[Rant] Site & domain names | ANN.lu |
Posted on 08-Feb-2000 10:56 GMT by Christian Kemp | 16 comments View flat View list |
Just a small rant from me about the domain and site names some people are chosing for their amiga-related homepages.
I just noticed that amiganation.com is calling itself AmigaNation News. Now it may just be a bizarre coincidence, but I feel like its creator could have been a bit more creative when registering that domain name and naming his website.
First of all, there has been a site called AmigaNation for years now. And even if that site is in German and has a Swiss domain, that doesn't mean that somebody should rush out and register exactly the same name in a different domain.
Secondly, it sure feels strange that AmigaNation News sounds awfully similar to Amiga Network News, and naturally shares the same initials (which are in bigger type, so it looks even more obvious). Just a coincidence? You decide.
But this wasn't the first time something like this happened. Amiga Central registered a domain even though Paul Morabito's "Amiga Central" had been online for months, if not years before, and had been quite popular. Now I seem to remember that this was a misunderstanding, but still...
If somebody (don't remember who it was) can threaten to sue Colin Thompson for using the very generic name "Daily Fishwrap" for his former Amiga news site, I wonder how people can even think about using exactly the same name for a site that fits exactly the same niche in a very narrow market...
Anyway, enough ranting and/or complaining from me. What do you think? Do you agree with me, or do you think I am way off here?
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Site & domain names : Comment 15 of 16 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Christian Kemp on 09-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT | In reply to Comment 14 (James Russell): First of all, my site doesn't use an acronym. I have never, EVER referred to my site as ANN, and actually on my own bookmarks I refer to it as AN, because if you look AmigaNation is one word.
This might be the case, but then again why do you use a larger type for the "A" and the two "N"s in your logo? While it may not have been intentional, it sure creates the impression that you want people to pay more attention to those three letters. You might argue that this is just a design matter, which is a valid point, but in the end what matters is not what you intended with your site but what others think when they see it.
Second of all, at the time I registered the domain I had never seen Amiganation OR heard of your site. The fact is that I don't care much about Classic, it's a dead market and Phase5 is proof of that, and thus Amiga.com and Amiga.org are all I really bother with, stopping by occasionally Czech as well, since they seem pretty good at posting the latest stuff. I actually was getting to like this site, too, until I started getting hostility from it for no real reason. The first time I visited your site was actually about a month ago. Actually, when I found the german page, I e-mailed the Webmaster to apologize and asked if we might affiliate. He blew me off. Ce le vie.
You didn't get any hostility from me. I was posting a rant, my personal opinion, that's all. And I would think that you should like a site because you think the layout is good, or the content, or both, but not because of the webmaster's personal opinion, which he may only express once every few months. It's "c'est la vie", by the way.
Third, I consider my site more of a news magazine, as I don't update it often and largely I write my own stuff, including the articles on the patents, etc., whereas sites like this and AO (where I'm editor-in-chief) merely post briefs, with sites like Czech Amiga actually just coming by and swiping the brief verbatim. I don't do that. I don't post any news from here, or from AO, unless it's very Amiga-future centric and unless I write the brief up myself. If you want to be hostile about something rather ignorant like that -- sorry, AmigaNation News has very little in common with Amiga Network News. You, like AO and Chezh, post briefs of the latest Amiga news. I write my own articles, and post my own briefs when I think they are relevant. I actually do more work for AO now than I do for my own site. I never intended to compete with AO or sites like it, merely to make a kind of zine with my own opinions. I don't know database stuff and don't care to, and don't care enough about Classic news to want to compile it.
I don't consider you as a competition and my rant was not at all intended in that way. What I didn't like, and what made me write this rant, was that it seemed to me like you were inspired by not only one, but two sites when you named your site, and all I criticized was a lack of creativity.
By your theory, the The New York Times and The New York Post should start bickering just because they have similar titles. You don't by any means own the words Amiga or News. If you want to know how I came by my title originally, it was because AmigaWorld I knew was taken and that IDG might go after me at some point if the market came back in any case, and later to my horror when I saw AmigaNation already existed I slapped the News on there to differentiate myself and my site -- after the guy blew me off. In any case, if you don't like my articles, feel free not to visit my site -- or e-mail me with petty stuff like this. I happen to think my site has some cool stuff to offer, I'm sorry if you don't agree. In any case it's merely a hobby, I do most of my work for AO and it'll remain that way.
By my theory, if some hardware manufacturer named itself "International Bureau Machines" and sold PC's, or if somebody registered ibm.lu and sold PC's on there, it would be IBM's right to be pissed off. I think this example is much more valid than yours. "New York Times" and "New York Post" would compare to "Amiga Times" and "Amiga Post" - which seems like two intirely different things. But as soon as two names share the same abbreviation, or the same domain name, I believe that things are slightly different...
I never implied that I owned the words "Amiga" or "News", far from that. If you had read my rant more carefully, you would have noticed that the difference between our site names was just a secondary point, and that my main point was rather the way you and amigacentral.com registered domain names that were already in use for other sites; and that in a market as small as the Amiga, it would have been very trivial to check whether any site already used a site title like that.
With all that written, I think it is interesting to point out that you were the one to talk about "hostility" and take a defensive attitude. After all, I had just made an observation. I did not ask you to change anything. I just voiced my own opinion on my own site, but it seems you read more into the few lines than I had intended to say.
So if I offended you in any way, or if you feel I wrongly accused you, please accept my apologies. I never intended it that way. |
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