So GoDaddy had a huge turn over for domains like ani.me, aweso.me, and fla.me. Do you think there is a future for such domains that end to finish off a word. They are not good for SEO but are neat due to the novelty factor. It can be possible due to the numerous country codes available. After all .Me used to be a exclusive Montenegro domain extension until GoDaddy took over. Do you think those domain will gain more popularity? Also there are some restrictions to registering out of country domains. Hey if f I could register a .ve domain, I would totally jump on evol.ve.
domain "hacks" are good if you can use them as part of your branding and have a growing/viral audience. otherwise, flipping them will be difficult.
they're grand for the owner, but a disaster for the end user... nobody remembers cracked domains, so traffic will only come from referrals or search engines... del.icio.us is the only cracked name i can remember and even then i had to double check i got the dots right... plus it's a bitch to type out... unless your target market is tech savvy and webmaster-ish, cracked domains are very difficult to brand. the average person doesn't even know what a .org is or what's the difference between .nets and .coms.... if you could register any extension you wanted, it would be an absolute disaster for the end user... for example - technology... there could be several variations on that... technology.com technolo.gy technol.gy tec.hnol.gy tech.nol.gy As an end user, how to you remember what site is what? Opens up a huge legal can of worms to... if technology is trademarked for example, do the holders of the trademark have any rights to cracked domains? It's much too complicated imo and think of the mess it would create in search engines... one could be a spam site, one could be a forum, one could be a blog and you'd have a mixture of results, with just a 'dot' in the url the only way you can tell what content is from which site...
I agree for the most part with what smemon87 wrote. Domain hacks, from a traffic retention point of view, are pretty touch. I think people developing such domains have to focus largely on finding ways for their visitors to remember how to get back...bookmarking campaigns, e-mail campaigns and such. Not to mention that a hacked domain will probably lose a certain percentage of traffic to the regular .com version as returning visitors forget where to put the dots. .
Thanks for the responses.. I can see your point where it might be a "disaster" for the end user. But then again, del.icio.us is remembered because Yahoo has the muscle to make it stick. I think they are good if the domain is short and simple to begin with (and of course spelled right. technol.gy without the o would do nothing.)