When Good Domain Names Go Bad

Last year, the National Scrapbooking Association changed their name to the INTERNATIONAL Scrapbooking Association. They were also able to round up a new domain name since their last one had a .gs extension (from the Sandwich Islands - population like 6 people. Good domain name are easy to get there I bet) which they said stood for "good scrapping", but really, was quite odd and hard to remember. I always suggest that you go for the .com first and foremost and if you can't get the .com, then change your name to something else because if your competitor has the .com, guess where all your customers will go...

ANYWAY, I digress.

So, they rounded up a new domain that fit their new name - iScrap.com. Looks kind of fresh and cool, doesn't it? It's like ScrapBiz.com. - it looks good with the "S" and "B" capitalized (vs www.scrapbiz.com). But, we all know that you don't have to actually type it in that way to get to the site.

Well, good business advice is to run domains and business names by people who either have no emotional investment in it or who don't know what it is. It's like baby names - they make perfect sense to the parents, but may not to everyone else. I spent an hour referring to someone's yet-to-be-born baby GIRL as a BOY because her name was "Presley" - which, in this 40-something's mind is a BOY'S name. I wondered how many others had done the same. But, in the minds of the 20-something parents, Presley was a WONDERFUL name for their baby girl.

I digress again...

So, iScrap. Could it be read ANOTHER way? Perhaps IsCrap? See what I mean? I'm not making editorial commentary on the International Scrapbooking Association as I don't know anything about them really, but, I have to wonder if anyone has pointed out that little issue to them. I wouldn't want my business to be also known as "IsCrap". When good domain names go bad...