Radified Domain Name Origins
The kids
loved playing the games, especially one named Quake,
and another
named Unreal.
The graphics quality of these games was simply amazing.
Wendy & I were both blown away. The games kept the kids off the streets
at night, and out of trouble.
It wasn't long before
we got a Cable modem (@home), which made a huge
difference in the online gaming play.
Gaming became much quicker, and more
responsive (& easier to stay alive). Soon all the neighborhood kids
began
showing up at night and on weekends to do a little 'fragging'.
Now the kids are into
a game named Counterstrike. I call
them Counterstrike
junkies, cuz they can play all weekend long, until 5AM. We have 2 PCs
that
they take turns playing on.
It's fun to watch,
especially late at night, when the monitors are the only
sources of light in the room. I like
to kick back & smoking a cigar. I read
somewhere that between 20 & 30 million people play
online.
Amazing how many people there are playing online. It's a whole nuther world.
There
are literally thousands of game servers are operating 24/7/365. Jon Katz
(Slashdot) wrote a nice
piece on online gaming here.
***
Oh yeah, domain name origins .. I got side-tracked there. Anyway, some
time later, I wanted to put up
my own website, cuz it seemed that anybody
who was anybody online had their own site.
But what domain
name should I choose?
Just for the heck of it, I typed in
r-a-d-b-o-y-.-c-o-m, cuz I was familiar with
the name by then. But it was
already taken! Can you believe that? Heck, I made that name up
myself.
Somebody ripped
me off!
So, just for heck of
it
again, I typed in radify.com
(another, similar name I made
up, spur of the moment). Taken! Domain names are being scooped up like
crazy.
If you don't believe me, try typing in a few of your
own, and you'll see what I
mean. If you can think of it, chances are somebody else has already grabbed it.
I read somewhere that Koreans (typically smart investors) are investing
(on
average) 15% of their weekly paychecks into domain names.
I just read
an article that said many domain names were being offered for sale
at US$10K each. Whoever
has radboy & radify.com aren't doing anything with
the domain names. They're
just sitting on them.
Anyway, after several more
variations on Rad-something, I found one that wasn't
taken: radified.com. I quickly registered it
before someone else snatched it.
Then I stayed up late researching web
hosting providers,
and decided to go
with Communitech.
Of course, Wendy was jealous when I got my
domain name & website. When she
woke the next morning, I said,
"Behold your webmaster, woman." She'd have none
of that and proceeded typing in potential domain names for a site of her
own.
After checking at least a hundred different names, and hours of careful deliberation
with her attorney,
account, friends & mother, she finally settled on lagunacinema.com
(& .net).
Seeing
that domain names are becoming in such short supply, I also scarfed up
nucleargrade.com, after noting somebody had already taken weaponsgrade.com.
Now, who the heck is gonna buy the domain name weaponsgrade.com?
Some Middle
Eastern conglomerate, manufacturing stuffed animals? I don't
think so. I mean,
they might as well have taken plutonium4u. =)
I haven't done anything with
nucleargrade.com yet, but it was too cool to let
some cyber-squatter snap
it up. I like being able to say,
"Check out my website
at nucleargrade.com."
We also registered
jahmar.com for Jahmar,
but have
not set up an actual server
for him yet. For the time
being, he's using space on
mom's
site. But someday he'll
be able to have the email addy jahmar@jahmar.com.
Having his first name for a domain name was too cool to pass
up. We
only know
two other people who have their first name as a domain name.
So there you have it.
The end.