Forgotten Names

Playing around on Neilson and Alexa over breakfast this morning, it suddenly struck me that a number of extremely high-level, internet-based brands have not registered a .co.uk domain name. With the volume of traffic they experience, along with any concept of brand-protection, why on earth have they overlooked this?

Examples include:
apple.co.uk
digg.co.uk
facebook.co.uk
flickr.co.uk
myspace.co.uk
reddit.co.uk
wikipedia.co.uk
wordpress.co.uk

It could be that when the majority of these companies were begun, no one expected them to be quite as massive as they turned out? Seems unlikey – it’s more probable that because most of them are hosted in the states, a .com option seemed more viable and brand-protection flies out of the window, because for a great number of Americans, there are no other countries outside of the USA. So this could be a great example of neglecting the importance of the basics in creating a globally recognised brand online. I’m going to have a look in a bit to see if something like apple.de or myspace.fr exists – but before I do, it should also be pointed out that it may well be unethical domain companies buying up domain names as they’re being queried. With domain names slowly becoming akin to investments, buying a decent web-address could potentially set you up for life.

Nice.
… I think I’ll go find the credit card.