would a domain name checking tool that suggested alternate names based on synonyms be? I'm toying with the idea of developing something along those lines for fun, just wanted to get a feel for what people would think?
There are a few out there already so it would depend heavily on the quality. If it was a really good one then I would say yes.
Very useful I'd say. When I register a domain with enom it makes a half hearted attempt but never much useful. I often have a play with the Name Spinner, as it's called, at http://www.whois.sc/ What you suggest does sound very useful!
Its about the quality of the results. A lot of tools might kick out one possible and 100 ridiculous ones. It shouldn't kick back possible names with more than 2 dashes. Maybe you can have checkboxes where the user chooses variables like url length, number of dashes, etc
My idea so far was to have 3 fields which you can submit your terms in, you would then choose a number of options, dashed/undashed, permutated/unpermed... if the word had more than one meaning, you could be given the option of selecting the meaning closest to your intended one (I've been looking at a natural language processing datatbase, wordnet)
I would be particularly keen to have a system that allowed you to limit selection of synonyms to the meaning of your chosen words. Don't honestly know if I can do it, but the database is out there
The ability to use pluralised forms of your terms would be good too. runs off to check if sheeps.com has gone... It has, although sheepshag.com hasn't!