Picked up the last three dozen posts which mentioned a company on TechCrunch (which is also a brandable) and the general trend seems to be that domains being used are mostly brandable domains, not generics.

And even where the domains are generics, the usage itself isn’t directly related to the term but it’s used in a brandable sense.

So are generic domains overrated? Well, no. If you don’t have funding or a million dollar marketing budget, you would probably be better off using a generic, since it would help you rank better for the exact term that a random brandable. Yes, it’s true, even after Penguin / Panda etc.

If you’re a funded company and plan to go the entire trademark + legal protection route, you can do it with a brandable. Though even there, a lot of companies play safe by using a made up word or term but in .com – of the 36 companies listed below, most are .com, with one each of .me / .pa / .io / .fm

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Glide – Generic term, refashioned tld, used as a brandable.
glide.me

Meritful – Generic term, but used as a brandable too!
meritful.com

Kloudless – brandable term.
kloudless.com

Handle – Generic term, used as a brandable partially at least.
handle.com

AppArchitect – Generic!
apparchitect.com

Stylit – brandable term.
mystylit.com

BlackTag – brandable term.
blacktag.com

Bidzy – brandable term.
bidzy.com

KeenHome – brandable term.
mykeenhome.com

Floored – Generic term, but used as a brandable!
floored.com

Paidpiper – brandable term.
paidpiper.com

42 – brandable term.
42debut.com

GreenTape – brandable term.
gogreentape.com

OpenStreetMap – Generic!
openstreetmap.org

Zenefits – brandable term.
zenefits.com

Share Practice – Generic!
sharepractice.com

Tango Card – brandable term.
tangocard.com

Flipboard.com – Generic term, but used as a brandable!
flipboard.com

Spacebar – Generic term, but used as a brandable!
spacebar.com

Magisto – brandable term.
magisto.com

Betaworks – brandable term.
betaworks.com

Purchext – brandable term.
purchext.com

BuzzFeed – brandable term.
buzzfeed.com

ProBoards – Generic!
proboards.com

Placester – brandable term.
placester.com

Foursquare – brandable term.
foursquare.com

State – Generic term, but used as a brandable!
state.com

Moviora – brandable term.
moviora.com

Uber – Generic term, but used as a brandable!
uber.com

Shazam – brandable term.
shazam.com

Sherpa – brandable domain hack.
sher.pa

Soundrop – brandable term with obscure cctld.
soundrop.fm

Spotify – brandable term.
spotify.com

ThredUP – brandable term.
thredup.com

Square – brandable term.
squareup.com

Rambler – brandable term with obscure cctld.
rambler.io

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What do you think of this trend?