Setting up and delivering a brand can be challenging at the best of times, but trying to brand online is even more difficult when domainers, webmasters, and corporate entities have cleaned up a huge swathe of brandable domain names.
Back in 2004 when first setting up the site Finance Markets, branding wasn't a concern - simply developing any kind of online media presence in financial news was the first hurdle to tackle.
Over time the site has developed and grown, with more and more writers set up on the news desk, and community forums opened up for discussion.
Now I look at the site and I'm realising what a mistake it is to think about branding second - now the challenge is to try and define a brand when the brand opportunities for domain names are even more diminished.
I've been toying around with a few possibilities - namely Financial Week or Financial Daily, and so far seems so good.
But not great.
In an incredibly competitive market such as finance, there is even more danger of stepping on trademarks and similar branding issues that could kill a project before it starts.
For example, with my previous suggestions, it turns out that there is an original financial week in the states - but that this publication has now closed.
Does that mean a branding opportunity has arisen, or is there a trademark still in play behind it? If so, with what reach and to what extent? What about a buying opportunity? Is Cain publishing even looking to sell? Would it be worth even buying?
And so the questions continue.
The one play I'm keeping very strongly in mind is that any brand is only as good as you can build it, and that the foundations, such as a domain name, don't need to feature too strongly in that.
But I would rather create the strongest foundations I can and try and live up to strong brand potential.
I may have made a mistake here with FM, but I still have the opportunity to move it to FW or FD if I want. Perhaps I don't even need to.
The need to question seems core, and no matter how satisfactory or not the answers are, the importance is in still asking.
As Jeff Bezos recently commented: "What's dangerous is not to evolve".
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