People do disagree on the value of a dot-com TLD. Some assert that dot-coms have no particular value in the search engines, which may be true.
However, the fact is, if you haven't yet seared your brand on the collective brow of the planet, dot-com makes you easier to remember. If you eschew dot-coms, then in some deep dark place inside, people will remember you as "that hard-to-remember URL with the ending that isn't dot-com." What's worse, if you pick an otherwise memorable domain ending in dot-net, -us, or (God forbid) -tv, some of your traffic will end up at that competitor who snagged the dot-com version of your domain. Okay, that's settled. Now for the controversial stuff. Which is best: the "keyword" domain, or the "creative-genius, snappy and brandable" domain?
Keyword Name vs. Creative-Genius Brandable Name
A Keyword Name is the boring, workhorse kind of domain. You seem them everywhere. They bristle with hyphens: "best-anchovy-pizza-in-siberia.com." Or "super-labrador-accessories-and-golfballs.biz." On the face of it, they're hard to brand. They're hard to fit on business cards. They're really hard to explain over the phone to Aunt Martha.
On the other hand, a Creative-Genius Brandable Name is the sexy kind of domain. The successes are sparkling: Yahoo!, Google, Amazon.com. You can shout these URLs across the room and the other guy will probably get it right. But note: the dot-com road is littered with hip, snappy business who failed to brand their product successfully, or get listed high in the search engines. Now their URLs all point to the same page: "server not found …"
The debate rages on, but the first question you must ask yourself is:
How will people find YOU?
Part 3 - Brandable back to Part 1 - Domain Names
