Okay, so it's better for dotcoms to have a global play, but does this mean that your corporate name and, more important, your domain name, have to have a global ring to it? Should you avoid the use of Tagalog words and the use of the word "pinoy" in your domain for the benefit of the foreign market and for easier recall? Tessa Salazar again asks two techno-preneurs-Nono Felipe of MP3Manila and Simon Sandoval of Colibria-what they think about the dotcom name game.

(1) Would you advise dotcoms not to get a Filipino-sounding domain name? Should dotcoms use Tagalog words in their domain name like kangkong or kurikong? If that's the case, how would you expect these dotcoms to have global reach?

Sandoval: It all depends on who your target market is. If one wishes to use a Filipino name in the company name, it is not necessarily a bad idea. Most normal English words are already taken in the ".com" space, hence our company name (Colibria). Look at Yahoo!, Gadzooks or Cisco. One cannot possibly deduce what they do from their names alone. However, they do have catchy names that one will not easily forget. This is important for a Filipino name as well. If it is difficult to pronounce and remember, I wouldn't recommend it.

Felipe: Get every variation you can, from spelling to pronunciation. Get them all. Coin your own name!

(2) If a dotcom is going global, should you get the local country domain or a top-level domain name like ".com" or ".net"? Would you advice a dotcom to get a local domain (".ph" or ".com.ph" for instance) or try to get a ".com" or ".net" extension?

Sandoval: If one's targeting the global market, it is definitely an advantage to get a plain ".com" name. In our case, since we also plan to have customers in the Philippines, we have both Colibria.com and Colibria.ph.