A domain name exercise

I’m always curious about peer-to-peer lending because it illustrates the power of the internet to connect people who have money with people who need money. When there is a lending platform that offers both security and convenience, then no bank is needed.

The p2p market in China has skyrocketed in recent years. Transaction value has increased from about $60b in 2014 and $150b in 2015, to a whopping $420b in 2016. Massive growth also breeds dodgy startups too. For example, about 2 weeks ago I read a news story about eight p2p marketplaces all closing door on the same day. Additional information reveals that all of them are owned by the same company.

Because of my interest, I tend to focus on the domain names concerned. The good news is that all of the eight names use the most sought after extension (.com) in China. The bad news is that the names are poor in quality. They were likely acquired as fresh registrations at very low costs.

When I come across such news, I enjoy doing an exercise where I ask myself what name I would choose. I start from a company’s brand name, which is usually shorter than their actual, legal name. The next step is to find the Pinyin spelling of the brand name. The final step is to construct the .com name matching the Pinyin name. For the best choice, I also look at the acronym .com of the Pinyin words because Chinese companies love very short domain names.

For example, one of the marketplaces is called 聪明投 (meaning “smart investing”). Its Pinyin spelling is Cong Ming Tou, so a better domain name is Congmingtou.com and the best choice may be CMT.com. The following table describes the eight marketplaces and my suggested domain names.

In #4, #7, and #8, you may notice that I use a different rule. For example, I suggest Huoniu.com instead of the spelled out Huoniucaifu.com. This is because 4-p names are quite long, usually. In the three cases, the first two Pinyin words are sufficiently unique to be easily remembered by consumers.