I’m still amazed at how many people have bought domain names with no thought or understanding that once a domain has been bought before, it lives out there in various places in its old form. It might never have any of those references updated. So you’re buying the history of the site as well.This is why many domain squatters buy expired domains as they want all that residual traffic and mentions in search engines and on people’s sites. They don’t care if the information those sites have is valid, they just want the traffic. But what about the sites who are prepared to shape a distinct and protected brand around their “new” domain name? Shouldn’t they do their due diligence early on? I recall reading an article about Intel’s new technology/product in Wired Magazine many years back. It was for their VIIV technology (still don’t recall what it was/is supposed to be) but I remember immediately trying to check out the URL when I got to work (Wired is good reading while riding MUNI to work) and low and behold, the corporate proxy was blocking the site. Why? Because it had been a former adult domain. Hmm.. So, for quite a large segment of the corporate audience, that site failed to exist just because no one really took into account that buying a domain name which had been a former porn site could cause some problems even if your site was wholesome and clean. Live and learn (at $100,000 an hour?)
A New Kind of VC
Dec 15, ’05
11:55 PM
As I’m in a new contracting role, I’ve found myself evaluating work and what are it’s worths to my life. One of the most obvious is money. And I actually commented to someone that “I’m doing it for the cash infusion.” That’s pretty frighteningly like what might come out of an entrepreneurs mouth as he talks about taking some VC funding.That made me then think: What other types of unorthodox financing are available?We’ve heard of people maxing out their credit cards to fund their ideas. Those who inherited money from their family. But has there been any entrepreunerial women (or men) who’ve turned to the lap dance to fund their ideas?This came to mind as I’ve read where some strippers who work in Vegas don’t live there and just fly in for select weeks/weekends when certain conferences are in town. They earn enough from that short period of time to live well for the rest of the year.Why not earn enough to fund that start-up? Maybe the business has nothing to do with matters of an adult nature, but rather is a baby’s nappies estore and the spunky, go-getter mom who founded the company leaves the baby with her husband and heads to Vegas for a few weeks to bring home the bacon AND the venture financing.Would that mean that strip clubs would have to get detailed financial backgrounds on their customers? Would the SEC be following the money as it moved from the edge of the stage to the middle of the bosom (or other places too risque to go into here)?
Path of Least Resistance
Dec 15, ’05
11:54 PM
You’re at work and you’re trying to locate someone. They’re not at their desk and you’ve asked the cubicle next to them to no avail. What do you do?I bet if you did some traffic analysis (fancy term for snooping on people by pointing cameras around the office and hitting record) you could probably identify each person’s 1 or 2 most common routes through the office. That might be the path to and from the bathroom or maybe to the designated smoke area. It could also be the path to the elevator as they sneak off to starbucks every ten minutes to get their fix. Regardless of the why, you might be able to say with some degree of certainty, that if they are not at their desk, the next best place to find them is somewhere along that pathway.Now, if you actually went so far as to paint everyone’s pathways on the floor of the office, in addition to it looking funny, would it lead to a change in people’s behaviors? Would people change that route because they don’t want to feel predictable? Would they take a different route if they didn’t want to be found?