Is ".com" domain still important for startup?

[coolboykl]

Hi

I am the founder of secQ.me, which we offer personal mobile safety app. Initially, we like to register our domain as "http://secure.me", but as the domain taken, we resolve it to "http://secq.me"

A good friend of mine commented "A large section of the population do not click/trust domains that are not .coms. Every single time we miss out a segment, we lose a potential segment"

Is the statement still valid.. love to hear from u.

James Khoo

[swGooF]

If your app targets tech people, then the .com may not be necessary. However, if your app targets a general audience then a .com should be used.

Here is a good test. Find a non-tech person (someone that does not know about your website), and ask him/her to go to your website. Sit him/her in front of a computer, and say, "Please go to secq.me" See if he/she can get to your website without any further directions. Here are some questions you will likely get: "Is there a .com?" "How do you spell that?" If you try this on a few people and nobody has troubles, then great.

[GFischer]

An interesting point I've observed (and I think it's been validated) is that, for some segments, Google is their domain search... if you tell them, "go to xyz.com", they type xyz.com on Google !

[swGooF]

That is a good point. I think I have seen that before too. Depending upon your website SEO, that may or may not help.

[iKnowKungFoo]

http://adage.com/article/news/o-overstock-backs-o-change/230...

Overstock.com changed their primary domain to "o.co" in what I can only assume was an attempt to make people type less.

Customers rarely entered "o.co", instead they entered "o.com" because that's what they expected to domain to be.

Result: tons of cash wasted as Overstock reverted to "Overstock.com".

Get a .com and move on.

[coolboykl]

Thanks everyone for the suggestion..this is followup question, both I am bad at finding a good domain name for my product and service, since secureme.com is taken, what is the next best name for my product..

Here's a 2 minute intro video about our product.. http://youtu.be/1Hf5hbVxuJw

I am open for suggestion, appreciate your help

Thanks James Khoo secQ.me Founder

[anm8tr]

I'd like to hear some opinions on this myself. I personally don't think it matters anymore, but every time I get an idea for a product/domain, I get told "No. It should have a dot-com." Hm, really? Should it? I like how Delicious went from De.licio.us to delicious.com when they had the money. Most devs can't afford simple domain names.

[glimcat]

Yes, see this.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-domain-na...

Using real words is also generally necessary. One "u" pops right out and ruins the batch.

[nodata]

I'd like to see .us used by more companies in the US.