Sahar Sarid compiled a list of domain-industry movers and shakers who own TheirName.com. And Lindsay from wiseGEEK has a similar roundup for professional sports teams. Out of curiosity I did a quick lookup for a handful of web hosting CEOs:
The Planet is the world's largest dedicated server provider. It is backed by private equity firm GI Partners, which has billions in assets, and has hired a team of senior execs with Wall-Street-pleasing track records. If CEO Doug Erwin were to take the company public, I'm guessing a good number of prospective investors would be interested in learning more about his background. If they typed in DougErwin.com directly, they'd land on a Frisco, TX mortgage banker's website. And if they did a Google search, mortgage banker Doug and Natural History Museum Doug both rank above web hosting Doug.
1&1 hosts more websites than any other company in the world. CEO Andreas Gauger does own AndreasGauger.com, but it sends you to a page (which has been viewed by 8600+ visitors) that says hier wird der tolle Websitecreator von 1&1 getestet ("testing 1&1's awesome site creator"). At least Andreas dominates search results for his name.
Web.com CEO Jeff Stibel also owns HisName.com (which he registered through GoDaddy instead of his own company, seeing as it's 50% cheaper). It redirects to Web.com. Jeff's got great Google presence as well, and even a Wikipedia entry!
Hostway CEO Lucas Roh's domain doesn't resolve (but at least it's listed under SiteProtect.com, Hostway DNS server, instead of GoDaddy). Same goes for SoftLayer's Lance Crosby and ServerBeach's Robert Miggins (both registered through GoDaddy). Searches for Lucas' and Robert's names return relevant top results, but Lance loses out to a British boxer.
ServerBeach parent company Peer 1's Lance Tracey has his domain (registered through Yahoo!) redirected to his blog. Lance is way cool. He's even on Facebook! But fellow execs Fabio and Mark have some catching up to do. LayeredTech is in a similar position. CEO Michael Platner has a really nice personal website, COO Todd Abrams owns his domain also (doesn't resolve), but CTO Jeremy Suo-Anttila gets left out :(
I was joking with Superb Internet CEO Haralds Jass that if HaraldsJass.com were available (he registered it through Superb.net), I'd start a fake website to give him trouble. An angry customer/ex-employee/competitor/etc could do so just as easily if YourName.com were available for registration - or your name had limited search engine presence. I think $6 + a few minutes of time seem like a reasonable investment on making sure you control how your story is told. Don't you?
See also:
* Cameron Olthuis' post on why you should own not just your domain, but your name on various social media sites
* Jeff Huckaby's post on online identity management
It's ridiculous to see an executive at a web hosting company not even own their name's domain name. Domains are so cheap and such an important way to protect your personal brand.
I wrote something similar on my blog:
http://www.serviceuntitled.com/yourcompanysuckscom/2007/06/21/
Posted by: Doug | July 20, 2007 at 11:29 AM
Wow - believe it or not, DouglasErwin.com is available. Someone from The Planet should grab that...
Posted by: Isabel Wang | July 20, 2007 at 01:28 PM