I very much enjoyed the article at Fusible that discusses the $22k sale of dating.org. The story offers excellent insight into the dating industry and the money within. It’s the old saying, “sex sells, especially when real!”
Still, pardon me for pointing out but dating.org is not a category killer. In fact, by mere definition, a .org cannot be a category killer.
“Category Killer” can be described as the single best domain name in any given industry. For cars, it is ‘cars.com’. For dating, it is ‘dating.com’, not dating.org.
Part of the reason is that if you attempt to promote and market the .org, you unintentionally market and brand and provide traffic for the .com version. Who is killing who here?
A category killer will grab market share, literally, from day one while .org must be developed and indexed and spread to attain the same measure of ’share.’
There is no doubt dating.org is a nice name with a big foot in the right door but kill the category it does not.
#1 by JS on March 2, 2010 - 8:35 pm
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Good point
#2 by Michael Castello on March 6, 2010 - 7:24 am
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Who are you? “Who We Are” does not say. We must drink from the same well. I like your logic.
#3 by Alan Dunn on March 9, 2010 - 5:56 am
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There are several ways to look at category killer names. In most cases they are .com however .org is also a very powerful category killer given the right category such as healthcare or education.
Category Killer is not single by definition – this is something domainers preach about but developers defy. In fact, many times a category killer can be both .net and .org .. look at mortgagecalculator.com vs the .net and .org
Dating.org is an exceptional name but you are right, in this category it doesn’t have the same weight as say cancer.org would bring versus cancer.com where both of these names can be defined as category killers.
Again, Category Killer is only single by definition to those who park names – not the rest of the people online.
#4 by Rashid Mahmood on March 10, 2010 - 9:28 am
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I have always viewed CustomerService.com as a tremendous brand in waiting,a category killer. The right company, at the right time, could create a powerhouse opportunity with this domain. Could Zappos be that company?
#5 by Stephen Douglas on March 11, 2010 - 11:26 am
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True that this domain is not a “category-killer” in the total view of domain extensions, but for what this site could be used for, it definitely is the “category killer” for the powerful .org extension. If the site is promoted correctly, with the right “focus” clearly augmented and featured on the site for this domain, it will carry it’s value without question.
The second most powerful extension in this industry is .org. Period.