Your sites branding shouldnt be made harder by your name choice, by allowing for mispellings, confusion, etc. The idea behind “yoonew” makes sense but there is a difference between similarly brandable and clever names like paypal, stubhub, facebook, etc. if you are trying to go that route. all are quick, easy, brandable, explain their respective industry but dont really allow for mispellings and avoid some of the things plaguing these new company names. Yes there are always exceptions.

Although most complain that all names are taken, it doesnt take that much effort to find a valuable name in the secondary market that fits your budget and criteria. I just had some friends do just this with their new sports social networking site: yoursports.com. great name. And yes of course there are exceptions.

As far as generics go, they brand themselves, you get free visitors to your storefront (website) naturally and they are the easiest to remember. They pass all the tests including the radio test. Say your company name over the phone or radio without spelling it. Generic names stick, therefore will always have value because they are the best names that can describe an entire industry. They can be used to point to an established brand, or to brand themselves.

GREENTAXI: Thank you, “misspellings” corrected. I agree that those sites mentioned have had success with those names, but they are reliant upon that killer app. Why not combine the killer app with a domain names that people can remember to help drive traffic to their site in case the killer app fails? We always come back to “Hotels.com”. Has a great service, but has a brand name as well, built on top of a generic domain.