The Name Game Moves to the Web

Wikipedia's disambiguation pages is pretty good for this. But yes, as an editor I've certainly run into cases where somebody used an acronym and it wasn't clear what it was for, or, worse, expanded an acronym incorrectly.

And things can be pretty fraught. I used to live in San Francisco and to a lot of people there, SM meant Sadism & Masochism, so it's pretty funny to me to see ads where people are talking about going to SM seminars and how important it is that we all become SM experts.

And let's not even talk about CBT, which has other meanings besides Computer-Based Training.

I think it's also good for non-US local businesses. For example, in my city the phone numbers are only 6 digits, so it's much easier to remember. Besides, at the same time you remember the phone number and the web address.

Truthfully, I never thought to look.  But the closest I found was Acronym finder.  I don't know how comprehensive it is, though.

That's actually a really good idea so long as the domain name numbers are spaced out properly. Example: www.2125551212.com could be difficult to read, but www.212 555 1212.com isn't and could be remembered easily enough.

Now that would actually be a very handy to have around. Especially if they were organized in a logical way. I wonder if there is a free online resource version of this Dictionary of Acronyms.

Nathan,

I've had the opportunity to look at the "Dictionary of Acronyms" Which at currently spans 16 volumes of encyclopedia sized text.  Of course the one I looked at was 10 year out of date, but it listed every version of the acronyms that were known at the time.  It was kind of interesting to see Acronyms I knew and what other things they stood for.  I've not had the opportunity to see a more recent copy - if one exists.

SecTech, I've worked in telecommunications for some time, and studied it as a hobby for the last 15 years, and even today I get confused by their acronyms. So many acronyms are re-used in this industry. To make matters worse, the old schoolers from the (wait for the acronyms...) TDM days of old telecom still use archaic acronyms to refer to VoIP terms, and often times in VoIP land they mean something completely different.

When you use acronyms, most people get the deer in the headlights look, their eyes glaze and the confusion sets in.  I've been in the IT field for a long long time and have seen the reuse of acronyms.  Even at the start of my career a lot of acronyms used in the tech industry had other meanings depending on which field they were applied to.  Not much has changed except that the Tech industry has expanded it need of acronyms even if the number of acronyms hasn't kept pace.

How about using numbers for a domain name? Do you think that's a good idea? We have some local sushi bars which have their phone number as their domain name. At least it's easy to remember.

Getting a keyword rich domain name would be ideal. Choose a domain name that is full of keywords that are related to a website. If the site sells vitamins then try and choose a domain name that contains the word “vitamins” in the domain name.

Also, think about the "Brandable" aspect – 15 years ago know one knew who or what a “Google” was but now Google.com is an extremely valuable and very brandable domain name. Don’t get too carried away with being clever but a brandable domain name can go a long way in making your site successful.

Another good tip would be "Easy to Type" – The easier the domain is to type then the better the domain will be. At the same time, the more unique a domain name is then the easier it is to remember. Also, if you can easily remember a domain name after hearing it just once then there is a good chance that you have found a memorable domain name.