What’s in a name?
If you are serious about your new project, then you should be considering covering all international options in terms of your domain name. You may be starting off in the UK, but if things go well, it is very easy in the modern online well to have a service or range of goods that appeals to people of all countries. So grab the .uk domain, grab the .com and .co, but also grab the .de and .in -a few pounds now could save plenty of headaches in the future. It makes sense too to grab the same ‘name’ with different extensions, but just be careful. Google Translate will help to an extent but if you are creating a brand the same name is probably better than a translation. However, if you are not an expert in the languages of the other nations you could be heading down a slippery slope. For example your very English name could sound great to most of the world but in specific countries it could offer a completely different suggestion as to what your company is about. The easiest way to show this is by people’s names. There are planty of Dave’s Cabs, John the Plumber type company names, but they wouldn’t necessarily cross the channel very well. For example ‘Adam’ could be your name and you may fancy selling PC parts, so AdamPC might be attractive as a name. Not so attractive in Arabic countries however, where Adam means skin! Alan another great English name, but Alan Funeral services would not be the best choice in Indonesia where alan is used to refer to a comedian. Equally Susan may not be ideal in your global domination as the word means cemetery in Thai. OK, those examples may sound a bit far-fetched, but that’s partly the idea, to make you remember and make it stick in your mind. Names are what brands are built upon, and just as the Plop chocolate bar from Scandinavia has never caught on in the UK, so your choice of name for your company, brand and domain may not have the global appeal you first thought.
Fast-track closure for criminal domains
UK Police could find it easier to close down .uk domain names being used for suspected criminal activity if draft recommendations out for discussion are adopted by national Internet registry Nominet. Under the present system police need a court order before Nominet can act on ‘.co.uk’ domains that are being used for criminal purposes, but the Nominet issue group are seeking comments on ‘Dealing with domain names used in connection with criminal activity‘ which could remove layers of bureaucracy. Domains used to sell counterfeit goods, fake tickets and pharmaceuticals could soon be shut down in a matter of days, even hours if the new regime is adopted. Under the ‘expedited’ procedure police will need to provide “a declaration that the suspension is proportionate, necessary, and urgent.” The key deterrent from invoking these sort of procedures previously appears to have been Nominet wanting to ensure they are not forced to make decisions over legality, and the new procedure should eliminate thosse worries. The draft recommendations can be downloaded and viewed here with comments invited before 20th September 2011 to policy@nominet.org.uk. The Issue will then meet the next day and discuss any suggestions. The final proposals will then be put before the Nominet board and could feasibly be adopted as early as October.
Doh! Main mistake
We’ve covered these sorts of stories time and time again and we even suggested it would happen again this year, so you may have thought the chances of a big brand hitting the headlines by failing to renew their domain properly would be pretty remote. Yet week three of the year and we are reporting the same. This time it was automotive retail specialist Halfords.com. Visitors to the domain yesterday and still today were greeted with a holding page for Network Solutions and an invitation to renew the domain. Halfords were quoted in the press as saying the lack of availability of their usual main site was down to “a temporary administrative issue in our domain name renewal process”, which they said was now complete and that it expected the site to be available soon. While the supporting apology to customers for any inconvenience may work with some, the fact that the site has now been down for over 24 hours will have hit hard. No doubt the person who allowed the domain to expire will have some explaining to do to bosses too. Don’t risk falling foul of domain expiry for domains stored in your 123-reg account. Make sure you have auto-renewal switched on for any domains you can’t afford to lose and also that we hold up-to-date card details that can be used to pay for automatic renewals.
English Language Day
You may have seen stories last week about National Poetry Day but were you aware this was just one event in a week long celebration of the English language? As part of the same celebration, today is English Language Day. What? English Language Day is part of the English Project and is apparently “an opportunity for you to share your community’s English”. So it is a celebration of accents, regional lingo and how what you say and how you say it defines who you are. It is a time to show pride in your dropped h and the like. Why? Way back on the 13 October 1362 the then Chancellor of England opened Parliament with the first speech in English. In that same Parliament, a Statute of Pleading was approved that permitted members to use the English language in debate and in the courts. Until then French had been dominant due to the ancestry of the noblemen of the time. The new Act complained that because the French language was relatively unknown in England outside of the nobility, the majority of people had no knowledge of what is being said for them or against them in the courts, which used Law French. From then on it became law that everything “be pleaded, shewed, defended, answered, debated, and judged in the English Tongue”. Thereafter English became the dominant language and as a result 13 October symbolises the survival of English and its development as a world language. So how can you get involved? The English Project and Ordnance Survey have linked up to compile an Alternative Gazeteer of Britain, The Great British Collection of Nicknames for Places or what they are calling Location Lingo. From today they inviting details of nicknames and petnames for places and landmarks even road-junctions or roundabouts or roads. They can be well-known, popular nicknames or private petnames used amongst a few friends. Old or new. There is an element of fun in it but also something serious as they hope that the compiled listings could help Emergency Services who are often puzzled when people phone in with reports of incidents using a nickname to describe the location. The Rules To be classified as Location Lingo by the English Project and Ordnance Survey a nickname or pet name for a place in Great Britain must: 1. must not be an official name or does not appear as a name on the maps in the map viewer 2. have been in regular and recognisable use amongst a group of three or more people for at least a month 3. have not been devised for this project. As well as the nickname or pet name they are also interested in the story behind the name. Why did a place acquire that nickname? If you know, then let them know. We can’t wait to see the final results as we have a feeling there could be a rush to register domain names for the list of nicknames.