With the notion of lifestreaming taking off, what better way to share it all than by having your very own name as the Web address, asks Gian Visser, CEO of internet service provider Afrihost.
“More people are enjoying collaboration and information sharing like never before. While the tools driving the collaboration revolution are predominantly Twitter and Facebook, there is plenty more than people want to share but which is impractical with these platforms,” Visser says.
Explaining lifestreaming, Visser says that with the burgeoning collaborative scene, many people are seeking to expand their network of influence through having a personal or family Web site. “People are turning to lifestreaming to provide a time-ordered sequence of their electronic life. A lifestream is an online record which includes blogs, Twitter messages, oddments and amusements collected on the Web - every form of digital content that can be created, uploaded, shared and exchanged.”
While platforms like Posterous and Tumblr provide an opportunity for lifestreamers to upload and share, Visser points out that the URL tends to be obscure. “An emerging trend is for individuals to reserve their place on the Web by securing a specific domain name,” he says.
In his case, for example, that domain might be www.visser.co.za, which would also give him a potential email address of gian@visser.co.za.
Reserving your family name is a simple matter, too. Afrihost, for example, provides such a service - log on to its website at www.afrihost.com and simply type your surname into the 'Domain Search' bar, located at top right. Afrihost's technology will check to see if the domain is available; it will provide suggestions, too, should the name be taken. “There are a number of options; for example, you could have a .co.za or a .com or a .org domain which still features your surname prominently,” Visser says.
Securing the domain is also surprisingly inexpensive. It costs just R9/month, Visser confirms, which includes Linux-based hosting on Afrihost's infrastructure.
However, he says if you are interested in having your name as a domain, striking while the iron is hot is the order of the day. “Many of us share surnames, after all,” says Visser, “Already there are over 600 000 .co.za domain names and as more people realize that there is some value in reserving their name as a domain, time is running out. You might want to hurry before you end up something obscure like www.visser19845.co.za.”
The worth of the family name may be rooted in values and mores, but for prominent persons it may be a monetary question, continues Visser. “Protecting a name as intellectual property was once a concern for business only. That used to apply exclusively to businesses, but with more and more of everything online, it could apply to your name, too,” he concludes.
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