Ask HN: What's the deal with start-ups named ly? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's the deal with start-ups named ly?

35 pointsvital10144 comments

I'm currently trying to launch a startup that has to do with email campaign analytics. While thinking of a name, I was cruising the list of YC startups for inspiration. What's the deal with the "<Verb>ly" style naming? I know it's what the cool kids are doing these days, but doesn't it strike anyone as seeming kind of amateurish?

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To me, it does sound amateurish. It's like web designers' sites that have huge text saying "Hi, I'm Fred, and I'm a web designer with a real passion for standards-compliant sites!": maybe it was a clever trick the first time, but now it's just a very dated-looking meme.

If I wanted an original web site, I wouldn't go to a designer whose own page was one big cliché.

If I wanted serious software for my business, I wouldn't go to a site whose first impression is one big cliché. If they can't even come up with a clever/meaningful name for their own brand, it screams "I'm a 20-something wannabe with no real ideas" to me.

YMMV, just my $c, I'm sure there are exceptions, etc.

But on the other hand, I think the name of the brand matters less then everything else.

And if you want a good name, *.com is already saturated, you have to get really creative and you most likely cannot find domains from single words unless you're lucky.

Speaking for myself, it was painful for me to waist time on finding a good .com when the implementation was far from ready and I didn't have a marketing plan.

I wouldn't say that. Look at Mint.com. I have a feeling that "Financly" wouldn't have done quite as well.

True, but I have a feeling "Mint.com" was not cheap.

mymint.com cost $3,000; mint.com cost $181k in Series A equity:

"They offered him [previous owner of mint.com] equity in the company's Series A funding round rather than a cash payment, and assured him that he'd be the only New York financier they'd let in."[0]

"I said, “I will give you $181 thousand in Series A equity. If we do well, you’ll get an asymmetric upside. If we go bankrupt, you’ll be in the situation as a preferred investor to get your money out first. I won’t let anyone else from New York into this round of financing"[1]

[0]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10457870-36.html

[1]: http://thinkvitamin.com/asides/aaron-patzer-on-how-to-take-y...

Pros:

- Early adopters will immediately know you're a cool startup.

- Easier to find an available domain.

Cons:

- In a few years, the exact opposite will happen, "<verb>ly is so 2010".

- Libya might might delete your domain name[1].

[1] http://thenextweb.com/me/2010/10/06/libya-deletes-ly-domain-...

Lybia will only delete your domain if you gear it specifically towards the adult industry and fail to respond to their inquiries on the matter. I think few startups will fit the bill.

Bet your business?

Trusting Lybia with your domain is just sil.ly

May seem nit-picky...but its Libya!!!

Haha, I didn't realize you were pointing out a typo and was wondering why you were getting up voted. I thought you meant I was nit-picky over Libya's government or something :D

FYI: nit-pic.ky is available (courtesy of the Caiman Islands) :-)

'-ly' is just a very common English morpheme, which also happens to be a TLD. In the age of rapidly expanding domain names, the trend in general has been to find common suffixes that will fit within English phonotactics and morphology, to find words that, though they aren't English words, look like they could be without too much trouble. -(i)ous is another example—a word like 'Historious' (historio.us) is not a word, and is more or less only by chance attested in the OED; certainly it's not in the lexicon of any English speaker today. And yet one knows exactly what it would mean if it were a word.

You want to be ahead of the next trend? Find a proxy in Albania.

The problem with -(i)ous is that many people assume it's a latin word and type "historius", omitting the "o". The proper formation would indeed be historious, but what's proper has nothing to do with what people find easy.

I have half a mind to just rename the service to historius and use historius.com for it, although my inner grammar Nazi won't let me. Having historious.com (along with historius.com, of course) would be ideal.

To be completely honest, I did originally write the name as historius, and had to double-check that there was an O in there. Latin morphology often competes with English morphology when it comes to naming things.

Yeah :/ It's not a problem when your name is delicious, but when the word doesn't exist, there's a bit of an issue...

Amateurish? Not really-- just derivative.

As naming trends go, I'm not terribly impressed by this one; but, if you're willing to submit to the vagaries of Libyan law, meaningful .ly domains are much easier to come by than .coms, I suppose.

Amateurish? No. The current fad? Sure.

What should be of far more concern is the risk that startups are taking with these TLDs. Example:

http://www.thedomains.com/2010/10/08/days-after-vb-ly-was-se...

.com domains are more expensive but are far less risky.

More expensive? Last time i checked .ly were at $100+/yr.

I think the poster means that getting the .com name without the "ly" tacked on the end is expensive. Sticking the ly on the name drops the .com price down to $10 in the US.

This is exactly the situation I was in. I needed a domain name, so I found what I could for $10. That meant I had a sub-optimal name for the time being.

+1 that's exactly what I mean: due to domain squatting, getting a reasonable .com name can be hellishly expensive.

Since startups are now funded with far less cash than 5+ years ago the cost of a domain name is a significant factor.

Personally if I were to use domain.ly as my domain name I'd make sure I got domainly.com too.

I saw a Tweet on this very topic recently:

http://twitter.com/amyhoy/status/26565875780

I thought she had a good point.

You mean opinion.

I have a theory of conservation of "ly"s. They seem to be disappearing quick ;) from adverbs in spoken English, so I figure they have to pop up somewhere else.

Ha!

Here is my recommendation: Don't use a TLD from a fundamentalist, dictator lead or communist country.

These people are not your friends, do not care that you paid for service and are not bound by their ToS. Further, you have zero recourse if they screw you.

As opposed to if you register in a capitalist country where it only matters if the "person" opposing you has vastly more money than you.

Nissan Motors, MikeRoweSoft, etc..

Not only -ly, you also have -ish, -ify, -ist, -ity, -ious and -ible at your disposal. As proven by Spotify, Todoist, Listorious among others. Another option/fad is to name your startup anything you want and then postfix it with -hq, -app or -web for an available domain name.

All the best domain names are beings squatted on.

Its very simple. People have more chance of remembering a shorter domain name, which is your brand in the online world. Its very hard to find a 6 or 5 letter .com, whereas a domain such as live.ly is 6 chars including the ltd.

Or http://vive.ly ... as the case may be. :)

Side comment/rant: I think amateurish is something that is valued highly in at least some subset of the startup community. It's a rebellious rejection of the blanket conformist expectations of "professionalism" -- a way of signalling that your business is not business as usual.

(Similarly, I get the feeling that some of the sexist attitudes in the startup world doesn't come from people actually being sexist, but instead from a need to signal that they too are beyond the shackles of Political Correctness.)

More amateurish than "Smart Bear"?

http://blog.asmartbear.com/pick-company-name-brand.html

In due time web address conventions will move away from common TLDs. Why would you go to http://news.ycombinator.com when they can just go to http://news.ycombinator? Until then its not a bad thing to be creative with whats available.

Resourceful? Maybe. Amateurish? Maybe not.

I am a 20-something amateur though

Phishers would have an absolute field-day with that.

It's trendy, & young people are creating new things that need names. The same thing with the Flickr-style names before. This isn't a slam on young people, I see it as subconscious watermarks of inspiration.

If young people are finding an ecosystem and getting inspired and innovating, great!

I can't stand startups named .ly, .io, .me, and others.

It sounds wimpy and it's incredibly Web 2.0-ish. It's also so startup community-like, meaning that I can't think of the last startup with such a name that actually got significant traction and has entered the mainstream.

What about Bitly?

Good catch. I do love Bitly, and they've done very well.

That comment was a knee-jerk reaction to so much of the copycatting and lack of originality that's so prevalent in the startup community, hate it.

people trust Libya?

I was thinking about it last night. How come this is getting more popular? What makes one choose a name ending in ly?

I rather pick a .co .me .to instead of .ly

i went .co as well... hopefully it'll gain some traction

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