Remember our contest on the Coase Theorem? It asked for good examples of the Coase Theorem failing in regard to URLs — i.e., instances in which a company that is most motivated to own a URL for some reason doesn’t. The winner of the contest proposed Nissan.com, which belongs not to the car company, but to a far lesser-known computer company of the same name.
A reader named Simon Weaver, the Web editor of the N.Y.-based real estate outfit Barbara Corcoran, Inc., wrote in with a question that is a first cousin of the Coase Theorem question:
I am forever accidentally going to the General Motors Web site when I mean to go to Gmail. The URL is simply GM.com, which is what I always type to bring up Gmail.com; then I forget to cursor down. My wife is always doing it, too. Has anybody ever tried to figure out how many cars GM has sold to people trying to read their email?
I love the question. But my guess is … not very many. Does anyone disagree? Or, better yet, does anyone know?
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That’s never happened to me, and I’ve been using gmail since 2004. But then again, I also have never visited gm.com. More of a VW girl myself.
Since I have nothing especially intelligent to add, I’m going to recommend that Simon solve his problem by creating a sidebar bookmark in Firefox for gmail. It’s all about one-click access, Simon, love.
That’s never happened to me, and I’ve been using gmail since 2004. But then again, I also have never visited gm.com. More of a VW girl myself.
Since I have nothing especially intelligent to add, I’m going to recommend that Simon solve his problem by creating a sidebar bookmark in Firefox for gmail. It’s all about one-click access, Simon, love.
I don’t have this issue and have been a long time Gmail user. Also, I don’t think this scenario happens to a very large percentage of Gmail users, as people use bookmarks often times for email, or just have Google as their start page which allows them easy 1 click access to email.
But for the people who it does happen to, they would likely have a negative image of GM, since they constantly try to access something and get GM instead of what they want. So perhaps they would develop a natural reaction of avoidance to GM over time.
I don’t have this issue and have been a long time Gmail user. Also, I don’t think this scenario happens to a very large percentage of Gmail users, as people use bookmarks often times for email, or just have Google as their start page which allows them easy 1 click access to email.
But for the people who it does happen to, they would likely have a negative image of GM, since they constantly try to access something and get GM instead of what they want. So perhaps they would develop a natural reaction of avoidance to GM over time.
I have inline autocomplete turned on in Firefox, and I still do the exact same thing if I’m going a little too fast for the computer. I still think the odds of selling a car to someone looking for email are about the same as that of selling a computer to someone looking for a car, which is to say small.
I have inline autocomplete turned on in Firefox, and I still do the exact same thing if I’m going a little too fast for the computer. I still think the odds of selling a car to someone looking for email are about the same as that of selling a computer to someone looking for a car, which is to say small.
I once had an employee who was one of those really sweet somewhat naïve people that you really don’t see all that much out in the cold, cruel world. One day I walked by her cube to see her sitting there with this look of utter horror on her rather bright red face. I asked her what was wrong. She stammered around for a few seconds and then she said, “The website for Dick’s Sporting Goods is NOT dicks.com”. Based on her reaction she really got an eyeful.
I once had an employee who was one of those really sweet somewhat naïve people that you really don’t see all that much out in the cold, cruel world. One day I walked by her cube to see her sitting there with this look of utter horror on her rather bright red face. I asked her what was wrong. She stammered around for a few seconds and then she said, “The website for Dick’s Sporting Goods is NOT dicks.com”. Based on her reaction she really got an eyeful.