My weblog neighbor, Drew McManus, has been slogging through orchestra web sites for his second annual Orchestra Website Review, which this year ranks 80 websites of professional orchestras based on his detailed criteria.
This year, he decided to teach an important lesson to symphony marketing departments about the on-line world, specifically, the importance of grabbing Internet domain names that shouldn’t be available to anyone else. To make his point, Drew registered the following domains as his own, and posted a placeholder page on each:
- http://www.newjerseysymphony.org/
- http://www.northcarolinasymphony.org/
- http://www.buffalophilharmonic.org/
- http://www.toledosymphony.org/
- http://charlestonsymphony.org/
- http://www.mississippisymphony.org/
- http://www.westvirginiasymphony.org/
- http://www.newmexicosymphony.org/
- http://www.eriephilharmonic.org/
- http://www.wichitasymphony.org/
- http://www.rhodeislandphilharmonic.org/
- http://www.longislandphilharmonic.org/
- http://www.ftwaynephilharmonic.org/
- http://www.lachamberorchestra.org/
- http://www.stlouissymphony.org/
If you haven’t registered all the obvious domains for your organization (even if you only redirect them to your official site), you might want to do so now, before Drew gets to them…or before they fall into the hands of someone with less benevolent intent.
As an IT person at a symphony I have just enough budget to keep the place running on a daily basis and then have to go begging (grants and donations) for anything else. Drew hasn’t taught me anything, he just makes our job that much harder now that he owns these domain names. I’ll now spend the rest of the week in arguments and blame games of who didn’t approve purchasing all possible domain names. Since we lose money every single year, I’m sure our Board will be happy to have me purchase and manage 35 domain names.
Now I am going to have to purchase a name from Drew at a fraction of the high prices others are charging? I thought he was writing to help the industry. Drew is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Perhaps “IT Guy” doesn’t get it. An orchestra I used to play in IS on that list and I’m glad to know that even those managers don’t buy the name at least it isn’t going to turn into a porn site or something worse. So how is that not helping? Apparently many of these names have been available for over a year so it isn’t like this is some big revelation. Granted, I’m not a manager so maybe I don’t get it, but that seems like an extreme response.
Let’s do the math. I currently pay $15 per year to register a domain and redirect it to another URL. Maybe there are better deals, and you could get a cheaper rate by registering for a longer term, but we can stick with $15. 35 domain names for your orchestra seems awfully high (I’d have thought more like ten, tops) but I’ll accept it. Isn’t it worth $525 a year, even for a cash-strapped arts organization, to make it easier for people to find your website? It’s my responsibility as an IT professional to educate my clients on this issue. They may decide not to spend the money, but if they end up with a “knoxvillesymphony.org” disaster, they can’t say I didn’t give them fair warning.
LOL!!! I don’t think Drew has mal intent, but he makes an excellent point (and he’s probably willing to sell the domain names to their “rightful owners” if they’d offer to buy theirs). I wonder if the orgs that haven’t purchased their URL’s are the same ones that scratch their heads and wonder why more young people aren’t buying tickets? I wonder what symphonies are doing to develop younger audiences?