Take Fusible.com’s article on the sale of HomeRun.com as exhibit A. As the article says, one would think HomeRun.com would be used for some sort of baseball-related website, whether a fantasy baseball site or a baseball news website. Instead, it’s used as a website that gives you great deals for activities in your city.

Now, let’s go back to how we defined brandable domains. One of the main pieces of criteria is that the domain generally has little or no meaning. Does a home run have a significant relationship (in terms of meaning) with great deals in a city? One might think there’s SOME relationship between the two, but definitely not much. Does this make HomeRun.com a brandable domain name? In this case, they took a domain name that has specific meanings and turned it into a name with little or no meaning. This is why I think it’s both a brandable domain name and general domain name.

Is it a good thing that this idea of brandability is beginning to clash with generality? Will this have an effect on the value of brandable or general domain names? Do you even think the two are clashing? Submit your comment below and let’s hear some thoughts.

After logging into Facebook, I saw a link posted by a friend of mine leading to a website with a .me extension. She isn’t in the domaining industry, and it’s not everyday that I see someone outside the domaining industry surfing websites that aren’t based on a gTLD. Being curious as I was, I decided to click on the link. The link led me to her profile on FormSpring.me. The website had an interesting concept, but that is besides the point.

The thought that somebody not in the domaining industry could’ve found a website on a ccTLD was still bothering me because I just couldn’t imagine it to be possible. This is when I decided to check out the website’s Compete rankings. The website was formed in November of 2009, and over the few months of its operation, it has grown to have approximately 2,000,000 visitors in a single month.

This is a website that is clearly seeing success with the .me extension and is making great use of it. I’m also shocked to see such a rapid growth in a website as simple as FormSpring.me. Feel free to submit your comments on the FormSpring.me website or (preferrably) the .me extension.

Step outside of your comfort zone. Elliot brought up the point that no matter what, people are going to run to register domains similar to FrenchCookingGames.com, after CookingGames.com sold for $350,000. And I’ve seen it happen on numerous occasions. Seriously, if you can be replaced by a machine, you should be.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big believer in following trends. But you need to be smart when following trends. Never bank on the idea that the owner of CookingGames.com would ever even consider buying a domain as bad as FrenchCookingGames.com. And the truth of the matter is, if someone invests 5 or 6 figures in a domain name, chances are they’re either not interested in bad variations of that domain name, or will sue for trademark infringement or cybersquatting in the case that they actually are interested. People spending that kind of money on domains aren’t stupid (generally).

Without creativity, you cannot be successful in business. You need to be able to come up with innovative ideas. One of the few things I absolutely hate is when people tell me they just weren’t born with a creative mind. I promise you, how creative you are is based solely on how hard you try in life and how creative you want to be. Just remember the saying, when patterns are broken, new worlds emerge. Think outside the box. Get creative!