Want to know if a competitor is planning to introduce a new product or launch a new site in your industry?
Domaintools has a tool (“Mark Alert”) designed to allow companies monitor if people are registering domain names using their trademarks. You can enter a keyword (”IBM)” and get a daily email with all of the names registered the day before.
Instead of watching my company name I monitor words related to products and categories in my industry (”widgets”). Every day I get a list of the new names registered, and I can immediately see if someone has an idea for a new product.
If a competitor registers “ThinWidgetSlicers.com” you have a pretty good idea they are getting ready to launch a line of thin widget slicers. If someone registers “BoiseWidgetsInc.com” there is a pretty good chance that someone in Boise is getting ready to open up a widget shop.
It is an incredibly effective way to get insight into what people in your industry are up to - sometimes just hours after an idea popped into their head.
