When will people learn?
I’ll be the first to say that domain squatting isn’t right. While some would argue differently, blatantly trying to capitalize on someone else’s idea and hard work just isn’t the American way, to me anyways. Do your own work, make your own successes is the route I feel people should take. A lot of people do this, but I just don’t understand why some make it so hard on themselves.
I just read an article about a new music festival that decided to change their name after someone snatched up the matching domain name before they did. Naturally, the festival founder claimed that someone was “holding the domain hostage”. Instead of just buying the name, they decided to change their name entirely. There is no report on how much they offered for the name, if any, or how much their re-branding efforts cost them.
While I can understand being upset that someone took the name the festival wanted, probably a blatant domain squat, I just don’t understand how they let this happen. How is this still going on this day in age? The festival domain name should have been priority #1. The order of events should have been as follows…
Name festival, buy domain, secure talent, announce festival to public.
But instead here is the route they took…
Name festival, secure talent, announce festival to public full of leaches, cry about one of those leaches being quicker to the domain name.
No offense to the festival founders, but you had your chance. If you don’t grasp basic 21st century marketing concepts, hire someone that does or be ready to accept the consequences. The festival website is EVERYTHING for promotion. All television and radio promotion will point to the website for talent info, ticket sales, etc.
This is definitely one of my biggest pet peeves as I’ve documented before. Will these companies ever learn?
Stupidity comes at a cost. Especially corporate stupidity. For $7.49 and probably cheaper, they could have just bought the name, then worried about the rest, EVEN if they didn’t end up using it. Compare $7.49 to what they will have to pay if they want the name now or their rebranding costs and it’s just stupid.
Corporations need to wisen up and put their marketing dollards to use in the most effective ways, mainly an exact match or solid domain for starters.
Shane, maybe they deserve to get squatted on for being so dumb? You pointed out once what companies spend on Superbowl commercials and what if they dumped that into a great domain and some marketing….. its a no brainer. Who the HELLLL are these companies hiring or putting in charge of their online presence? My Shiba Inu seems more qualified than whoever they have in charge. Just sayin…..
I mean CHRIS, sorry!
Shane,
You are absolutely right. The real squatter is the festival organizers.
This same line of thinking permeate all areas of business as we know it today. None of these big fish eat little fish is American. If one realizes that a name has been registered by another, the real American thing to do is to find out how much the registrants is willing to sell it for, if it’s indeed for sale.
I have been checking how the internet is becoming fodder for the strong to strong arm the weak. Take for example Google and their advertisers, some how Google is only concerned with preventing click fraud from publishers and website owners, and they should be concerned about that, and click fraud is wrong, and should be condemned, but on the other hand, I believe click fraud also occurs from ad networks gathered by Google, fraudulently paying pennies, if anything, to publishers; whereas they have their ads running for free on millions of websites, and babied by Google; Google should put an effort on that side as well, and crack down on these networks getting advertising for free, fraudulently, in my opinion. It’s equally as egregious.
I, too, mean Chris.
I appreciate the comments fellas…
::insert Shane’s obligatory comment about how the new layout will make it easier to know who’s writing here:: 🙂
Personally, I find it irritating when people use words like “scam”, “squat”, “hostage”, etc. loosely and strongly. While I understand that their use of such words is to reflect their feelings as accurately as possible, it tends to arguably and unnecessarily “blur” things.
Ah well, it happens. And life goes on…