So, you’ve got a great idea for a website but don’t have a catchy, memorable name. You know you want something short and snappy, but Yahoo, Google and Bing are already taken.
What’s a 21st century business to do?
Use the Web to help you figure it out. That’s what Jim Morgan and Vin Vicante of Yipit.com did, and I think they found a good one.
Here’s Jim’s tale of the Yipit.com domain name (sent via e-mail):
"We shed many tears and each had many sleepless nights when deciding what to name our company. We knew we wanted as short a domain as possible, and these days that translates to five letters. We also agreed that it would be nice to attach ‘it’ to the end, to make our service seem more verblike: ‘Want it? Yip-it.’
"So Vin generated every consonant-vowel-consonant plus ‘it’ permutation in the English alphabet, and ran through a domain registrar’s database. ‘Yipit’ was the only pronounceable available domain."
I’m not sure what these guys would have done had they not created the name "yipit." Their daily deal aggregation site would be wearing a different moniker, but Morgan and Vicante thankfully didn’t have to continue their English language exercise in creativity.
For more on Yipit. com, see my Sunday column:
When a bargain comes along, you must YipIt
