P.S. You can use these for marketing your startup, guys.
Putting linkbait on its own dedicated domain makes it easier to spread, as you can give it a Zenlike purity of purpose. (I've used several of these -- like whattimeisit.com or whatismyip.com -- for years but the first one I ever said would go viral in a day was isbarackobamamuslim.com . Taps passion and has a built-in value proposition for anyone putting a link to it anywhere.)
Really, a domain name costs $10 these days and you can have a Wordpress blog up, themed, and filled with content in under an hour. If you have a good idea, that good idea probably rates buying a domain name for it. There are SEO-related reasons why I'd keep most of my good ideas on my main domain(s), but there are at least a few "pillar pieces" I'm strongly considering domainifying. Plus you can always built them out later if you own the domain.
Very cool. One interesting detail is that the phenomenon spikes right around the time it's named. I hadn't heard the name before (and don't actually like it). But it makes sense that the successful introduction of a name would coincide with exponential growth in the thing being named.
I looked through the author's list to see whether it includes the immortal zombo.com (it does), and scanned through it for other really old instances. There are a few from the 90s, the best of which is the oldest (1996) - perdu.com, which made me laugh. It's in French, though. (I started typing out a translation but it felt like spoiling the joke.)
Putting linkbait on its own dedicated domain makes it easier to spread, as you can give it a Zenlike purity of purpose. (I've used several of these -- like whattimeisit.com or whatismyip.com -- for years but the first one I ever said would go viral in a day was isbarackobamamuslim.com . Taps passion and has a built-in value proposition for anyone putting a link to it anywhere.)
Really, a domain name costs $10 these days and you can have a Wordpress blog up, themed, and filled with content in under an hour. If you have a good idea, that good idea probably rates buying a domain name for it. There are SEO-related reasons why I'd keep most of my good ideas on my main domain(s), but there are at least a few "pillar pieces" I'm strongly considering domainifying. Plus you can always built them out later if you own the domain.
I dipped my toes in the water for my business this year. Truth be known: hasn't been that successful as of today, but I learned from the experience. See write-up @ blog: http://kalzumeus.com/2008/12/13/learning-from-a-specific-exa...