There has been a lot of discussion about start ups embracing the new gtlds, it was the choices they needed, that they want to keep their original company name and not have to change just to get the .com. I believe that is true for some, and they will embrace it. There are still many that believe .com is where it’s at.
Today we get another example that will make the .com only camp happy, Moot has rebranded itself to Muut. The company did a post on their blog discussing the transition and it was featured on Tech Crunch as well.
Now Moot.ventures/holdings/company are all available, they could easily keep their name and move to a new gtld, Instead the company moved from Moot.it to Muut.com. I am sure some will try to spin this differently but imo it cannot be spun. Here is a start up that just raised $770,000 that could have easily for $24.99 registered Moot.company but they wanted the .com and went with the alt spelling Muut.com.
From the Muut.com website:
Muut
Welcome Muut! Yes, we know: it might sound funny since you’re not used to it — then again, didn’t Moot sound funny when you first heard it? We loved the name, but honestly, we love the new name even more, and we’re absolutely thrilled with the new url — muut.com.
As awareness of our service kept growing it became clear to us we needed to shift from our .it domain to a .com domain. With Muut we have our 4 letter .com as well as a new distinctive brand.
We have already started the process of migrating everything over to the new domain, but no need to worry — your old embeds pointing to moot.it will continue to work so you won’t need to do anything!
From the Tech Crunch Article:
Moot.it, a startup launched last April to do away with ugly online forums by offering a flexible, customizable and more modern-looking platform for online discussions, has raised $770,000 in new funding and is changing its name to Muut. (Hey, they wanted the .com, so you get what you get these days.)
The funding was led by Oregon Angel Fund, and the other notable investor is the Portland Seed Fund.
Over the course of the year, the company has grown its customer base to over 28,000 and its user base to 300,000, and is currently adding thousands of new users per day. Muut also says its application is now being loaded approximately 150 million times per month.
Read the full story here
