At the recent Milken Conference, I attended a panel moderated by Mike “Zappy” Zapolin. His claim to fame? He struck internet gold by developing generic web domains like beer.com, music.com, and the all-too-timely debt.com.
It’s much harder to follow in Zappy’s footsteps today since the obvious names are all gone. Except when new developments create new opportunities.
So it was last Thursday when I had an epiphany: Given the turmoil in Europe, Greece may eventually drop out of the euro. And instead of resuscitating the drachma, maybe Greece will opt for a currency called the “new drachma”.
I had this little insight about 2:35pm on Thursday afternoon. And then I got distracted by the hoopla over Wall Street’s “flash crash.”
I finally found my way over to whois.net today to see if “newdrachma.com” was still available. And here’s what I found:
Domain Name: NEWDRACHMA.COM Registrar: FABULOUS.COM PTY LTD. Whois Server: whois.fabulous.com Referral URL: http://www.fabulous.com Name Server: NS1.SEDOPARKING.COM Name Server: NS2.SEDOPARKING.COM Status: clientDeleteProhibited Status: clientTransferProhibited Updated Date: 06-may-2010 Creation Date: 06-may-2010 Expiration Date: 06-may-2011
So close. Great minds think alike, he who hesitates is lost, and all that. I’m sure Zappy wouldn’t have let this opportunity slip by.
Of course, Greece isn’t the only country in trouble. So here’s a question: Would anyone like to register newpeseta.com?
As of 5:40pm DC time, it’s still available.
It’s amazing how some people made it big with something as trivial as buying up domain names. Generic domain names.