'Stop Me Before I Domain Again'

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They appear to be average American women.
They meet ... chat rooms and ...
lists to exchange photosof their kids, cheer on each other's ... ...
complain about their h They appear to be average American women. They meet inparenting chat rooms and discussion lists to exchange photosof their kids, cheer on each other's pregnancies andccasionally complain about their husbands' snoring.
Theyswap recipes and advice on schools and diets. They seemnormal in every way.But these women share an obsession - a dark secret thattheir offline friends may not understand.'Stop me before I domain again,' jokes Nita Jackson ofOrganizeTips.com .These all-American women are also webmasters; entrepreneurswho feel a rose by any other name should get registeredbefore someone else snaps it up.'Every word or name that you hear, you wonder if it is takenas a dot.com or dot.net,' says Wendy Shepherd ofComputerMommy.com .
'I dreamabout new domains at night, and am always looking atsomething and wondering if it is a domain name yet.'According to NetNames, there are over 22 million dot-comnames registered around the world with ICANN estimating that21,000 new domains (of all kinds) registered weekly. Ifyou've ever had a problem getting the name of your choice,this is a factor.'Our company owns about 150 domains right now,' says NancyPrice of Myria Media .
'To onedegree or another, about 30 are in use right now. The othersare saved for future development, to protect our trademarksand/or intellectual property (such as, variations of thenames of our main sites) and also some generic terms.'Like Price, most of the women buy names for their businessuse.
Surprisingly few of them collect domains with the ideaof selling them later.'The second I bought my first domain, I fell in love. Eversince, I change projects about twice a year,' says AmyFleeman of ColumbusMoms.com .Amy has made a little bit of money selling domains she owns,but is picky about who she sells to.
'I tend to sell cheaperthan I should because I want them to go to 'good homes,' (ie other webmasters I know do good work vs some strangeron eBay).''I get ideas, buy the domains, and actually put themtogether from start to finish. I design the pages, thegraphics, install the CGI, advertise, get content...
Thenonce everything is in place, I get the fever to do a newone. So I sell the old one and go at it again! I usuallyhave several projects going on at once.
So, I guess I'm notas addicted to registering the names as I am building theactual community from ground up.'If domain buying is ever officially classified as anaddiction, Shelley Pietras would qualify for treatment. Asowner of YourDomainForFree.com, Pietras can feed herhabit with ease.
In the course of one month, Pietras hastripled the number of names in her collection to 'an even90.' She says 'Four are in use right now, and the rest -Well, we do plan to use them, sell them, give them away asgifts.' 'Each domain that was registered came from an actualbusiness idea. When the idea hit, the domain was registered.Whether or not all these ideas will ever be put into actionremains to be seen, but at least we've got the first stepout of the way!' Nita Jackson also feeds her habit by being a registrar.
Like Price, she startedbuying names that were related to her site,OrganizeTips.com, because she did not want competitorsgetting them first. She spends about $500 each year on atotal of 16 domains (two of which are actually operatingas websites).
'I plan to develop the rest and work my fingers to thebone,' she says.With so many names already registered, finding a good onethese days is hard. Price offers this advice:"Take your time coming up with a good name.
You should probably check to see that it's not a trademarked term.Then, when you go to register the domain, also buy thecommon variations (hyphenated, pluralized, etc.). Finally,don't talk to anyone about your plans until you have thedomain name on record!" Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com .