One thing we've had to do is pick a URL. The obvious choices, althouse.com and annalthouse.com, are not available. Whoever owns them is demanding a ridiculous amount of money — $33,500 and $888, respectively (with no mechanism for making a counteroffer). I don't know what is going on there, but if the point is to squat and then sell, shouldn't you make the price something within reason? I don't accept switching the .com to .net for either "althouse" or "annalthouse," because I think people would accidentally go to the .com, and who knows what horrible things someone might put there. In any case, I don't want to drive traffic to those bastards, whoever they are.
So the predicament of the unavailability of the obvious forced us to brainstorm. When I IM'd my son John about it, he immediately suggested althou.se. I didn't even know what the .se meant. Well, it means Sweden. But who cares? There's no embarrassing association with Sweden that concerns me. There's the issue of giving the false impression of being Swedish, but that's a very retro concern, I think. (Am I wrong?) The hip approach — am I right? — is to look at all those country codes as a source of letter combinations to form short, spiffy URLs like althou.se.
Discuss!
ADDED: In the comments, there's a lot of fretting about using .se, but check this out:
Following in Twitter (T.co) and Overstock’s (O.co’s) footsteps, Amazon has picked up the domains A.Co, Z.Co, K.Co and interestingly enough Cloud.co in a deal made with Colombia-based domain registry .Co.A.Co, Z.Co, and K.Co will probably be used for Amazon, Zappos, and Kindle. But, anyway. You see my point. The country-based top-level domains — I'm told "country codes" isn't the right term — are being used now for their letters. This is the trend. I'm on trend, people.
While .Co originally gave Twitter the T.Co domain name for free in order to spread awareness about the brand, Amazon has actually purchased these from .Co for an undisclosed price. In comparison, Overstock’s O.Co rebranding was the first negotiated .Co purchase deal, for $350K...
The genesis of the .Co domain is through Colombia, and while country codes usually take a hit in Google rankings, .Co is part of a unique set of cclds (.tv .me .co) which are treated like gtlds or generic domains like .com .net .org.
.Co is about to hit its 1 millionth domain registered in little under a year of service (.com is at over a hundred million) and is about to set up a stable pricing plan for one letter and two letter domains....
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225 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 225 of 225So has your son bought jalt.co yet?
I'd worry about Euro harassment with the Althou.se domain but otherwise I like it - very short and edgy. Althouse.us and Althouse.net should be immediately snagged whether you use them now or not. You can easily point them to your primary domain for n o extra cost. Althouse.me is available, too. Having this discussion out ion the open and moving slowly isn't a best practice.
althou.se
A little too melodramatic, maybe?
(Besides, I'm only right half the time)
Original Mike read my mind with the "andyoualawprofessor.com".
I was thinking ayalp.com. But it's not available. And probably too obscure.
I would expect OpenID to work on whatever the new software is; sorry all y'all who wanna get rid of J, et al. Though I guess you could ban them.
Maybe off topic, but following your design pattern, I'd have a domain ending in ".ng" which is a total non-starter, because Nigeria and the Intertubes have such a long, embarrassing (but funny) history.
I was led to believe that cybersquatting was not legally defensible unless you could produce evidence of intent to use the domain yourself, including content. Then again, I may be the only non-lawyer here, so what do I know.
JAC said:
I think it's safe to say that anyone who's such a fan of this blog that they've committed althouse.blogspot.com to memory in order visit it on multiple computers as efficiently as possible (rather than taking a couple extra seconds to Google "althouse" and go to the first result) is also capable of remembering althou.se.
John... Screw that memorizing crap. I just put a link on my blog, and voila, Instant Althouse..... As long as MY blog doesn't go down!!! :-)
PS. Hell, no one memorizes anything any more. Example - My Mom's phone number. Don't remember it... Don't need to... It's programed into my phone!!! Of course, if I happen to lose my phone, then I'm screwed!!!
PPS. On the one hand, I grew up in the generation that was still switching from rotary dial to touch tone phones, from Betamax to VHS, from regular heat element ovens to microwave overs... and back again. We didn't have electronic devices that stored phone numbers, so we had to memorize everything. I should still do it... but now it's just too damned easy not to! :-)
I think it's safe to say that anyone who's such a fan of this blog that they've committed althouse.blogspot.com to memory in order visit it on multiple computers as efficiently as possible (rather than taking a couple extra seconds to Google "althouse" and go to the first result) is also capable of remembering althou.se.
Who said we couldn't remember it?
It is just as fast if not faster to type in the URL than it is to futz around with Google or any other search engine.
I type in most of my URLs unless they are really long like government agencies or sub categories of other webs.
example
http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0200-industry/0010-producer-online-services/0500-print-cert/
I love the althou.se name. It's perfect.
One more thing.
Ann, I will be very glad when you're of Blogger and using something else. One pet peeve I've always had with Blogger, and it's one reason I switched many years ago, is the very limited use of HTML in the comments. I have never understood why they didn't allow the use of "cite" or "blockquote" in the comments. On some topics, where you're using several quotes to make a point, it became quite annoying that you couldn't single them out.
Conversation at my house an hour ago:
"Look at Althouse's new domain name."
"I have a better idea."
"What's that?"
"You have to type in house while you hold down the ALT key."
"That's ridiculous."
"I have another one. You know how shows and movies often have other first choices for leads?"
"Yes."
"So you find out who the first choice or choice after Hugh Laurie was for House. Say it was Bob Saget. Then the Althouse domain becomes bobsaget.com."
The shortened urls are all about Twitter and similar text-messaging related services. And, as you can see, .se is not included in the trend. It's still a second-class domain from a search perspective.
"BTW, I own althouseblog.com so I have a safe, conservative fallback in case I get cold feet about living on the edge."
Keep this URL regardless of your choice. If you are attached to althou.se, then use this as a redirect for althou.se
Reason: you do not want to have to have more than a two-second response to the question "What's your URL?" if asked in person. How do you explain "althou.se" when someone asks? "alt-how-dot-ess-ee"? The .se doesn't come after a clean phonetic break, so they are apt to misspell it when they try to find you. If someone asks you your URL, and you have a redirect, you can just say "althouseblog.com" and everyone will immediately know where to go.
"You have to type in house while you hold down the ALT key."
Now that would be edgy.
Trends come and go. Commercial websites can afford to be more nimble with such things.
Well, Ann, I will say that althou.se, once accepted, might make your blog look friendlier and cuter. You know. From a PR viewpoint.
At first blush it looks truncated, abbreviated, and confusing, so, if you do decide to go with it, you'll have to give it time to settle in as a brand. I think, it could only be accepted as a brand. Otherwise it looks awkward.
You are blonde , you are photogenic so Sweeden can be .
Also a country with more respect for private property than the USA. 21 vs 38 in the ranking.
Also, the country of origin of Althouse .
Althouse said:
"This is the trend. I'm on trend, people."
Boy, that's what I look for in Constitutional Law Scholars. Trendiness!
Domain hacks have been around since 1992(!). They're about as trendy as plastic shopping bags.
Ann- I'll give it (althouse.com) to you if I can ever get it cheaply enough. The site which the url directs you to asks for an offer. Eventually, the individual or individuals will realize that with so few Althouses in the world, and with at least the ones we know being rational, they will never get anything for the domain name. It was available a few years ago and I should have grabbed it. Alas it may become available again before you decide to retire.
Elliott Althouse
So did the Association for Gender Awareness and Human Empowerment snag your proposed url, or does AGAHE stand for something else.
althou.se
Right now if I type A in the URL field my browser fills in the rest. I don't much care what you call it.
except wv: anters
Althouse: You cannot use "profalthouse" because it contains "falt". You cannot use "professoralthouse" because it contains "oral". But "althouse" in most forms is OK even though "ho" is smack dab in the middle?
Just go with "Blondietheprofessor" and be done with it.
annalt.com is available as of this morning
How del.icio.us! Fortunately, my last name ends in "in", so I have outsourced my domain registry needs to India.
Bots/spiders will not read althou.se as althouse, but as althou which means you will lose the search engine ranking and cyber associations with your brand; althouse.blogspot.com.
Aesthetically althou.se may work for you, but practically it works against your brand.
Having used every flavor of blogware, moving your entire blogspot archive is probably a bad idea unless a professional sets up the blogware.
While the blogware front end is newbie friendly, the server side is not and exporting-importing a large archive database can go sideways.
Keeping the blogspot site up as an archive allows you to link to content without importing it, and repoint to blogspot as a backup.
Hosting services also offer web site mirroring, which gives you a real-time alternative when the main site is down. It's worth the extra bucks to maintain continuity and connectivity.
Just sayin'
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