tomhudson's Journal: End-of-the-year unzombie-a-domain contest!

update: deadline extended to give people more time to play

[cue "mission impossible" theme song]

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find and register one cool domain name that has been allowed to lapse.

The deadline is the end of the year ... no, let's make it the middle of January, to give people more time, unless someone has a better idea (and no, I don't need more time - snagged my entry as of midnight. I'll post clues every day, see who can find it :-)

Bonus points for

1. It's somehow tech-related (this IS slashdot). 20%
2. The shorter, the better. 20%
3. Dot.com beats dot.anything-else - since the dot-com namespace is the most competitive, and the default if you don't specify a tld. 20%
4. Getting a live site up and posting some content. 20%
5. Getting on the first page for search results for a relevant search. 20%

[this post will self-destruct in 10 seconds ... 9 ... 8]

Everyone says all the "good" domain names are taken. If you remember a couple of years back, where I spent a few minutes "thinking creatively", I came up with a few catchy domain names, and, instead of registering them, posted them. The first was xeroxmyass.com. Well, guess who owns xeroxmyass.com today?

Registrant:
Xerox Corporation
Domains Registrar
PO Box 1000
Wilsonville, OR 97070
US

So someone made a few bucks selling xerox the domain ...

From my original list, people also grabbed "thissiteisunderconstruction.com", "bsdisdying.com", "deweycheatumandhow.com", "applemicrosoft.com", "apple-microsoft.com", "youhaveavirus.com", so NOT all good domain names are "already taken." However, this isn't about finding NEW good names. The name has to be expired and the original site has to be able to be resurrected via the wayback machine.

New names, such as ObamaWontBailMeOut.com, don't qualify (never registered), and would lose points in both "technical" and "length" anyways.

Prize? Well, maybe someone (hint hint - any takers?) will submit a story about how the econ crisis is causing a lot of old domains to be freed up, and YOUR domain might get slashvertized! Instant karma, anyone?

Please avoid posting any entries until you've confirmed your new registration is active (it shows up in a WHOIS search). You CAN say you've got one, but wait until the WHOIS updates to post details :-)

Happy hunting.

Re:

[tomhudson]

Too bad AnAnonymousCoward.com doesn't qualify. It's not registered, but archive.org also says it never was.

Still, someone might want to pick it up as a last-minute Christmas present.

ARGH

[http]

YOU. You bastard. My dream site comes up for grabs on January 6th.

Re:

[tomhudson]

I've been thinking about what you said, and maybe you're right - barely more than a week to play, especially around the holidays, isn't all that fair to everyone (people havep things to do, and people to do them to, and all that).

So, a deadline of ... I don't know, the middle of January?

Honorable mention?

[Timex]

I renewed my own domain, notyourinter.net, so it doesn't qualify for the contest. I just thought I'd mention the name, 'cause I'm rather pleased with it. I beleive I came up with it because of something you wrote a couple years back.