Picking up in our essentials series, this week I’m here to cover a topic that is more about pure annoyance than importance, but when you think about it, it makes perfectly clear sense. Enter in the dispute between real domain names and over-initialized domains, and you got yourself another case of Devlounge essentials.

Welcome to Devlng

Ever since Flickr, the need for shorter company names has multiplied faster than a few bunnies locked in a room. I never expected to see domains for sale that are nothing more than a random combination of letters selling, and worse, being used to brand an entire site or startup.

What’s the value of shorter domain names? There’s always been that low-character issue, that the least amount of letters a name can be, the easier it can be to remember and the more valuable the name is. Is it true? Maybe to all the domain appraisal companies, but not to most of us.

It’s disappointing to see some many sites falling into the “web 2.0 BS Express”, and simply following the crowd. Sites that are creating their image by dropping a few letters off of their name and replacing it with an “r”, or spelling words entirely different for dramatic effect.

Are we that creative(less), or did we all just miss the spelling bee?

The question here becomes why would anyone bother to build a brand around a name that, in English, or even any language, has absolutely no meaning? What happen to the days when people would join meaningful words together to form strong names that had some backbone to them? Sadly, they are coming to an end.

Why would someone sacrifice a true meaning name for a jumble of letters? One reason could be creativity. Is the web in general lacking so much originality that we find ourselves forced to used alternative spellings to use names already taken by other companies? Why not try something different?

Than there’s the issue of spelling. Never should dropping a few letters be considered acceptable in helping clients remember your brand name. If you’re forcing your visitors to check their intelligence at the door before entering your site, you’re really not making any progress.

The moral of the story

Forget that hype that is the web world we live in. Stop stooping to ridiculous levels for the sake of joining in with the crowd in todays “web 2.0” world. Instead, start branding your site with logical names formed with actual words that have meaning behind them. In the long run it will only benefit your brand, because language can never go out of style, but little initials can. Remember, you’re out to create a positive and reputable brand, not the next code name for “l33t” gamer discussion.

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