The name is important.<p>I know of at least a couple companies that used non .com domains and later regretted it because people were confused or couldn't remember it.
It doesn't have to be a .com but a) most folks will put .com on anything they hear (I know some .org sites that wrestle with this) and b) it really needs to be something you can verbally convey without a lot of fuss. If they are asking "how do you spell that?" and so forth, you have an issue. Those folks aren't going to be able to go home and find your site.