According to Socialnewsdaily.com, King.com has re-branded itself by dropping the .com and going with just King, to celebrate it 10 year anniversary.
Here is how the site used to look:
This is how the site looks today:
This is not the first time that a branded .com has announced that it was dropping the .com from its brand.
Back in February we told you that Hosting.com was re-branding to just Hosting and last month we told you that Godaddy.com was going to drop the .com from all of its logo’s including those on the race cars to just with just Godaddy
It’s a new trend but it is NOT smart marketing.
And it will only last until they see that being cute is also very costly.
The ability to “drop” the .COM is because of the wide acceptance of the extension. People will assume you own the .COM. If you own the .COM it is a luxury you have.
If you have a secondary extension it is not something you can really do.
Brad
Brad’s right but you can’t do this for SaaS apps like Desk.com, Salesofrce.com, ICloud.com, Chatter.com, ConstantContact.com because .com the place where their purchase lives as opposed to when it lived on a disk or in their own computer. So .com is essential branding component for any cloud play. That’s why Microsoft started up Outlook.com. Finally web mail- oh I get it it lives on the web not in my computer!
i.e. it’s not the same as the Outlook I have at work
“The ability to “drop” the .COM is because of the wide acceptance of the extension. ”
That is the business part.
The legal part is that the USPO will not issue a TM/SM for a XYZ.com – only XYZ.
Unless someone else knows if that has changed.
I have been told this by a few sources – the guy that owned CheapBooks.com originally indicated to me years ago he was one of the last to get the CHEAPBOOK.com TM before the PTO changed its mind.
It’s never flattering when the talk coming out of ones mouth is arguing with the talk coming out of their ass.
If the domainer narrative holds true, that .com is an essential component to online identity lest such massive, permanent client loss occurs so as to negate the costs associated with acquiring the .com, then what is the argument when someone DOES own the .com and decides to identify their company with the keyword itself, rather than their online address?
I realize a lot of you have a woman-like irrational emotional investment in those three little letters and a lot of what’s said holds true in terms of the importance of owning a.com but in this case, to say this is a ‘mistake’ is basically arguing against yourselves.
One of the key objectives of branding (which none, and I do mean NONE of you understand, including the posers who like to pretend this is in their wheelhouse) is associating your identity with the furthest and most expansive concept of the product you’re selling.
A dead simple example: Coke starts out wanting to define cola.
When you think cola, they want you to think Coke.
The next step up the ladder is soda.
When you think soda, they want you to think Coke.
The final step is thirst.
When you’re thirsty, they want you to think Coke.
At no point along the way do they want you to think Coke.com.
Likewise, a company like Amazon is essentially no different, nor Apple, Microsoft or several smaller enterprises who are striving to define their service or product niches with their branded identities, not necessarily their internet ones.
… but I waste my time posting this stuff here. I’m sure the Fantasy Group (Paper Tiger) or his ilk will be along shortly with their prattle and fake internet poser wisdom.
But Coke does want you to think of My Coke Rewards, which of course is at MyCokeRewards.COM, and why would they feel the need to change that to MyCokeRewards.coke or MyRewards.coke ?
At this point it’s pure foolishness. Which is why very soon, whenever you think of ICANN you’ll think “you can’t fix stupid!”
Ephemeral marketing peripherals and short term slogans involved in campaigns aren’t the same thing as your core brand identity.
I’m sure if commercial internet were around in 1986, Burger King would’ve owned WheresHerb.com. They would’ve wanted you to go to WheresHerb.com to read their fluff, play the game, engage their customer base in cutesy ways.
At the end of the day, their objective is still “When you think burgers, think Burger King” and further yet “When you’re hungry, go to Burger King and buy a Whopper”, not “WE ARE BURGERKING.COM, DOT COM, DOT COM!!”
I was consulted by 4 of the best trademark attorneys in the world from China/Iran/Iraq and Afghanistan.
This new Gtld is pile of BS and won’t work .
Example:
Amazon.book
Amazon.books.
This is too monopolistic and unfair business practices. You remember EU gave so much shit against Microsoft on the IE browser and EU imposed big fine on Microsoft.
To be fair, amazon have to let google/microsoft/starbucks reg
google.book
microsoft.book
starbucks.book
There you go……..more pile of BS.
“This new Gtld is pile of BS and won’t work .”
BullS you are just far too diplomatic 🙂
What I say is the new non.coms will be just another way to stroke the new generation of “insider” genius speculators out of their bank account, max their credit cards, take second mortgages on their homes and liquidate their SEP, IRA, 401K and every other retirement dollar – because they are getting in the next “bottom floor” of Bullshit.
King and all the rest have determined they do not need the .com – because they have realized the consumer (not domain speculator) know the .com is the only one on the shelf – and as stated before I think the USPTO feels the same 🙂
BrianWick—I totally agree with you.
gosh, you deserve a big juicy kiss!!! from ME.
=They will even sell their child to get the
“bottom floor” of Bullshit… or be a domain Whore
Some of the new gTLD’s may get some nice use possibly, like (.web, .site, and a few generic extensions), but as I thought about it a while back, why would anyone else in the online world want to own a generic keyword domain followed by .amazon, or .google, or any of those companies beside the comapny itself? There isn’t as much free range in those right of the dot extensions as there is with .com, .net, .org, .info, etc. Comapnies rebranding there logo without the .com in the logo doesn’t mean they don’t still want to own or use the .com in my opinion. It just means they are taking the .com off of their logo. I can understand them dropping it off their logo, because if they own the .com, they don’t need it on their logo. In my opinion none of these companies will drop their .com extension if they already own it, and if they do, it will most likely be an expensive mistake.
Jason
King.com is becoming King because most of their revenue is generated through the platform many know as Facebook.
When your primary focus was internet web site and then your revenue stream becomes apps and facebook there is no need for the .com. You don’t access King.com through a specialized portal.
.COM as a company brand/name is irrelevant because the right of the dot is irrelevant in a lot of cases. That doesn’t mean .com has no value or is worth than .me or .whatever. It doesn’t mean .com is going away. It simply means that for branding and naming purposes the .com is no longer relevant because things are changing.
Design wise, I prefer the old ‘crowned’ King.com logo. The new logo looks less significant, and the way the “I” and the “N” connect makes it almost look like “Kung” instead of “King”. Basically it comes down to what would look better on a t-shirt, and the new logo just doesn’t do it.
Unless this is an April Fool’s joke… I forgot what day it was. 😉
The new logo looks liks crap compared to the old one. Whoever is responsible for this blunder should be fired.
It is not an April fools joke, we don’t do posts for April Fool’s we find enough hard to believe stories in an average week
Hello MHB,
Stupid Is As Stupid Does. When you say they dropped the .COM for Headline Purposes We thinl there needs clarification. This is a good example of SEO. Manipulation Centric Marketing. If you dont know what this means check out JointVentures Group Linked-In.
URL Centric Marketing = SMART Online Marketing Strategy.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Jeff
My headline is accurate the site dropped the .com to re-brand itself as simply .King
I’m in the joint ventures group on linked in and have 3 of my domains listed with Ricks service, how I have no idea of what that has to do with this particular story
They are rebranding from King.com to King.
There is no .King in this story.
Michael Berkens wrote:
“[…] we find enough hard to believe stories in an average week”
—
Ha, agreed.