Two oo's for success

The past few months I've been working on a web site that may eventually replace Wikipedia as the most popular encyclopedia on the net. Or it may not, in which case I will still have learned a lot. Initially I settled on the domain fastfunfacts.info. At the time I thought it was a good name, descriptive and clear, certainly with the .info extension. It was brand new so it took about 6 weeks before Google took it serious and really started to index the pages on the site (this is called the Google sandbox effect). However, by the time the site was out of the sandbox the name had started to fade a bit in my view. In particular the .info extension which I liked a lot but which turned out to have a bad reputation with a lot of people.

I also found out about Squidoo, a wiki-like site set up by Seth Godin, the marketing guru. I've read a number of his books and admire his outlook on things, so it's good that I didn't know about Squidoo before starting out. If I had I might not have started on my project.

Back to domain names - Seth Godin explains the name Squidoo by noting that many successful sites have two o's in the name (Google, Yahoo!, his own Yoyodyne). So he figured that any site with two oo's will be successful.

This was a few weeks ago, and at the same time, when I was browsing through the GoDaddy domain auctions that I've written about previously, I noticed a domain name that really struck a chord. I ordered it, and recently switched over FastFunFacts to the new domain name. It again places me in the Google sandbox, I hope that will not last as long as the previous time. I also hope that Yahoo! won't take offense, because our names have more than a passing resemblance. Of course my site is in quite a different field from Yahoo!, I hasten to add.

Anyway, I welcome you to the new Xayoo.

Where's my domain?

I'm a domain buying novice. If you're a pro at buying domains it will probably have lost a bit of its excitement, but I'm still such a novice that every time I buy a domain I'm still happy like a kid unwrapping a Christmas present. Or Easter egg, to remain in season.

I have been eying up a domain at GoDaddy Auctions for a few days. It's nice, short, exactly what I needed, and it was for sale at a low price. So when I finally made up my mind and clicked 'Buy Now' (and went through the usual hassle of checking out the virtual cart, updating the credit card details in my Paypal account etc.) I was expecting to see that nice domain show up in my account, ready to be fiddled with. Not so.

So what does the 'Buy Now' option in GoDaddy domain auctions actually mean?

It's complicated. But if I understand correctly it means that the domain has entered its final 'locked' state before expiring, and will be yours in five to ten more days. In that time the only one who can take your shiny new toy away from you is the previous owner, who has at that point been neglecting to renew his registration for more than two months, so isn't very likely to intervene. And if he does you're supposed to get your money back from GoDaddy.

The best explanation I've found for the whole process is a blog post by Mike Davidson. Old, but as far as I can see still up to date.

Meanwhile I'm waiting, and waiting. I'm still learning that making Web 2.0 apps is all about now-now-now but also about having patience.

Best free workplace for freelancers in Amsterdam

I'm writing this from my new office, on the 6th floor of a very good-looking building in the center of Amsterdam, with great views, ample desk space, an excellent cafeteria and your choice of wireless Internet for your laptop or unlimited use of PC or Apple desktops. I'm not the only one. Around me hundreds of others, mostly young and hip, are enjoying the same facilities. Best of all, it's free (except the cafeteria, of course) . No multi-year rent contract or any other obligations. You don't even need a library card. Yes, that's right, I'm at the Central Public Library. If the word library is strongly linked to 'old and stuffy' in your mind, like it was in mine, then you really need to see this.

I'm not sure if it leads to more library books being read, but it sure is a nice public service. Of course it has a few downsides. Gaining access to the wireless LAN is a bit more difficult than I'd expected (it's not anonymous so you first need to register, then configure some unusual network settings on your laptop). Also, in particular in the afternoons it can get quite crowded, with a corresponding effect on the speed of the Internet connection. For the time being, for me it's only a welcome change from my own tiny suburban office. Because of my multi-year rental contract, and because I don't have to share the Internet connection with anyone. But if the recession lasts a few more years I might move here permanently.

Some basics:
Centrale Bibliotheek OBA ODE
Oosterdokskade 143
1011 DL Amsterdam
Customer service 0900-bibliotheek (0900-2425468), 020-5230900 or klantenservice@oba.nl
Opened daily from 10:00 till 22:00

Network settings for Windows XP: in the authentication properties of the wireless connection set the EAP type to PEAP, disable 'authenticate as computer', enable 'authenticate as guest', and in the PEAP properties disable 'validate server certificate', select EAP-MSCHAP v2 authentication, and configure EAP MSCHAP v2 to disable 'automatically use my windows logon'. This will result in Windows asking for your registered user name and password when making a connection.

Stupid yet tempting business ideas

About 5 years ago I started the habit of recording every idea for a new business venture that I came across and that I liked. It takes only a single good one to become a millionaire, right? That hasn't happened for me yet, but I hope that with good execution I may turn some of them into successes. For obvious reasons I won't tell which ones are still on the list that I consider excellent.

Instead today I wanted to mention a few that are on my list because I like them, even though they are not very practical - could even be considered stupid.

First my definition of what constitutes an excellent idea, so that we can compare the stupid ones:

• The idea should target on-line consumers and small businesses, to enable efficient scalable marketing. Ideas that require a lot of off-line sales effort are less suited to my impatient nature and my growing aversion to large upfront investments.
  
• A first prototype should be easy to build (within 2 months), again to limit required upfront investment.
• It should be clearly feasible to earn money from the idea, e.g. through subscriptions, micro payments or advertising.
• It should be fun and educational to work on.
  

Obviously ideas like Twitter and Skype are good recent examples that more or less match my criteria. For me, and probably also for a lot of other experienced IT people, they are very much in the category of 'why didn't I think of that first, I could have hacked that together in a few weeks'.

Here are, without further ado, a few of my stupid ideas:

• Free DNS hosting (e.g. EditDNS). It's tempting because it seems complicated to make at first sight, but in actual fact it would be pretty easy, and fun to do. DNS is a very critical piece of Internet infrastructure, so how cool would it be to have a popular service in this area? Also, without wanting to insult existing providers like EditDNS, it looks like the competition could use some challenging. Indeed, current providers look like they were thrown together in a few weeks. That's likely because it's also a stupid idea. Stupid because it's hard to make money off it. You compete with non-free DNS hosting that's already very cheap (most ISPs offer DNS hosting as a package with domain registration for about 10 USD per year). Additionally advertisement income is minimal because system administrators set it up only once through your site, and then you have to provide the service for years without a single chance to show an ad.
• A discussion forum focused on the strange and remarkable one-liners of a popular politician. A fine example would be Geert Wilders, the controversial Dutch politician. It would be relatively easy to open a new discussion thread on the forum ever day with one of his non-conformist statements. It would be satisfying to see large amounts of people try to be the first one to post in support of - or in 100% opposition of - that daily subject. It would also be pointless because I predict that advertisement income would be minimal - no advertiser in his right mind wants to be associated with heated political debate, in particular related to issues such as immigration policies.
  

Let me know in the comments whether you think any of these two could be profitable. Or perhaps you have some less-than-optimal business ideas of your own?