Feedback needed...names for design firm

[music42]

Hi, everyone. I am a web developer who works mostly with musicians & artists and I'm launching my own site next month. I have a few possible names to choose from, but they don't have a whole lot of intrinsic meaning...without development.

I know I have to run a trademark search on any potential names but for now I'm just trying to decide which direction to go in. The purpose of my business is to offer musicians websites customized to fit their needs - made by, and for musicians. Most of my clients are 20-35 and in the classical music/jazz sectors.

Tell me what you think of these:

• vibraso(DOT)com
• kyobu(DOT)com
• seven-8(DOT)com

I chose Vibraso for how it sounds. It's very similar to "vibrato," an Italian word for a popular vocal technique.

The second one's just a random 5-letter domain I own. Kind of cool, but probably best for something in an Asian market.

Seven-8 has personal meaning for me but probably doesn't make sense to non-musicians...it's my favorite time signature (7/8). It's a very jazzy, modern rhythm. Musicians get it, but regular people seem to either think it's a play on "seven, eight, nine" or a birthdate.

I could launch the site tomorrow with any old name because I currently have a waitlist of clients and most of my referrals come from word of mouth...but it would be nice to have a cool brand name with some potential for development.

What do you think?

[fisicx]

What's wrong with: the-musicians-site.com?

Brasso is the name of a popular cleaning compound so vibraso might not work.

seven-8 connects more with seven-up or 7/11.

Just my opinion though.

[music42]

Thanks for the reply.

The-musicians-site seems too generic, plus there are a lot of variations on that name that are already out there. Also has too many hyphens, which generally means the 'good' (short) names were taken...hyphens also decrease the value of a domain.

I'd like something with a narrower scope...using a practically made-up word, like vibraso, might be TOO narrow...but I don't want to get too broad, either.

I hadn't thought about the cleaning solution...thanks for the tip.

You never know what connotations an obscure name might have...I was all excited about the name "musetto" a few weeks ago, until I found out it's a popular mediterranean recipe involving pork!

[fisicx]

Originally Posted by music42

...hyphens also decrease the value of a domain.

Can you elaborate? Are you talking about the monetary value?

[music42]

Yes, monetary value, although I'm not developing this domain to sell it.

Domains without hyphens fetch higher prices for a variety of reasons:
- it's simpler (anything involving hyphens will require you to say "hyphen" or "dash" if you were saying the web address to someone in person or over the phone. It's a small point, but these types of names fare better if they're easy to spell, easy to pronounce (and spell), and easy to memorize

- Length. Shorter domains are most coveted. If you look at domains for sale or up for auction, there's a huge difference between something like cheapairtickets(dot)com and cheap-air-tickets(dot)com.

For instance, I ended up with seven-8 because seven8 was already taken. (It's a non-developed site).

Nowadays, so many of the results in Google for broad search terms yield variations on the same phrase, many of which are parked sites and copycats of each other. Too often when I click on one of these generically-named (often hyphenated) urls, it's nothing but a huge collection of links. If they were premium domains they'd probably be developed.

Granted, someone has registered musicianswebsites(dot)com. Do I think this is a good name? Sure. The name clearly communicates what they do. You don't have to wonder. But is it 'unique'? Not really.