Google’s Nexus One product hit the market this week which marked Google’s surprising entry into the smartphone market.

More surprising however, is the apparent lack of a proactive domain strategy.

NexusOne.com appears to have been around since 1998 and does not appear to be owned by Google nor any Google service provider or affiliate. In fact, it appears to be a web design themed site. Google has not publically shared any plan or strategy to acquire the domain name either.

So what exactly is Google’s strategy here?

We have all seen the shift from broad purchasing of defensive registrations by companies, to instead, better utilize property owned and step up enforcement efforts. There are many ways companies are doing this, and service providers like Metamend have the experience and expertise to assist in crafting these domain name management strategies.

In this instance, not much is going on domain-wise either. However, Google does appear to have “unofficially” acquired at least two gtlds with variations of the “nexus one” brand, but I will not list them here as this is not been made official.

If you look at basic variations, we see the following intellectual property still available:

nexus-1.biz - was still available at the time of this writing…

GTLD domains that have been registered in the last month:

nexus-1.us - registered Tue Dec 29 22:10:51 GMT 200
nexus-1.mobi and nexus-1.info - 15-Dec-2009 04:42:37 UTC
nexus-1.org - 18-Dec-2009 14:41:51 UTC
nexus-one.us - Sun Dec 13 09:00:05 GMT 2009
nexus-one.mobi - 13-Dec-2009 09:00:11 UTC
nexus-one.info - 12-Dec-2009 02:16:11 UTC
nexus-one.biz - Sun Dec 13 09:01:46 GMT 2009
nexus-one.org - 13-Dec-2009 08:51:49 UTC
nexusone.us - Fri Dec 11 02:37:58 GMT 2009
nexusone.mobi - 13-Dec-2009 06:28:08 UTC
nexusone.biz - Wed Dec 15 01:48:26 GMT 2004
nexusone.org - 15-Dec-2004 01:48:28 UTC
nexus1.us - Fri Dec 11 02:38:18 GMT 2009
nexus1.mobi - 13-Dec-2009 09:37:35 UTC
nexus1.info - 13-Dec-2009 04:17:58 UTC

and finally, domains which have been registered for a while:

nexus1.net - 09-jul-1998
nexus1.org - 31-Mar-2009 09:45:03 UTC
nexus1.biz - Mon Nov 25 14:08:35 GMT 2002
nexusone.com - 08-jul-1998
nexusone.net - 27-aug-2007
nexusone.info - 23-Sep-2009 20:36:43 UTC
nexus-1.net - 21 May 2009 14:11:34
nexus-one.net -  Tuesday, 26-Sep-2006
nexus-one.com - 24-jun-2009
nexus-1.com - 03-mar-2000
A trademark application for the name “Nexus One” was filed by Google, Inc. on December 10 and we see the first wave of new (2009+) registrations within hours on December 11th.

I am sure there are host of “good faith” reasons and coincidences, but it is compelling to say the least. In the next few December days, the lion’s share of the rest of the “nexus one” variants were registered and not apparently by Google.

No one can deny that Google obviously knows what it is doing business-wise but their online strategy here is confusing at best.

They have done a fine job of registering and enforcing their “Google” mark from a gtld perspective, but when we look at “gmail” we see that nexus one was not the first time this confusing strategy was employed.

Gmail.com is the Google e-mail client that a good portion of us use and is owned by Google, but gmail.net, gmail.org, gmail.biz, and gmail.info are not. G-mail.net, g-mail.org, and gmail.info are also owned by someone other than Google.

This is usually the result of Marketing, Legal, Production and most any or all other divisions of a company not talking to each other, or simply a non-existent strategy in most cases. Also some companies do not care and simply throw caution to the wind. I would not advise any of the above strategies or lack of.

Instead, I would have recommended the following steps to insure a smoother launch:

First, perform some due diligence.

Do a little internet and TM research and see if someone else has already had a similar idea to yours. If so, maybe consider a variation of your desired name or do a bit more research and try to find out if the domain holder would be willing to sell it or lease it to you. Remember that in most cases honey will get you a lot farther than vinegar; be nice, and try asking first.

Next, register all the gtlds. It is a shame to have to go back and negotiate the .net when it outperforms your .com. Keep in mind that SEO and similar tactics outpace direct searching these days so even a non-dot com can catch more traffic than the actual .com.

Finally, coordinate the timing in a coherent manner in advance of filing or purchasing anything. We saw in this instance with the “Nexus One” mark that within hours of the TM filing, possible squats were already showing up.

If you are in need of a strategy of this nature, I recommend contacting Metamend and we can assist you in developing your own online domain management strategy.