
Show HN: Domain Wheel – Domain and company name generator - maldinii
http://domainwheel.com
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maldinii
We have started the project during a hackaton here at Themeisle and just
managed to launch a beta version for it.

While before I was wondering why there aren't any good tools for this, soon I
realise that is much more complex than I thought, for now we are using various
existing APIs from Godaddy,DomainsBot and DataMuse with custom rules,
exclusions and suggestions to make sure we deliver much better results.

It seems that the only good solution for now and something we are working on
is to integrate MTurk or microworkers and generate suggestions "on-the-fly",
while building a nice database of data, I am passionated about ways that we
can build a smart searh/suggestion engine "backed" by humans, will see how
much it makes sense.

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nicolaslem
I've used a lot this kind of services for giving me inspiration. I have to
admit that I'm a bit disappointed with this one, it feels... uninspired. For
the example I tried it just appended unrelated words like "home" or "lunch" to
my keywords.

My personal favorite is [http://www.panabee.com](http://www.panabee.com) as it
plays with the phonetic of your keywords. It gives a lot of weird things but
usually one or two are catchy names.

Anyway, congratulation to OP for shipping something!

~~~
sli
Yeah, it interprets "functional" in "functional programming" using the more
general definition of just being, basically, not broken. Which, I get it, it's
fine. I'm a bit disappointed in the narrowness of the returned results, but I
also don't expect it to just know my intent, either.

The site you linked gave me an amusing one that's really simple:
unctionalprogramming. Reminds me of the word "unctuous."

~~~
maldinii
guessing intent it proven to be really complex topic, we can definetively ask
questions and get user feedback to tweak the results once we have more data.

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Yetanfou
Here's something I wrote just for this purpose a number of years ago. Yes, a
CGI script, in BASH no less, producing an endless stream of domain names for
your startup.

[https://gist.github.com/Yetangitu/83fc77acf3d381a32c40a8f89f...](https://gist.github.com/Yetangitu/83fc77acf3d381a32c40a8f89f7354a1)

It even tells you whether the generated names are still available in .com,
.net and .info, feel free to add even more specious extensions here.

Running it with a good-sized list of adjectives creates... well, just about
the same nonsensical drivel as that which seems to be produced by many other
similar tools. This one is free though...

    
    
       EssentialDuck
       AssuredPig
       BelovedFrog
       ProfitableMonkey
       FrontLizard
       ColorfulGator
       InfiniteDuck
    

(what? No ...Fish names yet?)

    
    
       GrandFox
    

(sorry, taken for .net and .com)

    
    
       VivaciousPig
       FunctionalPig
    

(for all you Haskell hogs out there)

    
    
       SuperiorMonkey
       RegularMonkey
    

(taken!)

    
    
       IllHippo
       StarryHound
       DiligentGator
       IncomparableDonkey
    

...

Well, you get the drill. It is interesting to note that the list of taken
domains seems to be smaller these days compared to when I made this thing,
back in the heady days of dot.com.boom. Maybe folks have wizened up to the
fact that all those nonsensical names started to look stale fresh out of the
wrapper?

~~~
maldinii
Thanks for the tip, will check this out!

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masukomi
I entered "fancy pants" the initial block was all decent stuff you'd expect,
and the response was quick. Yay.

The "Check some carefully handpicked domains for you" section included
Dogban.com, Guppyra.com, Cruzani.com and other completely unrelated or
ridiculous things, which made my brain say "bullshit" "handpicked my ass" I
would kill that section because it's a) totally useless to me and b) makes you
look like liars because it is not "handpicked domains for you" it's... I dunno
random crap you thought was neat? i dunno, but unless i was selling "no dogs
allowed" signs (Dogban.com) everything there is just... ugh.

~~~
mratzloff
I'm going to register vivongm.com and kuehoral.com for my new startup about
guttural choking noises!

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superasn
Looks good and suggestions are good. A little OT but what is your opinion on
using the new TLDs like .win, .rocks, etc? Does that sound professional?

~~~
maldinii
I chose to exclude those on purpose, I am not sure if people are that much
interested in them, considering especially that some are quite expensive. I
think however that some short ones like .win .rocks can be allowed.

Particularly, I don't mind using such domains, we started for e.g
revive.social and I don't see any problem with it

~~~
jmelloy
Should probably let the user decide, and you get an extra word thats not just
.com.

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soared
I was hoping this would identify TLDs that fit into the company name. Like a
company named "Untame" with website of "unta.me"

~~~
maldinii
is doing this sometimes, I think we need to tweak it a bit. Thanks!

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danyim
Broken on mobile. Tried a single word and it displayed a blank block of text.

~~~
maldinii
is not mobile, but I noticed indeed a but when there are no results for a
particular keyword.

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borplk
Is there an open way of accessing domain availability information?

~~~
maldinii
not really, we are automatically showing only avaialable domains ( checking
this against an API before displaying the results)

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sharemywin
might want to let people register and save their favorite domain register. I
use godaddy so it wouldn't apply to me but, something to think about.

~~~
maldinii
good point, I thought that people tend to buy right away, however you might be
right, it worth at least experimenting with a favourite function, probably can
be done without requiring an account neither.

~~~
sharemywin
I was thinking it might be "reason" to collect their information for future
updates.

