Welcome to www.p8t.info .

A domain name doesn’t necessarily have to describe a business. Some of the most useful names are the ones that leave enough room for their owner to give them a meaning of their own.

That is what I find interesting about P8T.info.

It is a very short name, consisting of two letters and the number 8. There is no obvious industry attached to it, no product that it commits you to, and no long phrase that has to be remembered every time someone types the address.

In other words, it is something of a blank canvas.

P8T as a brand

Imagine for a moment that you were starting a technology business and wanted a short name that could eventually stand on its own. P8T Tech would work. So would P8T Labs, particularly for a software or research company.

For an AI project, P8T AI has the same advantage: the name is short, while the second word immediately explains what the business does.

Move into another sector and the possibilities change without changing the underlying name. P8T Finance suggests financial information or investment research; P8T Data could be an analytics business; P8T Media has an entirely different character, perhaps a digital publisher or information service.

There are plenty of other directions: education, travel, marketing, consulting, research, software and many things that don’t fit neatly into a category at all.

And that is precisely why I would regard P8T primarily as a brandable domain, rather than a descriptive one.

The person who buys it is not purchasing a name that already tells the world what the business is. He or she is acquiring a short name around which a business can be built.

We have seen this before

This isn’t a particularly unusual way for a brand to develop.

IBM, BMW, BBC, SAP and DHL are all names that became familiar because of the businesses behind them. You don’t look at those three letters and immediately discover what the company does; you learned what they meant because the company established the association.

P8T starts from the other end of that process. The meaning isn’t already fixed.

That leaves the owner with considerably more freedom.

What does the 8 mean?

This is where P8T gets more interesting.

The number 8 doesn’t have to be an arbitrary character in the middle of the name. It can become part of the concept behind the brand.

One obvious approach would be P8T — 8 Things. That could form the basis of an information website publishing eight useful or surprising things about a particular subject. A series of articles about history, science, business, technology or travel would fit naturally into the format.

Another possibility is P8T — 8 Principles. That immediately suggests a business philosophy, an investment methodology, a management system or an educational concept.

For a training business, P8T — 8 Steps has an obvious appeal. A technology publication might prefer 8 Technologies, while an investment or research site could build a concept around 8 Markets or 8 Points.

And there is no reason to stop at these examples. Eight products, eight rules, eight ideas, eight categories or eight stages could all become the organising principle of a business.

The interesting thing is that these aren’t merely possible explanations for the number. They could become actual content.

A site built around P8T could have articles such as 8 Things You Should Know About AI, 8 Principles of Successful Investing, 8 Technologies Changing Business or 8 Markets to Watch.

Each article would reinforce the same association: P8T means eight useful things about something worth knowing.

That could eventually give the name an identity of its own.

And, of course, the buyer may decide that the 8 means something completely different. It doesn’t have to be explained at all. Sometimes a distinctive name becomes memorable precisely because people have to learn what it stands for.

Why being short still matters

Shortness isn’t a magic formula for a valuable domain. There are plenty of short names that have little commercial appeal.

But when a short name is also easy to remember and flexible enough to work in different industries, it becomes a useful asset.

Think about where a company name appears: a website, an email address, an app, a product, a business card, an advertisement or a sign above a door. There is a practical advantage to having something that can be written down and remembered without explanation.

P8T.info has only three characters before the extension.

That is difficult to make much shorter.

What about .info?

There is also something quite appropriate about the .info extension in this case.

Unlike some of the newer extensions that have appeared in recent years, .info was created as a meaningful generic domain extension, alongside the original extensions such as .com, .org and .net. It was introduced in 2001 with a very straightforward purpose: to identify websites providing information.

That gives P8T.info a useful combination. P8T provides the short, distinctive brand name, while .info immediately suggests information, knowledge, research, reference material or data.

For some of the ideas described above, that is not a compromise; it is actually a good fit.

Think about the range of subjects that could live under such a name: AI, finance, travel, media, education, data, or perhaps a specialised news or information site in a particular field. The possibilities are broad enough that the domain does not have to be tied to one specific subject.

There is also something to be said for familiarity. People have been seeing .info web addresses for more than two decades, so the extension is already well established and does not need to be invented as part of the branding.

The result is a short brand name with an extension that tells you something about the kind of place you are visiting:

P8T.info — P8T, the brand; .info, the information.

Ultimately, the domain can simply be presented as P8T, while the website develops its own identity and subject matter. The extension identifies the address; the business itself gives the three characters their meaning.

So tell me a little about your project. If we have a match, I’ll hand you the keys to P8T.info.

 

Who might want it?

There is no single obvious buyer, and I think that is actually one of the domain’s strengths.

A startup might be looking for a name that hasn’t already acquired somebody else’s identity. An established company might need a short name for a new product or division. Someone developing an information or media project might appreciate the connection between P8T and the .info extension.

There may even be a company already using P8T as initials that would have a particularly good reason to own the matching domain.

The right buyer could therefore be difficult to predict. It may be a company in technology, finance or AI; it may be an information business; or it may be somebody with an entirely different idea that isn’t obvious today.

That is the nature of a brandable domain.

You are not buying the finished brand.

You are buying the opportunity to create one.

Are you the next owner of P8T.info?

P8T.info has been registered since 2006, and I have decided to make the domain available to someone who can put it to better use than I currently do.

I have a figure in mind for the domain, but rather than putting an arbitrary price tag on it, I’d prefer to hear what you think it is worth and, more importantly, what you intend to do with it.

Perhaps you already have a company, product or project that fits the name. Perhaps you have an entirely new idea that I haven’t thought of.

Tell me about it, and make me an offer.

Your offer can be below the figure I have in mind, or it can be above it. The amount is obviously important, but it will not necessarily be the only consideration. If someone has a particularly good idea for P8T.info and I believe the domain will be put to good use, that is worth considering too.

I’ll consider the serious proposals I receive and contact the person whose offer and plans for P8T make the most sense.

If that turns out to be you, I’ll hand you the keys to P8T.info.

If you think you may have a use for the name, tell me what you have in mind.

P8T.info is available.

David Norden

Send your serious inquiries to david.norden@telenet.be.

You can also call me if you would prefer to discuss it one-on-one: +32 3 227.35.40

I’m primarily interested in hearing from potential end users rather than domain brokers.