Under the Desktop: Master of your Domain

David Morgenstern

Content creators are often the mainstay of the brand development process, establishing the details of a print identity or evolving the design and graphics for a corporate site. Yet, very often creators neglect the basics of their own Internet brand strategy, forgetting that like charity, branding should start at home.

While some content creators have Web portfolios, it’s often just a page or two in an online gallery filled with other people’s work. This seems to hold true for a number of the print-centric graphic designers and illustrators I’ve met recently. Is that strategy misguided? No way, it’s a fine thing and lets you spend your time creating content for clients rather than learning HTML coding to get a page to look just right.

Still, many Web-savvy content pros have bypassed the essentials of Internet branding, including a personalized domain and e-mail address. It must be obvious to readers — perhaps the most design sophisticated audience on the planet — that such simple things can make a strong impression, over and over again.

The usual excuse given is high cost. A few years ago, domains were pricey and in limited supply. Setting up and maintaining a domain was tricky and expensive. Domain names even became the notorious subject of bidding wars among companies and owners. When folks figured in the price of hosting services, it all added up quickly.

No longer. As with the many other changes in the post-Internet-bubble era, the cost of Web branding has fallen. There’s really no reason to overlook the opportunity of a personalized Web domain, or for those of us already with domains, to improve our current online branding.

There’s no magic involved — the entire process is amazingly easy. And for those of you who just want a more personalized e-mail address, I’ve found an inexpensive alternative.

A Domain by Any Other Name
There are three major steps to gaining your domain: registering the domain, hosting your name on a Domain Name System (DNS) server, and finding a hosting service for your Web pages and other Internet services, such as e-mail.

Of course, there are really many other twists and turns in the straight path described so simply above. While there are companies that will do it all for you, each step can be done by a different company. For example, as I discussed in a previous column, you could host the Web server yourself. This column will discuss the first step.

Until recently there was a short list of domain categories, or extensions, controlled by an even shorter list of registrar organizations. Dot-com (.com) is the category most familiar to folks in the United States; however, there were others for education (.edu), government (.gov), Internet Service Providers (.net), and non-profits (.org).

Simple may be best for domain names, and because of this almost all good short names with the .com extension were snatched up years ago by speculators and companies. For most businesses and even individuals, there’s someone else on the Internet with your name.

Faced with this lackluster situation, businesses have tried ways to get around this problem, none of them really satisfactory. Some spell out their whole name or company. This approach can work if each word is short and easy to spell. But it grows cumbersome when stringing together more than a couple of words.

Attempts to shorten words or use punctuation bring their own trouble. San Francisco can be brought into manageable length with SF. But what if a phrase or acronym falls at middle or the end of a name? Some groups try adding punctuation, which can make things worse. Take for example, the URL of the production of the musical South Pacific now playing in San Francisco — www.bestofbroadway-sf.com. Right.

Five or so years ago, I faced the same dilemma when registering my own domain, davidmorgenstern.com. By any measure, my name is long and difficult (for some) to spell correctly. But it is me. At the time, Morgenstern GmbH, a German company owned morgenstern.com, so there was no easy answer. Alternatives such as dmorgenstern.com or davidm.com or davidmor.com didn’t look any better or easier to remember, so I went with my full name.

In real world usage, most people will try out a Web address once or twice in their browser and then move on. If a spelling doesn’t bring the results they expect — like that German company rather than me — and then use a search engine to find the actual site.

Fortunately for content creators looking for a better Internet brand, several new extensions were recently introduced: one for information sites (.info), an additional business category (.biz), a geographical extension for the United States (.us) and one for Websites (.ws). Some are very flexible categories, especially, .us and .ws, which can be used for almost any purpose. Another extension, .name, is due shortly.

Even better, owners of the older domain names don’t have any claim on the newer versions. A company or person with a dot-com address is on equal standing with anyone else for these new extensions. It’s first come, first registered.

For example, morgenstern.us, would let me simplify my address somewhat by cutting off my first name. Of course, David is the shortest, most familiar part of the domain, so, there’s little advantage gained there. Still, my e-mail would be “david @morgenstern.us”, which is a bit easier in concept and has a logical appearance.

On the downside, here in the States most people type “.com” automatically, and have trouble remembering the new extension. This is less of a problem with users in other countries, where there’s been a longer experience with geographic addresses. No doubt, we’ll all get used to hearing and considering .biz and .us extensions over time.

Meanwhile, I admit that I picked up the morgenstern.us domain early this year and parked it. I don’t plan to replace my current domain, but I have some ideas how it can bolster my Web presence. I will report on that experience in future columns.

Registration Proclamation
Buying a domain is much like buying anything else online: simple and fast. All you need is a credit card and a browser.

A number of companies now offer registration services, some familar names such as VeriSign (which I used to sign up for my site) as well as newcomers including Mydomain.com and Register.com. I’ve had success with GoDaddy Software, a company that also now offers a wide range of Web services.

I’ll use GoDaddy for my example, but its services and actions are similar to the others.

The search tool on GoDaddy’s front page or their registration page lets you check the availability of the different domains and extensions.

If the domain is taken by someone else, you can find out who got there first by clicking the link to search the centralized WHOIS database, which holds the contact information of every owner of a domain on the Internet. The contact record is divided into sections for organization, administration, and technical support. For most of us, that’s one person, however, those functions could be found in different parts of a large company.

The WHOIS search link brings up a page with a short-term password that you must input yourself before the WHOIS record is displayed. The Web bigwigs don’t want to make access automatic, giving search engines free reign to all the contacts in the database. We get enough spam as it is.

The GoDaddy registration page also offers DynaGen, an interesting search using the Oingo engine. I entered Morgenstern into the field and it returned a long list of dot-com names based on subject rather than spelling. For example, Christian Morgenstern was a famous German poet, hence the suggestion for germanliteratures.com and contemporarypoetries.com. Neither of these brilliant suggestions were registered.

Once you find an unregistered domain that meets your criteria, you proceed to the next step: deciding how long you want to register the domain. You can sign up for a single year or as long as a decade. Depending on the extension and the length of time, the cost ranges from $14 a year to $6.95. Short- or long-term, the cost is really minimal.

Next, you fill out the information that will be in the WHOIS database. GoDaddy calls this the registrant, technical, administrative, and billing information. It’s very straightforward.

Finally, before heading to checkout, GoDaddy pitches its own hosting services. For a nominal fee, you can park the domain at GoDaddy while you contact your ISP or look around for hosting packages at other sites. This is a sensible approach.

In addition, there’s a request for the DNS server information. As I’ve mentioned in the previous column, the Internet is really just a bunch of numbers and DNS servers around the world help translate the numbers used by host machines and accounts into words and e-mail addresses. This is the blah-blah stuff that’s usually hidden in the header of an e-mail message. Your current or future ISP will provide you (or GoDaddy) with that name server number.

Short and Sweet
If you just want a personalized e-mail address, and not the trouble of a domain and Web site, there are other options. I found one when checking the WHOIS record for morgenstern.com.

Your domain registration is for a finite period and it can lapse. According to WHOIS, morgenstern.com changed hands in 2000 and was purchased by NetIdentity, a company that offers personalized e-mail accounts. They’ve bought up thousands of popular last names, such as Smith, Wong, and Morgenstern, that they lease to customers for $24.95 a year.

So for $2 per month, I could have “david @morgenstern.com” (available) or “morgenstern @theDavids.com” (available) but not “David @theDavids.com” (taken). Darn! BTW: I don’t have word good or bad on the reliability of NetIdentity, but it certainly seems like a low-cost option.

In bygone days, a business “hung out the shingle,” a physical emblem that proclaimed their enterprise to the street and customers. More recently, a listing in the Yellow Pages served a similar purpose. In our Internet age, we find that a Web site and a personalized e-mail address accomplish that element of a brand.

The Talmud says: “Be obscure, that you may endure.” Certainly that sage wisdom can fit moments in our lives. But it’s a questionable advice for content creator seeking their place on the Internet.