

Show HN: DomainWhirl - A free daily newsletter with available startup domains - nbrochu

Hello HN,<p>About a month ago, I posted an "Ask HN" to see if there was any interest in having daily available .com domain name lists. The names would all be appropriate for startups, blogs and websites, nothing else. While the response wasn't overwhelming, it was quite positive and a few individuals got me motivated to go through with this. I decided to go with the free newsletter format so I could keep some form of exclusivity for the subscribers, giving them a better chance at getting a name they before somebody else gets to it.<p>You can find the old discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1671129<p>Fast forward to today, the service and website are ready, so I am launching it and am ready to accept subscribers. You'll find that the newsletter is very lightweight and contains no ads or irrelevant content. I may sometimes slip in a quick word about projects I am working on but that's it! If you ask me, it makes it a little more human. I run this for fun as I like writing algorithms to find gems in huge lists of data. The mailing list is managed on MailChimp so no funky business; I will respect everyone's privacy.<p>So I encourage everyone to subscribe! It's free and is a very passive and non-intrusive way to stumble upon great domains for your projects and businesses.<p>Feel free to also give me some feedback on the website, especially on the copy since English is not my first language. That's it for now! Enjoy!<p>http://domainwhirl.com<p>Thanks,
Nicholas<p>P.S. If the DNS has not yet propagated, you can temporarily use http://domainwhirl.heroku.com until it does.
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hkuo
Your sample of domains actually look like very good and memorable names. But
I'm hesitant to sign up for your newsletter because I'm not currently in need
of one, but even if I were, it would be for a specific idea I have in mind,
and thus, I'd be looking for a related domain name. I'm not sure if there's
anyone who needs a domain name to get inspired to build a website around it,
but perhaps there are, though maybe this would be a good service for people
that buy and sell domain names, but that just feels like a dirty field to be
in.

But good luck with it! Maybe you'll make some discoveries in the near future
and implement something to make this more useful for someone searching for a
specific related name. There's quite a few out there, and they all help, but I
could still see some room for a new form of domain discovery.

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templaedhel
Oh man, I'm very opposed to email newsletters, but this looks very nice. I am
always trying to think of creative names for projects so I can register them
cheap. I have a feeling I will be browsing this each morning. I am also very
curious about the algorithms involved. Where are you getting the list of
unregistered domains? Or are you generating good domains, then checking to see
if they are registered? Are you basicly just looking for combinations of a
list of words you have, or is it some other method? In all, a very impressive
project, and if you be willing to share more on the technical side, I would be
very interested.

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nbrochu
Clickable links:

Website: <http://domainwhirl.com> Temp if DNS hasn't spread:
<http://domainwhirl.heroku.com>

Old discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1671129>

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templaedhel
I just want to share, I have been subscribed for 2 days now, and I see a ton
of good domains. For example. hotelhawks.com That sounds like a business, a
great brand etc. This is a great tool, and is now my goto for brainstorming
names.

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ma2rten
Sounds not too bad, but I haven't gotten an email yet, so I can't say anything
about the service. Do you have any plan for monetizing it ?

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petercooper
Good luck. You would convert a lot more visitors into subscribers by making
the subscription method front and center.

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nbrochu
Thanks.

I thought the block quote in the first paragraph was in-your-face enough but
I'll definitely listen to this advice as I have very little experience trying
to convert users. Most sites I build already have a defined audience.

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petercooper
It's in your face but unless you've done some A/B testing, you'd be surprised
what can affect conversions! :-)

FWIW, I have an e-mail newsletter myself at <http://rubyweekly.com/> and the
way it is right now is the best I've got it to convert. Every time I removed
more from the page, the better the conversion, and unsubscribe rates are low
(about 8 in total in the last month).

Of course, flat out "lots of subscribers" isn't necessarily your goal and you
don't _need_ to optimize for that if it doesn't make sense for your plan.

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il
Your landing page looks great, but if you want to increase conversions even
more you should try putting the subscribe form above the fold. It took me
about 5 seconds to figure out how to subscribe.

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ma2rten
Either he already changed the site or you using some insanely low resolution,
it's above the fold for me even on my laptop screen.

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il
It might just be an OS X issue as I rarely have a browser window open
fullscreen. If the dock wasn't there, it would be above the fold.

Then again, I bet a fairly significant portion of the target audience for this
newsletter uses a Mac.

