
Web Domain White Elephant Exchange - shakes
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Exiey9n6VdyVtr74yWlIa1hXeplm-5D_A5Vw07jcRJk/viewform
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larrys
Domain guy here. Years in this business.

From my experience I've seen plenty of domains over time that have been
deleted that end up getting purchased by someone sometimes for a large amount
of money.

The carrying cost is quite nominal.

As a general rule if you own a large amount of wacky domains that you think
have little value (that are .com I have to stress that) someone will come
along at some point and offer to buy it from you.

If you want proof of this go see some of the domains that are listed on
buydomains.com and the price for those domains. Ask yourself if you owned any
of those domains whether you would have let them go or not (I'm talking about
the ones that sell for $750 to $2000 not the obvious hi value ones).

Here's a few I just found (random)

sourcingintelligence.com $1488

pearline.com $2500

...etc.

Add: One thing I have to stress is this.

When someone comes along and wants to buy your wacky domain close the deal.
You very well will not have another chance for 5 or 10 years. Get as much as
you can and do the deal.

~~~
cpeterso
What is the usual process for exchanging a domain name? Do you use a domain
escrow service?

Those buydomains.com numbers are the asking prices. I'm sure most of those are
never going to sell or will sell far below asking price.

~~~
Casseres
I've negotiated a 5 letter .net from BuyDomains.com from $1488 to $488. I
didn't buy it, but yeah, never buy a domain name without negotiating first.

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asciimo
I feel like any one of those people on Hoarders when they must choose the
first thing to let go of. Not pretty.

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jasonkester
Awesome idea. Really makes me regret not holding on to
whatswrongwithmypenis.com just so that I could gift it to some poor soul as
part of this.

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srhngpr
Interesting idea, but if you are seeing the full list, what's stopping you
from just assigning yourself to the domains that you want?

~~~
danielzarick
Because I'm not an asshole?

~~~
danielzarick
P.S. I showed this to a friend and her response was: "Little does that guy
know, you're totally an asshole." So there's that...

~~~
pontifier
I'm sold.

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lenazegher
Two domains I'm not using, stretchier.com and loners.org, are expiring this
month. Anyone want either? They're regged at namecheap, can either transfer
there or give you a code for another registrar

Don't want to do this exchange because I really don't want another two domains
:P

~~~
unreal37
I might want to take loners.org from you, and create "facebook, without the
ability to add friends".

/joke

~~~
lenazegher
haha, that's actually a pretty funny idea

~~~
mburns
One that has been done, fwiw. [https://about.me/](https://about.me/)

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pan69
So I can exchange a domain I don't want for a domain I don't want, correct?

~~~
danielzarick
Yes, that's exactly the point. Have some fun & do stupid things.

(With that said... there are some really, really great domains in this list.
So you might get lucky.)

~~~
Casseres
I signed up. Will you share the list of domains after they've been exchanged?
Thanks for doing this, it should be fun!

~~~
danielzarick
That's the plan! Going to post a list of all domains and who sent/received
them at webdomainwhiteelephantexchange.com

~~~
larrys
You really need to shorten that to wdwee.com which is available.

~~~
danielzarick
Actually, I really don't need to do that. The absurd length is part of the
humor. Plus, WDWEE.com is 10x more difficult to type.

~~~
larrys
Well you know about humor (from your profile) and I know about domains and
naming.

It's (part of) what I do.

And I make plenty of money doing it (both buying and selling) as well as
consulting for people who you have heard of and who you trust and that pay me
for my opinion.

So given that we are talking about +-$12 or so for wdwee.com while you may not
feel you need it there really isn't much in going with the expert opinion on
the subject.

I mean if I decided to do standup comedy and you told me to "drink 3 glasses
of water and piss before going on stage" I'd probably take your word for it
and not tell you "I really don't think I need to do that". And I'm guessing
I'm probably better at domains than you are at comedy.

Agree that wdwee is hard to type. But so is a long domain name (chance of
typos is greater with more letters, in general). Not saying you should use it
instead of the ironic name but as an additional short acronym.

~~~
danielzarick
Feel free to buy it and donate it to the cause. I'm already investing hundreds
of dollars in opportunity cost for a dumb way to give people a few laughs, so
I don't feel like throwing down another $10. :)

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thom
Aw, I let a lot of my unwanted domains expire this year instead of hoarding
them. But given that they were all rubbish, it does mean that heapt.com (you
know, like 'heaped', piles of things!) and f6ing.com (a gaming thing...) are
free and unencumbered.

~~~
tracker1
If you had them for a while, not necessarily likely... the squatting companies
tend to do a grab of recently expired domains... most that I've let go over
the years (tend to get 2-3 new ones, and let 2-3 go a year) are in that group.

~~~
wtracy
I let streamingcrack.com expire a while back after sitting on it a couple
years, and it's still free. YMMV.

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jabiko
Somewhat related: Some time ago I wanted to create a dyndns service for
Rasperry Pi devices.

I registered the domains (my-pi.net, my-py.net, my-pi.de) but never created
the actual website. So if anyone wants these domains for free, contact me.

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andrewgjohnson
Made me smile for a minute but really unpractical. I'll probably register
aksjfgkahgiowetiuwj.info from Godaddy for 99cents just to get involved

~~~
Xeroday
I believe there's a 60 or 90 day period before you can transfer a domain after
you've registered it anyways.

~~~
danielzarick
You can usually transfer it to another user on the same registrar. They just
don't want to lose it to another company. (At least, that's my super rough
understanding of it.)

~~~
t0
You should match people that have submitted domains from the same registrar so
fees are avoided in most cases.

~~~
danielzarick
That sounds like a wonderful idea... but _far_ too much work for it to be
worth it. Maybe next year...

~~~
t0
Oh it's simple really.

    
    
      $conn = fsockopen ('whois.verisign-grs.com', 43, $errno, $errstr, 1);
      fputs($conn, $domain."\r\n");
      while(!feof($conn)) 
    	$output .= fgets($conn,128);
      $registrar = reset(explode("\n",end(explode('Registrar:',$output))));

~~~
danielzarick
Awesome! Thanks for this. I'll play with it over the weekend. Still working on
the specifics.

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pgrote
Do any registrars charge to transfer domains between account on their system?
I would want to ensure I didn't get one of those.

~~~
danielzarick
Eh, if you don't want it and it costs money to transfer, then you don't have
to take it. It's not like there will be a grim reaper debt collector coming
after you.......

~~~
pgrote
This reassures me since I know you are not asshole.

I'm sold.

~~~
danielzarick
I fully expect something to go very wrong with this, so I'm just preparing to
not care when it does. :)

~~~
pgrote
The funny thing is someone didn't know the above was sarcasm based on your
previous response. I like the idea and I think it'll turn out fine.

~~~
danielzarick
People will always try to put us down.:)

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SeoxyS
So, I suck. I couldn't let go of any of my precious precious hoarded domains,
so I bought a new one for the occasion.

~~~
danielzarick
That's fine... you're only an asshole who broke the rules.

JK – I'll let if fly. :)

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brewdad
Bummer. I have a .de domain that I really don't want/need. The web form won't
accept it.

~~~
danielzarick
Try again... I disabled the URL validation on that field. However, the
validation required [http://](http://) in front, so that may have been the
issue.

~~~
brewdad
Probably was the missing [http://](http://) It works now. This should be fun.

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lowglow
I'm building www.nametagup.com for this type of trade/exchange year round.

~~~
danielzarick
I really hope you don't get stuck with these domains then... because most of
them would never be purchased willingly. :)

~~~
lowglow
Nah, the owners will still maintain their domains. I'm guessing
moving/purchasing through us in the future.

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szidev
this is great. i have a strange compulsion to buy awful domain names,
regardless of their usefulness. is there any rule against multiple entries
(aside from the possibility of exchanging with yourself?)

~~~
danielzarick
Nope! Right now I'm allowing multiple domains, up to a point. (Maximum is 3)
Enjoy!

~~~
Casseres
Cool, added two more.

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JustinGarrison
I just signed up. I feel sorry for whoever gets my throwaway domains when
[http://1n73r.net](http://1n73r.net) is my "good" domain.

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reagan83
This is a fun idea. If you do this match on the 25th it will actually be like
receiving a timely gift. Looking forward to the post-exchange discussion.

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bushido
Any possibility of adding a counter displaying the number of domains on the
list.

May help hoarders like me to finally hit submit, peer pressure and all that :)

~~~
danielzarick
We just hit 300 people/domains who have signed up. Is that enough for you? ;)

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unreal37
Good idea. Signed up. The domain I'm offering was actually inspired by a few
people at HN. Never had the time to develop it.

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morgante
Fun idea! I just signed up with an old domain, hope someone else might have
the time to do something hilarious with it.

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IanChiles
Tossed one of my domains in. Awesome idea, took a while to figure out what
domain to let go though

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nly
Presumably when you publish the new owner list you won't make everyones email
address public?

~~~
danielzarick
Emails will definitely stay private. Your name, @username, and personal
website will likely be published.

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bhartzer
I hope that no one gives away a domain that has a trademark or trademark
"typo" in it.

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patmcc
I like it, I've signed up with one of my hey-this-could-work-but-oh-i-got-lazy
ideas.

~~~
danielzarick
There's a handful of those in the list: interesting old names for apps. Then
there are a lot of "Wouldn't it be funny if I bought ____?" domains. Those are
pretty great too.

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bcbrown
What do you do if you don't have a twitter account? It's required in the form.

~~~
qwerty_asdf
Maybe, create an account using the name of the domain? (if possible)

It's a domain name that no one wants, ergo one might presume that the twitter
handle is equally undesirable?

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znowi
That's a neat idea. But why twitter account is mandatory for this?

~~~
danielzarick
Because it's useful to have two ways to contact someone in case the exchange
goes awry. It's already come in handy today.

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elijahchancey
I have boip.com but I have no idea what to do with it. Any suggestions?

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178
Neat. I'll might throw in koshercloud.net :)

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astrong
Fun idea Daniel. I'll throw something in.

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callmeed
Ok, just added one ... this actually kinda fun

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lbearl
Thanks for organizing this, I added one in.

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1986v
Submitted, this is pretty sweet!

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smartician
Great idea! Signed up.

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SimpleXYZ
Neat. So tempted...

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k3oni
Ok, i'm in :)

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jrochkind1
this is hilarious

