"But now you're telling me that misspellings are actually a big problem? How much of a problem, quantitatively?"
When you verbally tell someone about your site, how do you do it? Do you spell out the domain name? If not, people are probably having trouble finding it because it's not a standard spelling. And looking at the name I'm not even sure how to say it (is it "groover" or "grover"?). If you do spell it out, that should be an even bigger indication that people are going to have trouble because you had to spell it out in order for them to find it.
That's not really quantitative, but I see your point.
Flickr was the prototypical Web 2.0 name, and I always thought the unusual spelling was a plus, since it made it more memorable, but perhaps there were a lot of other potential customers who were lost at step 0.
And I suppose you have similar conclusions about domain hacks, or using dictionary word + obscure TLD?
I suppose I am aware that for the average person, a website address is "www.____.com" or nothing. But I have an irrational love of interesting domain names. Perhaps it's bad to indulge that.
EDIT: The US government has some guidelines for domain name usability here. Usability isn't quite everything, but it's probably worth serious consideration.
Yeah, definitely avoid domain name hacks. It's a huge gamble and even if your product is successful, it probably would have been more successful with a better name.
Comments
"But now you're telling me that misspellings are actually a big problem? How much of a problem, quantitatively?"
When you verbally tell someone about your site, how do you do it? Do you spell out the domain name? If not, people are probably having trouble finding it because it's not a standard spelling. And looking at the name I'm not even sure how to say it (is it "groover" or "grover"?). If you do spell it out, that should be an even bigger indication that people are going to have trouble because you had to spell it out in order for them to find it.
That's not really quantitative, but I see your point.
Flickr was the prototypical Web 2.0 name, and I always thought the unusual spelling was a plus, since it made it more memorable, but perhaps there were a lot of other potential customers who were lost at step 0.
And I suppose you have similar conclusions about domain hacks, or using dictionary word + obscure TLD?
I suppose I am aware that for the average person, a website address is "www.____.com" or nothing. But I have an irrational love of interesting domain names. Perhaps it's bad to indulge that.
EDIT: The US government has some guidelines for domain name usability here. Usability isn't quite everything, but it's probably worth serious consideration.
http://www.usability.gov/articles/newsletter/pubs/032007news...
Yeah, definitely avoid domain name hacks. It's a huge gamble and even if your product is successful, it probably would have been more successful with a better name.