Over the last year I’ve purchased a few domain names, and I’m planning on picking up a few more for various projects this year as well. One of the most frustrating parts of this exercise is that every cool, even if not obvious, name I come up with has already been taken in some way, shape or form. It is almost uncanny how any domain name you can possibly think of has already been registered by someone somewhere. I’ve gone so far as to make up words (like Appricool – a mix of Apps, cool and apricot) and even THOSE have been taken. Its like the collective unconscious of the planet is conspiring to steal domain name ideas from me. The worst part is that most of these sites aren’t even being used. They’ve all got placeholder pages up trying to make a quick buck off of advertising or reselling the domain name for a huge profit.
My company’s name was influenced on the availability of the .com name. I landed on 84 North Studios after trying about 10-20 other names that I liked a hell of a lot more but couldn’t pick up the .com for. It upset me that I had to settle on a name, but I still like it enough that its not too big of a deal.
My latest search was prompted by a new idea for a portfolio website I had. (Not so quick aside: I’ve noticed that all Portfolio websites are focused on hosting photos and artwork, and none are providing portfolios for apps or websites. I’m planning to cater to that need — if there is even a need at all?). So I decided to come up with a name that has the word ‘folio’ in it (I know, maybe thats not so original, but it was a start). I tried appfolio, sitefolio, pagefolio, projectfolio, profolio, projfolio (You get the idea) and they were all taken. My favorite one was sfolio: user’s sites would be addressed as john.sfolio.com which was meant to look like John’s Folio. But sfolio was taken too. I probably won’t start working on this project until I get a domain name for it. It is hard to get excited about a project without having a name, especially when the name could influence the design and attitude of the site.
I’ll leave you with a list of domains that I currently own, and a short description of what they’re used for. Partly for myself so I have a quick inventory (maybe there is another website idea here – domain lists – just have to find an appropriately cool name and make sure the .com isn’t taken):
84NorthStudios.com (.ca, .info, .net and .org as well) My company website
FeedMyPage.com More on this in a future post
InfiniteComic.com Random comic generator created by myself and Paul Covello
MonkeysAndElephants.com Financial Markets blog
MoTimeLapse.com Twitter-like website for posting daily pictures of your moustache during Movember. Generates a time-lapse video on an on-going basis.
SnipTube.com and snpt.be A site for sharing edited down YouTube clips with very short URLs. Not 100% done yet, don’t remember if the site is even live at the time of typing this.
SportivoManager.com Information website for my league manager software.
TheNoodleman.ca The first domain I ever bought. Home of my first personal website (after messing around with a couple free Geocities sites).
VealOnABun.com The second domain I ever bought. Originally got it for free for a year after signing up for a hosting account with Octagone (who subsequently went bankrupt and left me without a site). It is the home of all of my website tests prior to pushing them live to a proper domain.
VelloreCityFC.com Website for my men’s league soccer team. Only kept stats for about 2 seasons as a beta test for Sportivo Manager.
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