Online branding is more sophisticated than the old dot-com days (when, for example, fishing company Zapata moved into Internet media just because it owned zap.com), thanks to Google rank and word-of-mouth marketing. It's still brave to launch a site using any address other than "sitename.com," but several popular sites do just fine without.

Facebook, for example, lived at Thefacebook.com before moving to Facebook.com. The PodTech podcast network uses PodTech.net, while an unrelated company, Pod Technologies, owns Podtech.com. How do sites like these make do?

  • PodTech incorporates the .net into its logo and adds the word "network" to its name, though it's casually referred to without the .net.
  • Similarly, Upcoming.org keeps the domain in the title. As a bonus, that turns a generic word into a brand name.
  • The .tv domain is popular among online shows like This Week in Tech at TWiT.TV.
  • Del.icio.us relied on a quirky name, but it didn't hurt to eventually buy Delicious.com.
  • (Speaking of buying out the dot-com — hey, can't avoid it forever — PodTech.com might be for sale.)
  • A high search rank beats a domain name any day. Pitchfork doesn't own Pitchfork.com, but it owns the search term. On most browsers, someone looking for this music review site could even enter "pitchfork" alone and go straight to the right site. (Farmers, however, are screwed.)

Just don't bother with .info and .biz. That's so trashy.