Foreign domains: Putnik -- Putnik.us and Putnik.tv

According to rootsworld, "Putnik is the Russian term for the wandering musicians who went from village to village in the Russian countryside singing religious songs."

Best yet, in many slavic languages, "putnik" is a generic term that offers several shades of meaning:

wayfarer, tripper, traveler, traveller, tourist, pilgrim, passenger, fare, and voyager.

Certainly a rich word with multiple possibilities.

In recent weeks, I have been shying away from domains other than dot-coms, but I felt that, in this case, I would make an exception and pick up putnik.us and putnik.tv because the term garners over 2,300,000 Google hits (although the overture score for the US is a bit low). Of the two domains, I feel that the dot-tv offers the best possibilities for future growth, although the dot-us may soon come into its own.

The good news: the term is a generic one, so if one wanted to go into the travel business, it would be okay, although one would have serious competition from the Serbian company travel company called Putnik. In addition, Putnik.com is likely to be unavailable for a long time; the domain directs to a Serbian or Croatian investment firm.

Still I registered these two domains for the following reasons:

1. For much of the world, the term is a solid one--it would be a huge mistake for domainers to ignore a large chunk of the business world that is quickly emerging.
2. It's one word, only six letters and very pronounceable in English.
3. If a user has a plan for another use, such as selling books, it could be quite brandable.
4. In 1988, my husband and I bought a VW Jetta, picked it up in Frankfurt, and traveled all over then-Yugoslavia in it, logging nearly 20,000 miles, so we named it "Putnik." We still miss that car! :=(

Okay, sentiment is not a good enough reason...

While the dot-com would have been an awesome find, sometimes one has to settle for alternatives.

If they don't work out, then so be it; a lot of domaining seems to involve taking risks, and, as risks go, this wasn't a huge one.

Ms Domainer