Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours • Hacker News Board

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#71

Post by EvilTerran » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 11:43 AM UTC

RollAHardSix wrote: post #19

japhyr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entrepreneurs build things. Domain snatchers/ squatters are not entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs take advantage of business opportunities. And it IS a business opportunity. Fact is people pay for those domains. Let the down-votes commence.

"Let the down-votes commence."

Quoth the guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downmod you.

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#72

Post by Tycho » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 12:10 PM UTC

This gave me an idea. Write a program that generates random melodies. Then upload them somewhere public and timestamped like YouTube.

Then write another program that detects new songs with a high degree of similarity in the melody. Then sue for copyright violation.

Call it melody squatting.

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#73

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 1:19 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #70

hermannj314 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man buys 14,962 tickets to a football game in 24 hours. Plans on selling them later at a profit. Man buys 14,962 acres of land in 24 hours and plans on selling it later at a profit. I'm not sure when I am supposed to get mad.

Yes, speculating in general is a zero-value-add activity except in that it sometimes makes markets more efficient/liquid. I would argue that domain squatters don't even make the domain market more liquid at all, because ICANN is an extremely-easily-accessible seller, and the squatters rarely provide the service of buying a domain from someone who has improved it/made it popular/etc. But in general, I have little resp…

[deleted]

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#74

Post by Estragon » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 1:38 PM UTC

brico wrote: post #53

ericd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domain camping is scummy because it rewards specialization in a skill that adds no discernable value whatsoever to society. It is the definition of leeching off of other people's work. That it's legal and "how business works" is irrelevant to whether it's worthwhile. In cases where they hop on accidentally expired domains (this is popular) are effectively legal forms of blackmail.

why should it be worthwhile and why should it add value to society? if registering were free i'd see your point or if not everybody were allowed to register how would you play football? for every goal a team scores you have to score an own-goal or let the others score because it would be unfair otherwise?

Football is not an end in itself. People play it because it's a fun social activity. You can easily play football in a vicious way which, while still entirely within the rules and increases your chance of winning, diminishes the enjoyment and social connection which brought people together for the game in the first place.

Similarly, economic activity is not an end in itself, and economic strategies should be critically examined for what they contribute and diminish in the communities where they're adopted.

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#75

Post by ceejayoz » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 1:44 PM UTC

saddino wrote: post #26

I know MM personally, and although he's a bit quirky, he's not "evil" by a long shot (see grassroots.org).

From what I can see of Grassroots.org, it's just funneling money from well meaning donors to Mike Mann himself.

Hardly innovative. Kanye West does the same thing with his charity: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/02/21/kanye-wests-...

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#76

Post by krelian » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 2:03 PM UTC

njharman wrote: post #46

felipemnoa wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if buying lots of domains in the hope of making it big is like buying lottery tickets in the hope of making it big. Does anybody know if this business model actually works?

Both (lottery tickets, domain names) have working business models. Google it.

Not knowledgeable enough about domain names but I am certain that buying lottery tickets is lose-lose proposition to anyone, by design.

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#77

Post by trun » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 2:11 PM UTC

krelian wrote: post #76

njharman wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both (lottery tickets, domain names) have working business models. Google it.

Not knowledgeable enough about domain names but I am certain that buying lottery tickets is lose-lose proposition to anyone, by design.

I actually had a friend in school who did this (lottery tickets) as a side business. They had an investor that provided the capital, and when the jackpot reached a certain level, they would buy up a few percent of the total number space. Believe it or not, the expected value actually worked in their favor.

The hardest part was sifting through the dozens of boxes of tickets (which he stored in his dorm room) to find the winners.

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#78

Post by eli » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 2:13 PM UTC

rachelbythebay wrote: post #52

Dramatize wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a terrible idea. People would just create fake purposes for the websites.. and then who would be responsible to decide if a purpose is legitimate or not?

Wouldn't it just be a return to the days when domains were free? Back in the mid-'90s, when people I knew registered vanity domains, they tended to come up with some ridiculous expansion of the name to make it look official. Nobody ever checked that "foo" really meant "fraternal otter organization" (or whatever), so those would become the top line in whois.

Was that before Network Solutions? I bought a domain in maybe 1996 or 1997 and it was decidedly not free

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#79

Post by krelian » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 2:17 PM UTC

felipemnoa wrote: post #44

wizard_2 wrote: post #21

I feel like we need a chance in policy that makes this practice not worth the trouble. I see no value that he gives the internet. I may be bias though, I can't grab the .com variant of a non profit school I work for because someone like him owns it and wont accept offers for less then $600 bucks.

I wonder if buying lots of domains in the hope of making it big is like buying lottery tickets in the hope of making it big. Does anybody know if this business model actually works?

I'm also interested in getting an explanation from someone in the business. Assuming that you are not selling something like sex.com but are confined to more modest domains, and that you pay about $10/year per domain. Out of a random group of 500 domains, you need to sell 1/year for $5000 just to break even. Sure, you might hit the jackpot once with someone who really wants that one obscure domain you hold but for most domains you will be lucky to even get one offer in 3 years.

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#80

Post by matt1 » Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 2:26 PM UTC

At the risk of seeming spammy, please check out my service Lean Domain Search [1] before buying a premium domain name. It pairs your search term with more than 2,000 other keywords and instantly shows you which are available, making it really, really easy to find great available domain names.

Guys like this depend on scarcity to drive up the cost of domains. One of my goals with Lean Domain Search is to show people that there actually are lots of great available domain names left for whatever you're working on. The problem until now has been that there haven't been any tools that make it easy to find them. Over time, if enough people gravitate away from domain squatters, the value of their portfolios will fall, they'll stop renewing their holdings, and it can change the face of the domain name industry.

[1] http://www.leandomainsearch.com