. Have a look at their video case studies. Make an attempt to understand their brands and business challenges. In the agency world, this is called working back to the creative brief. Figure out why your service is best-suited to help the agency or a particular client.
2. Focus the Conversation on User Experience and Agility
Your pitch should emphasize how your product or service was designed with the end-user’s needs in mind. Agencies need to know that your product is more than just a working piece of technology. You may even consider enlisting a UX designer to help with your pitch. Further, it’s critical that you show your ability to manage the product or technology in an agile and flexible manner during the build-out process. Be sure to mention this — it will go a long way in reassuring the agency that it has a real partner.
3. Demonstrate Measurement and Support Capabilities
Make sure you have a sophisticated measurement and accountability system embedded into your technology. Analytics are essential components of the agency business, so be sure to address the topic in your presentation. Also mention your team, however small, in your pitch. Even though you may be a small startup, you have to reassure the agency that you and your team will be able to see the project through to the end.
4. Meet with Key Decision-Makers, Avoid a Run-Around
Many constituents in the agency world have overlapping jobs. While meeting with the CEO or president is ideal, don’t neglect other important titles like the chief technology officer, innovation directors, emerging media directors and strategic planning directors. It can also be helpful to invite a specific account director (sometimes called business directors or management supervisors), as they often represent a direct budget connection, as well as the needs of a particular brand. Avoid the run-around by properly managing the follow-up. It’s important to persist corresponding with the agency in general, but also to identify the appropriate decision-making advocate who will become your agency partner.
5. Entertain Multiple Business Opportunities and Models
Explore the many innovative business models and opportunities in today’s marketing industry. The most straightforward method is piloting your service into a funded brand program. Be prepared to discuss the fees that make the investment worth your time and effort, as well as the costs you are willing to absorb to get the deal done.
Strategic partnerships can also help grow your business. Agencies can assemble many partners around a brand’s table. Look for in-kind opportunities within agencies, for example, high-value media and promotions which would otherwise be financially impossible to you. Lastly, some agencies are now investing in new technology and services as revenue-sharing deals or equity plays. Consider that many agencies could see you as a long-term investment. The important thing is to be prepared for any opportunity and keep an open mind.
Image courtesy of Flickr, George Jonathan
More About: ad agency, business, funding, startup
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