Opinions on personalized email domains?
July 10, 2008 – 3:34 pm
I’m interested in feedback on a concept.
We are researching the idea of offering personalized surname based email and web addresses. This would mean that a customer could select an email address like firstname@lastname.com, and an optional web address of firstname.lastname.com for example.
Each would forward to a customer’s usual mailbox or website, so there would be be no change to existing addresses or settings – just a new personalized address in addition.
Over 35,000 surnames are available, matching over 60% of individuals.
What do you think? Is a surname based email address and web address worth a few bucks a month? Comment here with your opinion please!
13 Responses to “Opinions on personalized email domains?”
I have ian@mckellar.org and http://ian.mckellar.org/, but the main appeal of that to me is that I own the domain and can take it wherever I want. I don’t think I’d be as interested in having yet another non-portable email address. But that’s just me. I’m a domain junkie.
Ian
By Ian McKellar on Jul 10, 2008
I second what Ian said: if I am unable to keep the email addy or sub-domain name when I switch ISP, I would not pay anything for it.
By Richard Uhtenwoldt on Jul 13, 2008
Its a better investment for people to spend the $10/year to buy their own domain name that they can take with them no matter where life takes them in the future.
By gps on Jul 13, 2008
It’s a forward – so it is designed as a lifetime address. It could be pointed anywhere.
But, it is more expensive than domain registration. But, registration generally doesn’t include the forwarding and redirection functions.
So, cost is similar, but with your own domain you get infinite addresses and sites instead of one.
But, the surname address is a nice option!
By Dane Jasper on Jul 13, 2008
I use capelis.dj
Granted, that’s more DNS hackery than you’ll usually be able to pull off… but… it was very much worth it.
By D.J. Capelis on Jul 14, 2008
Ok Dane, what are you up to?! ROFL!
An all services ISP including ‘free’ hosting with ad support like FortuneCity? Mail.com, etc.? Oy!
Stay regional: California & most of Nevada!!! Please don’t go national like those other ISPs who then got corrupted and bloated like AT&T, Comcast, Concentric, Earthlink, etc.
Seriously, toughie to do like getting ‘rights’ to use of email redirect from “garrett.com” (if it exists) so that randy@garrett.com would work. Lots of surnames will reject but hey, could it hurt to try? Many the negotiations would be horrible for most common surnames and upon every user request for each new one.
Or is there a “shortcut”?
By Randolph Garrett on Jul 17, 2008
Oh, and no. I don’t own garrett.com or get any money from them and a thousand others, oy!
By Randolph Garrett on Jul 17, 2008
Isn’t that exactly what the .name TLD is there for?
By Eric on Jul 20, 2008
Ya, .name just hasn’t taken off. It’s expensive – $35 a year, and I think there’s limited awareness and acceptance of the .four letter name too.
The idea with this surname.com offering is to provide an identifying personal email address at a simple to remember domain. It’s great when folks know your name, and you can tell them “my email is tom@smith.net” for example. No need to write it down, etc.
I’m also on the fence on the idea myself. I wonder if folks would adopt it or not, and it does have some costs.
By Dane Jasper on Jul 21, 2008
i have my own personalized domain, and use sonic.net to forward my email. if i drop sonic, i will still have my domain!
By bob on Jul 23, 2008
Hi! I think that this is a neat idea in terms of making family names accessible to end-users, but bob has a good point — owning the domain name prevents one from being tied to a particular service. Furthermore, what do you do if someone signs up for a personalized domain from you (say examplename.com) and then later decides that they perhaps want the domain name entirely for themselves? If no one else is using the domain name, would you allow the transfer? If not, would you allow negotiations between parties with a stake in the domain?
By Andrew Merenbach on Jul 26, 2008
Eric, thanks for posting my email address on a public board, thats really gonna help with my already rediculous spam problem!
By Tom Smith on Aug 18, 2008
Sort of on topic….
Dane, is SONIC.NET able to add the “.tv” Top-Level Domain option to those available in your TLD registration service? Or is this reserved to enom.tv (and enomcentral.com) and its chosen resellers?
By the way, I wonder what will happen to the “.tv” domains (I have one) if/when the tiny island country of Tuvalu gets covered by the rising Pacific Ocean? It’s already happening — search Google for keyword “Tuvalu” AND phrase “global warming”!
By Bruce Mewhinney on Dec 9, 2008