5 ms·

There is only one thing in common, all their names suck donkey balls, whether we accept it or not. When the top startup is "scribd" we really have a problem we

There is only one thing in common, all their names suck donkey balls, whether we accept it or not. When the top startup is "scribd" we really have a problem we are avoiding, or we don't know how to solve it. Shame on us...

ericb 18y ago
Have you tried to buy a domain name recently? It's tough stuff--even the misspellings are gone.
- Prrometheus 18y ago
  there's always .me
  - thorax 18y ago
    The best .me domains were squatted within 48 hours.
- TweedHeads 18y ago
  Imagine 5 or 10 years down the line, tough times ahead for the web as we know it. Any ideas on how to fix this mess?
  - ericb 18y ago
    The fix is easy. Charge more, per year, for domain names. You'll never "cure" misspelled domains at this point, but the domain names at the fringe would be too expensive to hold on to as they wouldn't recoup their costs, which would force speculators to release more of them and improve overall availability.
    - axod 18y ago
      Completely agree. Or at least hold an auction for each domain name instead of giving them away for $10. As long as domain names are given out essentially free, they will be owned mainly by squatters trying to extort money for them. The price they are sold for initially should be the going market price for that name.
      - mattmaroon 18y ago
        How do you hold auctions for domain names? You can't force people to renew via auction, or Google will just steal the domain name from any site that catches on. You can't really start out with an auction price either, because any domain name not already taken clearly has 0 bidders, so the first one would win for $10. Auctions only make sense for domains that were already registered and whose owners want to sell them, and that's already done. Raise the price of domain names too high (say $1,000) and you stifle innovation. Keep it sufficiently low and squatters will still have any name worth keeping. It's a no-win situation. Though the current state of domain names sucks, it's kinda like democracy. It's the least bad option.
        axod 18y ago
        I'm talking about the initial registration of a domain name. Not the renewal fee. Stifle innovation??? How would you stifle innovation? The current situation gives away names to anyone who wants them, when their market price is way above that. It's a land grab with no limits on how much land you can grab, which I don't think is a fair way to be doing things. Many of the good domain names are just held by a few people who happened to be around at the right time. I'd say $1k was a good start on making domain names fair. Or, wait until enough people are interested in a domain name, and auction it. eg I see that foobar.com is unregistered, register my interest, that goes public, other parties have say 30 days to register interest, then after those 30 days it goes up for auction, at which time the market decides a price for it. Profits to go to the eff or something :/
        mattmaroon 18y ago
        That auction system won't work well because in your example, somehow foobar.com is available after 10 years of $10 domains. If nobody picked it up yet, it's unlikely any sort of bidding war is going to occur. Also, the problem is already so well-entrenched, with so many domains currently being squatted on that it does nothing to solve it. $1k domains would stifle innovation because there are a lot of people who can program (or learn to program) a cool website but might not have $1k to spare. Craigslist, plentyoffish, whatever that MySpace site made by a trailer-dwelling teen in Detroit that was a media sensasation, every blog known to man, etc. might not exist if the founders had to plunk down a grand.
ivankirigin 18y ago
I think tipjoy's name rocks pretty hard, thank you very much. Wundrbar and Heroku are also great names
dbrush 18y ago
Unfortunately Y Combinator only gave us $15,000, not $50 billion so we redirect Yahoo.com or $150 billion to redirect Google.com...

ericb 18y ago

Have you tried to buy a domain name recently? It's tough stuff--even the misspellings are gone.

Prrometheus 18y ago
there's always .me
- thorax 18y ago
  The best .me domains were squatted within 48 hours.
TweedHeads 18y ago
Imagine 5 or 10 years down the line, tough times ahead for the web as we know it. Any ideas on how to fix this mess?
- ericb 18y ago
  The fix is easy. Charge more, per year, for domain names. You'll never "cure" misspelled domains at this point, but the domain names at the fringe would be too expensive to hold on to as they wouldn't recoup their costs, which would force speculators to release more of them and improve overall availability.
  - axod 18y ago
    Completely agree. Or at least hold an auction for each domain name instead of giving them away for $10. As long as domain names are given out essentially free, they will be owned mainly by squatters trying to extort money for them. The price they are sold for initially should be the going market price for that name.
    - mattmaroon 18y ago
      How do you hold auctions for domain names? You can't force people to renew via auction, or Google will just steal the domain name from any site that catches on. You can't really start out with an auction price either, because any domain name not already taken clearly has 0 bidders, so the first one would win for $10. Auctions only make sense for domains that were already registered and whose owners want to sell them, and that's already done. Raise the price of domain names too high (say $1,000) and you stifle innovation. Keep it sufficiently low and squatters will still have any name worth keeping. It's a no-win situation. Though the current state of domain names sucks, it's kinda like democracy. It's the least bad option.
      - axod 18y ago
        I'm talking about the initial registration of a domain name. Not the renewal fee. Stifle innovation??? How would you stifle innovation? The current situation gives away names to anyone who wants them, when their market price is way above that. It's a land grab with no limits on how much land you can grab, which I don't think is a fair way to be doing things. Many of the good domain names are just held by a few people who happened to be around at the right time. I'd say $1k was a good start on making domain names fair. Or, wait until enough people are interested in a domain name, and auction it. eg I see that foobar.com is unregistered, register my interest, that goes public, other parties have say 30 days to register interest, then after those 30 days it goes up for auction, at which time the market decides a price for it. Profits to go to the eff or something :/
        mattmaroon 18y ago
        That auction system won't work well because in your example, somehow foobar.com is available after 10 years of $10 domains. If nobody picked it up yet, it's unlikely any sort of bidding war is going to occur. Also, the problem is already so well-entrenched, with so many domains currently being squatted on that it does nothing to solve it. $1k domains would stifle innovation because there are a lot of people who can program (or learn to program) a cool website but might not have $1k to spare. Craigslist, plentyoffish, whatever that MySpace site made by a trailer-dwelling teen in Detroit that was a media sensasation, every blog known to man, etc. might not exist if the founders had to plunk down a grand.

ivankirigin 18y ago

I think tipjoy's name rocks pretty hard, thank you very much. Wundrbar and Heroku are also great names

dbrush 18y ago

Unfortunately Y Combinator only gave us $15,000, not $50 billion so we redirect Yahoo.com or $150 billion to redirect Google.com...