Another Long One...But a Good On This Time...Or Am I Crazy?

[Dustie]

Most of you know my story by now. 20 years ago I purchased dustie.com. I checked and dusty.com was available then too, but seeing as how domains were 100.00 a pop and I had just bought a new computer for 2,000.00+ (Remember those days?), I decided against buying it. If I remember it was about three months after that, 3 months of having to tell people how to spell my email address ([email protected]) umpteen times, I decided to go for it after all, but guess what...it was gone by then!

I have regretted that decision ever since. In the last 20 years I've spent spelling my name to folks who wanted my email address. It's the same as Recons.com said in the Dustie.com thread... having his name saves him a bunch of time spelling his email out. In my case, over 20 years, that's a LOT of time!

Well, when I thought dustie.com was gone for good, I went searching for another name in GoDaddy and, to my delight, I found that dustie.art was available for 9.99! I snatched it up...and then went looking for dusty.art immediatly after. Godaddy said it was not available. Figures...

But then, reading in here, and following links to read about the .art domain, it wasn't long before I discovered that, just because GD said it wasn't available, didn't mean it wasn't available! It could be that it was a Premium .ART name and GD wasn't carrying these premium names so simply said they wern't available when searched

So I went to .art...and sure enough, dusty.art was available...for £1710.00 (about 2200 in us dollars). I checked other registrars, and some had it 300 to 400.00 dollars higher then that price... and none had it lower. I just couldn't swing it.

Last night I went to look again on .art, and they still had it listed for £1710.00. This time I decided to click through to "purchase", choosing .art as the reigistrer, (you can choose others from .art's site) to see if maybe I could find out what renewal costs would be, knowing I'm not actually buying it until I pay for it.

Imagine my surprise when, on the next page .Art said "buy this domain for $1600.00/yr with 30.00 renewal! What? Really? That's nearly a 600.00 saving from what it had been just two pages back and for the last two days I'd been checking on it. OH, My Gosh... should I??? That's a lot of money...

Since I'm an artist, and want to use [email protected] for my art business, I would absolutely love to have dusty.art too. I'd never have to spell my name for [email protected]! All I have to do is have two emails that merge to the same email account.

So it was time to have a heart to heart with my husband, a non computer guy who I thought for sure would think I was crazier then a loon! I explained it all to him, and, partly because of how distraught I'd been over the dustie.com situation I'm sure, he agreed it would be a good name for me to have (Ok, so I took advantage of him at a weak moment...name a wife who hasn't!). He said that if that was what I wanted we could make it happen. After all, what are credit cards for, right?

Wahoo!! And to think...only two weeks ago I WAS totally DISTRAUGHT and DUSTYLESS! All three dusties are going to be under Lock and Key (have to find out how .art locks their domains now).

Am I crazy for going in hock and spending 1,600.00 on a .art domain name??? Probably...but I'm feeling a pretty happy crazy about it right now...

 

[equity78]

@Dustie If you are happy and can afford it, that's the important part. I would not do it or recommend it to a client that they do it. Not if the name is Dustie, .art domains don't get a lot of type in traffic. Also when it comes to email a lot of times people overlook your new gtld and put .com, so I would spend another $9 right now and get DustieArt.com that's the real name you want to backup Dustie.art.

 

[SuperBrander]

Yeah, I agree with @equity78. You should have probably just bought DustieArt.com and DustyArt.com and used DustieArt.com instead of the .art extension which very few people use or even know exists. You should probably still buy them if you're that worried about people being confused. But... at least that's the good kind of trouble. Good luck!

 

[creataweb]

Yikes, that's a lotta dosh

 

[Dustie]

Equity78... If they write [email protected], I will get the email. If they write [email protected], I will get it, and if they misspell my name (which most people do) and write [email protected], I will get it. It's a win/win/win as I see it. I'd love to have dusty.com too, but that chance flew out the window 20 years ago I'm afraid.

 

[bmugford]

You already own Dustie.com and .art.

You could have also bought a suitable .com for under $10. Sorry, but it seems like a major waste of money imo.

Brad

 

[cabotower]

if you have an art business,you may be able to claim all or part of the purchase as a business expense.it may be a year away but it's something to think about.

 

[Dustie]

My my problem has always been that everyone wants to spell my name with a y, rather then and ie. Dustieart.com and Dustyart.com would have worked, but Dustyart.com wasn't available either. I would have had those as my art long ago if it had been. So now I have Dusty.art and after a year and it's all paid off, it will be water under the bridge and I'll be Dustie.com / Dustie.art / Dusty.art... I'll always be found... And I do like that .art domain name for artists. It tells a story...

 

[equity78]

Most of you know my story by now. 20 years ago I purchased dustie.com. I checked and dusty.com was available then too, but seeing as how domains were 100.00 a pop and I had just bought a new computer for 2,000.00+ (Remember those days?), I decided against buying it. If I remember it was about three months after that, 3 months of having to tell people how to spell my email address ([email protected]) umpteen times, I decided to go for it after all, but guess what...it was gone by then!

I have regretted that decision ever since. In the last 20 years I've spent spelling my name to folks who wanted my email address. It's the same as Recons.com said in the Dustie.com thread... having his name saves him a bunch of time spelling his email out. In my case, over 20 years, that's a LOT of time!

Well, when I thought dustie.com was gone for good, I went searching for another name in GoDaddy and, to my delight, I found that dustie.art was available for 9.99! I snatched it up...and then went looking for dusty.art immediatly after. Godaddy said it was not available. Figures...

But then, reading in here, and following links to read about the .art domain, it wasn't long before I discovered that, just because GD said it wasn't available, didn't mean it wasn't available! It could be that it was a Premium .ART name and GD wasn't carrying these premium names so simply said they wern't available when searched

So I went to .art...and sure enough, dusty.art was available...for £1710.00 (about 2200 in us dollars). I checked other registrars, and some had it 300 to 400.00 dollars higher then that price... and none had it lower. I just couldn't swing it.

Last night I went to look again on .art, and they still had it listed for £1710.00. This time I decided to click through to "purchase", choosing .art as the reigistrer, (you can choose others from .art's site) to see if maybe I could find out what renewal costs would be, knowing I'm not actually buying it until I pay for it.

Imagine my surprise when, on the next page .Art said "buy this domain for $1600.00/yr with 30.00 renewal! What? Really? That's nearly a 600.00 saving from what it had been just two pages back and for the last two days I'd been checking on it. OH, My Gosh... should I??? That's a lot of money...

Since I'm an artist, and want to use [email protected] for my art business, I would absolutely love to have dusty.art too. I'd never have to spell my name for [email protected]! All I have to do is have two emails that merge to the same email account.

So it was time to have a heart to heart with my husband, a non computer guy who I thought for sure would think I was crazier then a loon! I explained it all to him, and, partly because of how distraught I'd been over the dustie.com situation I'm sure, he agreed it would be a good name for me to have (Ok, so I took advantage of him at a weak moment...name a wife who hasn't!). He said that if that was what I wanted we could make it happen. After all, what are credit cards for, right?

Wahoo!! And to think...only two weeks ago I WAS totally DISTRAUGHT and DUSTYLESS! All three dusties are going to be under Lock and Key (have to find out how .art locks their domains now).

Am I crazy for going in hock and spending 1,600.00 on a .art domain name??? Probably...but I'm feeling a pretty happy crazy about it right now...

Equity78... If they write [email protected], I will get the email. If they write [email protected], I will get it, and if they misspell my name (which most people do) and write [email protected], I will get it. It's a win/win/win as I see it. I'd love to have dusty.com too, but that chance flew out the window 20 years ago I'm afraid.

Then I would get the dustieart.com because I can tell you for fact many times people see [email protected] and think you made a typo and send it to [email protected].

 

[Dustie]

if you have an art business,you may be able to claim all or part of the purchase as a business expense.it may be a year away but it's something to think about.

Good Point. I'm printing out the reciept now and putting it in with the tax stuff. It certainly well be deductable.

 

[bmugford]

I mean getting DustieArt.com for reg fee is a no brainer.

If you are going to brand under "Dustie" I don't really see the point of spending that much money on what is essentially a typo domain for your usage. How much traffic do you really think is going to be lost?

I would just build on Dustie.com if I was you. That is your best domain by far.

Brad

 

[cabotower]

seems to me that this was more than just a business purchase, it was personal and most of the people replying don't get that. when it comes down to it, it's your money and you can spend it on whatever you want.

 

[bmugford]

You might still want to keep it, but I just wanted to point out .art has a 4 day "Deletion Grace Period", which means you should be able to get a refund if you wanted to do that.

Brad

 

[SuperBrander]

By the way, @Dustie you could create a subdomain at Dustie.com- Art.Dustie.com and put your art there. Buying a $1600 typo in the .art extension is definitely a waste of money as Brad said. But I'm sure you made a lot of people in the .art extension dance in joy. Not sure if the Grace Period Brad mentioned applies to Premium domains but you might want to look into that. If you're happy though, that's the most important thing.

 

[Dustie]

I don't know... I'm not keen on dustieart.com. I've always been one who pretty much just used Dustie. I'd not want to use dustieart.com in place of Dustie.art. Dustie.art just sounds artistic! The purchase of Dusty.art is mainly because 4 out of 5 people want to spell my name with that Y. So now when I tell people to email me at [email protected], they will, most likely try to email me at dusty.art and that will be just fine with me! Time will tell if I'm Crazy.

Then there's always the fact that, if you look up Dusty Artist in Google, there are 47,700,000 results. There are a whole lot of people named Dusty who are artists out there...some of them pretty awesome! Once .art becomes more well know among artists, and prices come down further... and i predict that will happen, Some Dusty Artist just might come knocking on my door. However, if they don't, or in the meantime, I don't have to tell people how to spell my name except when I'm giving out my dustie.com name. I sure like that.

 

[bmugford]

I don't know... I'm not keen on dustieart.com. I've always been one who pretty much just used Dustie. I'd not want to use dustieart.com in place of Dustie.art. Dustie.art just sounds artistic! The purchase of Dusty.art is mainly because 4 out of 5 people want to spell my name with that Y. So now when I tell people to email me at [email protected], they will, most likely try to email me at dusty.art and that will be just fine with me! Time will tell if I'm Crazy.

Then there's always the fact that, if you look up Dusty Artist in Google, there are 47,700,000 results. There are a whole lot of people named Dusty who are artists out there...some of them pretty awesome! Once .art becomes more well know among artists, and prices come down further... and i predict that will happen, Some Dusty Artist just might come knocking on my door. However, if they don't, or in the meantime, I don't have to tell people how to spell my name except when I'm giving out my dustie.com name. I sure like that.

The decision to not spend 10 bucks to register DustieArt.com seems silly to me. I think people are just as likely to type DustieArt.com as they are to type dusty.art when you tell them your domain.

Many people don't even realize the .art extension exists.
It has been around for about 2 years now and NameBio shows 1 reported sale.

Brad

 

[Dustie]

By the way, Buying a $1600 typo in the .art extension is definitely a waste of money as Brad said :)

But I didn't buy a typo. That's the point. I bought the common spelling of Dusty for $1,600.00...probably more then that after I get the card paid off. Good thing it's a low interest rate card. It's correct spelling of Dusty that I should have bought as a .com when it was available 20 years ago.

 

[bmugford]

But I didn't buy a typo. That's the point. I bought the common spelling of Dusty for $1,600.00...probably more then that after I get the card paid off. Good thing it's a low interest rate card. It's correct spelling of Dusty that I should have bought as a .com when it was available 20 years ago.

Unless you are branding as "Dusty" and not "Dustie" I would consider it a typo for your usage. If you are using both it just introduces brand confusion.

Having a unique name like Dustie is often a benefit to artists.
I think personally that Dustie.com is the one to build on.

Brad

 

[SuperBrander]

In this case, Dusty is a typo of your name. The fact that it's the more popular version of the name isn't relevant because you've bought it as a typo you think some people will make when they'll want to get to your site and email address.

The problem with the new extensions, at least in this point in time, is that they can look unnatural to some people who aren't familiar with them. And that applies of course to the email address too. Most people aren't used to going to a website or using an email address with an unfamiliar extension so they tend to make mistakes. One of the biggest issues is email bleeding (people sending inadvertent emails to the .com by mistake). So if I were you and were planning on using Dustie.art, I'd definitely also buy DustieArt.com, as Brad suggested and create an email address there too.

 

[Dustie]

I think people are just as likely to type DustieArt.com as they are to type dusty.art when you tell them your domain.

Brad

Brad, that might work if I could have also gotten dustyart.com. But those that you say are just as likely to spell dustie.art as dustieart.com is actually going to spell it dustyart.com and then it will not be coming to me. There will be too much confusion if I tried to use dustieart.com ...I'd once again having to always tell them to remember to spell Dustie with an IE and still a good percentage of them would not. I could have paid for dusty.art if I had a dollar for everyone who said they tried to email me only to find out they were spelling my name with that blasted Y over the last 20 years. So as far as .art is concerned, I now own that blasted Y! Wish I owned dusty.com, but that's nowhere to be had with my not so deep pockets I'm afraid.

Thanks for trying to help though!