Iwantsandy is maybe not the best domain name

I guess it's all in how you read into it. We have heard similar things about GetSatisfaction.com. We use alternate domains such as gsfn.com and getsfn.com that might be perceived as more "business appropriate."

Maybe Sandy could do something similar.

Good idea-- And then maybe I wouldn't have that song "I Want Candy" going through my head all the time, too!

HAHA. I do that too!

That would be a great idea. When I first started telling my girlfriend about this service I said the domain name to early in the conversation, which earned me a very strange look. :-)

Yes, an alternate domain would be good ... "iws.com" ... or something like that.

Can't we just BCC Sandy? Would this work?

I agree with the domain name discomfort. I've tried using the bcc: but it doesn't seem to work (would be nice to make that work).

Rael, I have to say I agree with the discomfort of the domain name. There is so much potential here and it would be a real shame if people were put off by this. An alternative domain name, such as iws.com, would be an excellent compromise.
I would suggest that any changes are made early on before the "iwantsandy" brand name gets too ingrained.

I don't have a problem with the domain name...maybe it's because I'm a chick and I think it's cute. Plus, if all goes well, and in time everyone knows what iwantsandy.com is as a brand, will it matter?

Out of curiosity what is the alternate domain name?

I think the name is cute, too. And I wish as a man (dude, guy, hombre, insert informal term here) I could feel completely comfortable with it in official correspondence. Maybe I'm too sensitive, but I'm reluctant to put myself on the leading edge on the issue. I work for the government, and just have to be extra sensitive. I wish it wasn't that way.

Currently we only use the short domains as a tinyurl replacement. We like the name GetSatisfaction and will probably never change it.

I personally like the domain iwantsandy.com. I think it's cute and clever, but I am not at a company that would care either way.

Your product is called Sandy right? As long as you brand your company as Sandy and not IWantSandy it might be fine to have multiple domain names. iwantsandy.com for the main site, and something like ineedsandy.com, heysandy.com, yosandy.com, or pingsandy.com for the email interactions.

Or buy the domain sandy.com ;)

or you could go the other direction entirely

Sandy Assistant
http://www.sandyass.com/ (it's available and hilarious)

I think an alternate is needed. I cannot imagine sending anything with the "IwantSandy" in it to business contacts.

Sorry if it's uncool but it is a reality

Zoiks!

GOOD!

I work for the "man" too and if anyone asks, I'll just tell them what iiwantsandy is...no one asks. She must be a secure site if I can get to her from my fort knox office, which is a plus.

Well, I guess if you keep building Sandy and test her until her bugs are out and she works really well...you can transfer her structure to a second domain with a more business-like name for a different "customer". (or license her to GTD or Franklin-Covey)

The best way to get around this is to just create your own domain name and then create an email address for your own domain. For example, I can add myemail@mydomain.com in the secondary email address in Sandy and then tell Sandy to also accept any emails from myemail@mydomain.com. Then I can go into myemail@mydomain.com and forward all emails to sandy.

Illustration:
When you send an email from realaddress@companydomain.com instead of copying sandy, copy myemail@mydomain.com and then say "Hi Sandy, Please remind me to about this appointment in 1 minute". Then you can go into your own personal myemail@mydomain.com and make it's setting be forward to jibberish@jibber.iwantsandy.com. This will work for sure.

Faheem, the problem is not about my employer seeing a Iwantsandy domain name in my emails, I can explain. Its about clients or business relations getting emails reminder by Sandy when I C.C. them in a message. The thing is that the name IwantSandy looks alot like a pornsite name or some kind of spam...

God bless ya, Madame Soybean. You are the right person to be on point for the "lighten up" movement. But... I am still worried about those who *don't* ask. Even if The Man doesn't censure me for appearing to be emailing someone at a porn domain (and I'm not worried about that, honestly-- I have my work email setup as my secondary address), I am still worried that others who see my email-- who think of *me* as The Man or who may not ask who "Sandy" is but won't hesitate to judge-- may be offended.

The redirect plan sounds good, but then I lose my secondary email address utility, no?

I do see what you mean...there are those sour types who wouldn't ask and then judge and you'd never even know. I think I'm too irreverant for my own good. I guess iwantsandy sounds innocent to me like Sandra Dee...whereas "Iwantlolita" sounds...

I guess if you are the type of person that emails people at porn sites, your associates could infer that you are in fact mailing someone at a porn site.

If you are really a professional, people probably know you are a professional fella and could not possibly by emailing a porn site.

Why do you think someone would think you are introducing them to a porn star in a business context? Unless you work in the adult entertainment industry, why would that even enter their mind?

No.

I wrote this up in another thread here I swear, but maybe I dreamed it.

You just need to redirect mail to i-am-a-pervert@megacorp.com to your email address to Sandy, and CC/BCC her with that address. Your mail server will do the rest, and Sandy will get your message.

If I understand how it works, when I want Sandy to remind me and my business contact of an appointment, I add Sandy in the CC field.

Then, when its time, Sandy will send me a message and will send a message to my business contact also.

This business contact will see a message with "Sandy [iwantsandy.com]" in the author field.

This is the part where there could be a problem. If my contact think the email come from a porn site or a spammer delete the message before reading it.

Like I said before, it is easy to explain to your employer who is Sandy, maybe no so much easy to explain it to a bunch or business contacts.

Anyway, I guess it a matter of opinion and that the Sandy team will decide eventually to propose an alternate or something.

Thanks for the suggestion, R. Emory.

Not exactly. If they aren't a user of Sandy, Sandy will not put your event into their list, because they don't have one.

If you don't want to explain to people who Sandy is, you could always use the redirect or BCC her, and use the Sharing preferences in Sandy:




If you don't want to explain to people why you are emailing weird things, then don't let them know you're doing it.

Of course, if you are BCC'ing Sandy, your fellow captains of industry will think you're insane for talking to someone named Sandy that isn't there, since you're probably sending emails like this:

"Dear fellow important person,

I am looking forward to our luncheon. I will send my driver to pick you up at noon.

Sandy, remind me that I have a very important lunch meeting at 11:30am"

And if you're doing the re-direct trick and squelching Sandy from talking to your business-y folks, you don't have to worry about looking like a mental patient talking to people that aren't there.

Hi Lemon,

Your concern is understandable, unfortunately there is no simple redirect solution to that problem because Sandy is sending the email or text message directly to your contacts. I agree that iwantsandy in the subject line is not the best way to remind business contacts, but if you wish to work outside the Sandy system, you could setup an email filter to take all emails from Sandy and regenerate the email from your fake email account. There are some applications which you can google online to do this, but again they are not trivial to setup.

Thanks,
Faheem Merchant
www.scientistswithoutborders.ca

Thank you, thats a useful answer. I might look at it.

I favor the creation of an alternate domain name. I really like the concept and execution of this service, but I can't see myself using it in the long run if I can't get rid of the "iwantsandy" parts of the sender field.

When I told my girlfriend about the service she thought that the branding was a bit sexist and I agree. I like the informality (as opposed to boring productivity apps) but the days of perky female assistant roles are over.

I don't understand why "I want Sandy" conjures up porn.

Seriously...

When I first saw it, I thought it was "I wants Andy". Imagine my disappointment...

— Andy