TechCrunch published an article about a startup called Cove.Tool that just raised $5.7 million in funding. When you have a look at the tweet linking to the article, see if you can spot what really caught my attention:
Pitching tech to optimize building design for sustainability, Atlanta-based Cove.tool raises $5.7 million https://t.co/mzpHyN20Sn by @jshieber
— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) October 14, 2020
As you can see, the Cove.Tool branding in the tweet is not automatically hyperlinked by Twitter. What this means is that Cove.Tool, which is the company’s brand name, is not actually a domain name. Even though Cove.Tool looks like it would be a domain name, it is not a domain name – it is just the startup’s brand name.
From what I can tell, there were no new gTLD applications for the .Tool extension. There is, however, a .Tools domain name extension. Donuts operates the .Tools extension (see nic.tools).
Confusingly, the company known as Cove.Tool uses a different new gTLD domain name for its website – Cove.Tools. The company does (smartly) own CoveTool.com, which it forwards to Cove.Tools, but it seems needlessly confusing, particularly from an email perspective. I bet a lot of people are going to email X@cove.tool instead of X@cove.tools because of the corporate branding.
I think it’s branding and domain name combination is peculiar.
A lot of this happens. Promoting domain type things that don’t exist.
Here’s tech radar promoting techradar.deals with an ad suggesting playstation.plus
https://twitter.com/AremDzemal/status/1312832669500276739?s=19
Look at the top right of the pic. Hard to believe it’s coincidence. A lot of this too. It’s only recent example I saw.
A lot of companies put a dot between two words in a brand name and the general public does not assume that it is a url. It is a long established branding technique.
That said cove.tools is a very strange domain to use. Covetool.com would be the logical choice.
This is just crazy on so many levels! Cove.tool on cove.tools… How are they explaining this to their clients? What’s their email address? cove.tool@cove.tools? Where do you find these gems Elliot? 🙂