A reader wrote:
I have been an avid reader of your blog for quite sometime now and check your blog daily.I am curious to know if maybe you could use my dilemma as a blog post on your site. Either way I would love any feedback you or your readers might have. I am a young music executive, with a steady job, but I know that the music industry is rapidly changing and in a downward spiral that isn’t coming back. I am a entrepreneur at heart and I have launched a few unsuccessful ventures before , but I think I am ready to try it again.
One of the great things is I own the domain name www.eword.com. It is a rare 5 letter domain that actually could make sense to someone. I would love to build a business off of a great domain like that, but I am at a lost with what to do with it. Any help you or your readers might have would be greatly appreciated.
Well, anyone have ideas what to do wit it, other than to sell the domain?
Hogan Spitzer on March 10th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
How about some kind of word game site?
Leonard Wells on March 10th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I’d sell it. There’s no reason to hold onto a domain if you don’t know what to do with it.
Sure, if you owned sex.com or something then it might make sense, but otherwise, sell it.
Colin on March 10th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
But building a business around the domain and then possibly selling the domain/business will increase his intake proportionally, so if he has the time and desire to sink into it, I don’t see why not. If the business fails and he no longer feels like developing the business further, he can sell out and still take in more.
As far as a business idea, I think an ebook-based website might be an interesting place to go. A place for reviews and listings of ebooks and ebook readers. It’s a growing market with Amazon’s Kindle being released last year.
Dane on March 10th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Colin: An ebook site is a great idea, and it fits in with the name.
ETAVITOM on March 10th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Maybe a place for electronic press release distribution?
sugarbear on March 10th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I’ve never heard of this, but could you somehow lease the name to somebody for real cheap? Might increase the value down the road from the current market price…
Mark @ TheLocoMono on March 10th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Definately build something for it. Something made you come up with eword.com but what?
If you can create a visual for people to see what eword is about, and build traffic, readership, and generate monthly income, then you would be able to sell it for a nice, tidy profit.
Fede on March 10th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Hi,
I think eword is a perfect name for a lot of business.
Like Colin, a place for reviews is a nice idea, but I prefer something more “Web 2.0″. It maybe a social network for writers or a place for promote unknown writers.
Because I am an unknown writer and I have a book published in Lulu, I have been this idea in my mind for a while: think in a site like a blog, but better organized for a writer. Like an online book. This is not a blog, but share part of the spirit. This is like an online book, or may be a library, were a guest can reach and read comfortably, in any device (browser, pda, mobile phone). A writer can share your books, tales, stories, novels, poems and others. Access maybe free or with a fee.
Well, let me know what you will do, and if you need help, think on me.
Josh on March 10th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Wow Great ideas!
Thanks Dane for posting my question.
Keep the ideas coming! I am happy to share in credit or success from any idea that might make business sense!
I Love This Blog!
Dane on March 10th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
All great ideas.
Sugarbear has a very interesting idea that I’ve never considered before: renting out your domain.
pete schavorak on March 10th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
a bookstore
nation on March 10th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Why not use it for exactly this? eword.com is an eword, not that any of us know exactly what an eword is… it could become something. ebooks is a great idea, but that would take a lot of maneuvering on your behalf… On the other hand, if you were to turn eword dot com into a place where people like us can brainstorm, or just simply speak on certain words, word association, I guess from clicks, input, content being generated you could be sitting on some sort of asset and can even sell ad space.
The ebook idea is brilliant, but if you’re somewhat comfortable with the life you’re living, why throw it away for a WEBSITE name that you purchased for a low price/and all you affinity you have with it is simply the fact that you keep paying for it.
Something like the idea I suggested wouldn’t take as much effort as the ebook idea, you could stay and focus at your current job, live the life you lead, but you can just set aside a couple hours a week just working and tweaking at your own personal project
If 11 people in one day can come up with this many ideas, imagine the flow of creativity that can happen by just mentioning or remembering certain words. The question is, will other people be as generous
Leslie 80211 on March 10th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Sell it.
If no one buys it for it’s intrinsic value as a short domain name, someone will buy it because it’s a good short name for a product.
eWord is a BlackBerry word processor from DynoPlex. I bet they’d be interested.
Harry Hawkins on March 10th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
It sounds like a game to me.
EarnBlogger on March 11th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Your domain eword.com can be used for selling word links! Sell each word for a fixed price and make some money.
Well, I think that some one has already started a similar project.
John on March 11th, 2008 at 3:23 am
The guys over at Self Made Minds lease out domain names and have some good posts about how they do it and the success they’ve had.
Business Mart on March 11th, 2008 at 4:15 am
For now I would suggest to put up a link on the homepage for people to inquire about buying the domain… Let people know it is availabale for sale… or maybe try BuyDomains.com to list it for you.
WTJ on March 11th, 2008 at 4:40 am
make it into a dictionary site.
Dane on March 11th, 2008 at 5:24 am
All great suggestions. The biggest take away from all this seems to be, don’t procrastinate. Do something with that domain now!
marcus friant on March 11th, 2008 at 5:53 am
eword to me sounds like a language translation site. perhaps you can offer translation for pay.
Jay on March 11th, 2008 at 7:13 am
There are a number of places you can park a domain and get paid for traffic while it’s parked. From what I’ve seen it’s best to get some links to the site first and get some traffic. Then after you have some traffic park it for a month and go back and forth between parking and a real content site while you’re deciding what to do “for real” with the domain.
I parked my UniqueAndRelevant dot com for a few months before I put the site up and made a few bucks this way.
At least you’ll be making some money while you’re deciding. Some of the paid parking sites are: Namepros, Parked, whypark, namedrive, parkingpanel and sedo.
I have about 30 domains that are dormant. I’d suggest you put something like parked vs. namedrive and similar variations into Google to find people who have written about the gross and subtle differences between these services. You’ll find forums and other resources that way.
Great name! And, best of luck with whatever you do with it.
Jay Levan
Josh on March 11th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Unfortunately I have been down the ebook route before, it is one of the startups that I tried with this domain.
I still think ebooks are a wave of the future , but it is going to take someone like Apple to create the breakthrough device to really drive a 23 million dollar portion in the 19 billion dollar book publishing market.
I really like some of the other ideas, keep them coming, let’s build something together :)
Josh
iqbal on March 11th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Hi
Nice debate going on. EWORD.com is nice just like (ebay , ehow,) so make a search for words like
Eworld, etc. (yeah thats WORLD) and come up with a list to help you make a decision.
Dont sell it cheap. Its good domain.
All the best.
Chris on March 11th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
If you don’t already have a vision and inspiration for your business there’s no point in looking for ideas here. Successful businesses come from the heart and you are driven by them - if you need to come here for an idea it won’t work anyway.
That said, it’s a great domain and I’d suggest you hang on to it until you wake up at 2am with an idea that drives you.
Failing that - sell it to someone who has a vision for it and get a good return on your initial investment.
Good luck
Chris :)
Eric on March 11th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
just like me, he is seeking some inspiration.
Matt- CapForge.com on March 11th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I actually wrote a blog post on this today. The point of it was, a domain name really isn’t a business until you put something behind it.
There are some interesting ideas here, but generally speaking, the best way to go about starting a business is to come up with the business idea first, and then come up with a name.
I mean, if I came on here and said I thought of a great company name, now can someone just give me an idea of what business to start, you’d think I was nuts. A domain name seems different, but it really is the same thing- without an actual business concept, coming up with meaningless domain names, even really short, memorable ones, is not going to take you very far.
Work on the business idea first, and then find a name is my suggestion.
Dane on March 11th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Matt has the comment of the day:
If you wouldn’t design a business around a name, why would you create one around a domain?
geoffrey on March 12th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Josh,
If by now you haven’t thought a plan for eword.com… put it to the side and do ONE thing
Invest in one category domain name.. (it can be expensive) then develop it. This will save you thousands of online marketing / advertising dollars in the future. Your true cost is upfront..
I’ve done that with several category domains and they do very well.. just as “resource centers”
Darryl on March 13th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Use WordPress Mu and build a blog network around it similar to WordPress.com or edublogs.org. Then you would have something to either sell or monetize.
Either way, build something around it. It’s a great domain name.
Jane on May 15th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
An e dictionary and reference site? or maybe a group blog for educators?