Really bad web site names

A little humor for the holidays.

This has been done before, but I think these are worth repeating. Talk about unintentional consequences. What were these people thinking? Or, I guess maybe they weren't.

I'm not sure of the original source(s) for these as there are so many places these lists can be found on the web (I received some in an email a couple of years ago), so I'm not citing a specific source. Comment and let me know which one is your favorite. (My capitalization in the URLs).

• Who Represents is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their website is
  www.WhorePresents.com/
• Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at
  www.ExpertSexChange.com/
• Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at
  www.PenisLand.net/
• Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at
  www.TheRapistFinder.com/
• There’s the Italian Power Generator company,
  www.PowerGenitalia.com/
• And don’t forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales,
  www.MolestationNursery.com/
• If you’re looking for IP computer software, there’s always
  www.IPAnywhere.com/
• The First Cumming Methodist Church website is
  www.CummingFirst.com/
• And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky website,
  www.SpeedoFart.com/
• The Royal Tit-Watching (Ornithological) Society Of Britain used the domain:
  www.Nice-Tits.org
  
• Manufacturer of instruments for monitoring temperature, humidity and pressure Dickson didn’t think twice when they choose:
  www.DicksOnWeb.com
• A holiday rentals company in Spain is called Choose Spain. Hopefully the vacation won’t be a painful experience:
  www.ChoosesPain.com
  
• A company selling CAD software and Learning CDs was called ViaGrafix - quite innocent until a blue pill hit the market. The company is now called Learn2.
  www.ViagraFix.com
  
• TeachersTalk: A community for teachers and student to discuss all areas of teaching… Even how to stalk teachers?
  www.TeacherStalk.com
  
• The small town Winters’ local newspaper is called Winters Express and can be read online at:
  www.WinterSexPress.com
  
• An eBay competitor was considering the name Auctions Hit, but found it to be a shitty name:
  www.AuctionShit.com
• If you offer a scaffold erection/dismantle service, maybe you shouldn’t have a mammoth as your mascot and call your company Mammoth Erection:
  www.MammothErection.com
• Things to do and see along New York State’s Canals and vacation regions:
  www.NYCAnal.com
• New Zealand’s “As Seen On TV” is called “But That’s Not All“. But do they sell Butt Hats or not?
  www.ButtHatsNotAll.co.nz
• The kids might look nice in their Childrens’ Wear, but remember:
  www.ChildrenSwear.co.uk
  
• IHA Vegas‘ holiday rentals might have a special smell, since:
  www.IHaveGas.com
• Could a Apple Macintosh make me more masculine? Read more in macHome magazine:
  www.MachoMe.com
  
• Odds Extractor - Online gambling resource or farmers looking for new and unusual machinery?
  www.OddSexTractor.com
• If you’re known as Big Al, why not call your online fish supplies store for Big Al’s Online?
  www.BiGalsOnline.com
  
• SCA Tissue - Away-From-Home tissue products has a terrible issue with their name:
  www.ScatIssue.com
  
• Even if you’re company is called Cumbria Storage Systems don’t even think about calling your website:
  www.CumStore.co.uk
  
• Alter Scrap Processing part of The Alter Companies use the domain:
  www.AltersCrap.com
• Anyone knows if Australian ISP WebOne does some moonlighting?
  www.WeBone.com
  
• Don’t start a business in Cook Islands… Given that their TLD is .ck and they use .co for commercial domains, you end up with:
  www.budget.Co.ck

Where oh where have the checkout lines gone?

Slide2
Originally uploaded by murrayi2000

Yesterday, I went shopping at Costco and Wal-Mart. On the Saturday before xmas, but I wasn't doing any holiday shopping. Just run-of-the-mill Saturday errands. (My son and I have a standard Costco outing every Saturday after his TaeKwonDo class - lunch and samples). And we needed milk and bread, so off to the Super Wal-Mart afterwards.

The thing was, there were no lines at either. I actually remember being at Costco on the same day last year, and the lines were literally halfway back into the warehouse (couple hundred people long). But this year, nothing. The red line is the where the end of the checkout lines are, only a couple of people in each, and they weren't even all open.

Not sure what this means for the economy as a whole, but it's got to mean something.

Oh yeah, I heard on the news this morning, that retail sales are down 23% from Dec. 2007, which is an absolutely incredible amount. From what I saw at these 2 stores yesterday, it was actualy a lot more than that.

Oh, and I'm not sure who that good looking kid is. Obviously not related to me. :)

Staples: Kick your competitor when they're down

I recently got this email from Staples (I'm subscribed to their newsletter, I guess? Don't remember doing so, but I guess I did at some point), with the subject line being: "Will Office Depot closings affect you?‏"

It was a couple of days after Office Depot announced they would be closing some stores and laying off employees.

Couple of thoughts:
-Kudos to Staples for being that responsive to events going on in their market.
-I was kind of troubled by the negative messaging. With what's going on in today's economy, more negativity just really turns me off. Wonder if others feel that way, at this point.
-I would have liked something a little more subtle which would have let me draw my own connection to Office Depot's announcement.
-I have friends who work at OD, so it bothered me even more.
-In some ways, I think that Staples should have had a better call to action to give incentives to actually go into a store.

All in all, I think the positive was that it was timely. I do believe it was poorly executed, however. IMHO.

The funniest commercial...

...ever!



Got to have balls to actually broadcast this one. No pun intended.

Pownce Closing Down

So Pownce.com announced that they are closing on December 15th. I actually went to sign up yesterday, so it's not really going to affect me going forward. But it makes me wonder if the lack of a revenue model for all of these social media sites we keep hearing about and using will mean that they too will end up eventually going the same way.

For the big 2 or 3 (Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn?) probably not. After all, Google bought YouTube for $1.65 Billion (yes, with a B) before it had any true revenue model. Chances are before these go under they will be bought by someone. Ning probably has a chance, although I'm not sure how they're earning their $$. But for a site that had an Alexa rank of 177 yesterday, I sure hope they are figuring out how to monetize all that traffic. By comparison, Twitter was ranked at 511 yesterday, Facebook was at 5, and Linkedin was at 131. A little suprising that Twitter isn't a little bit higher, but I'm guessing Alexa probably doesn't count all of the widgets and desktop apps that access the TwitStream.

Thinking about it, though, I wish I had the problem of having a site with that much traffic and trying to figure out how to make some $$ out of it. With all the problems that are out there these days, this one seems like it should be solvable by the much smarter than me people who came up with these great sites.

I'm hoping.

Book Review - The Bielski Brothers

So my Dad called me up a couple of weeks ago, and said grab a pen, and write down the name of this book which he then proceeded to spell out for me. 'It's about my dermatologist's family and what happened to them during World War II," he said.

Being the dutiful son, that I am, I humored him, and actually wrote it down. I was going to the library later that week, so I thought I would humor him further and actually take it out and read it, thinking it was going to be an 'OK' book, but one that would make my father happy that I had read, as he had suggested it.

It turned out to be an absolutely incredible re-telling of the three Bielski brothers, and how they saved 1200 Jews from being annihilated by the Nazis in Belarus. Not only did they keep 1200 Jews hidden in the forests, but they built mini cities in those forests that the Nazis never found, from which they ran a partisan army that harassed the local German occupiers and collaborators. When it seemed like they were going to be found out, they would move the entire group to another location in the forests.

It turned out to be an unbelievable read. The strength of will, smarts, and ingenuity the three brothers showed to not only save all that came to them, but to actually go into the ghettos and camps to convince the prisoners to escape and join them, to then clothe, feed, house, and keep safe from all enemies (and it wasn't just the Germans), all while running a partisan war, is absolutely incredible.

Oh, and it's being made into a movie (renamed Defiance) that will be released on Dec. 31st.

As it says in the trailer: The most incredible true story you've never heard.

What's the Big Idea / Forced Entrepeneurs?

So, CNBC has decided to put The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch on hiatus / indefinite hold. The reasons cited are that given the state of the economy, the show's focus on successful entrepreneurs was not appropriate. I love that show. Oh well.

I will grant that ratings also probably had something to do with CNBC's decision. Lots of people I know watch the show fairly religiously, but I guess the people that I hang out with are part of a specific demographic, not necessarily representative fo the general population.

But it seems to me that CNBC has lost out on a great opportunity, to become the trusted partner and resource for this growing sub-sector of the population. So many people are looking to start their own businesses (it was the entire conversation yesterday among the dads waiting at the Tae Kwon Do school my son attends), even those that are gainfully employed, and with The Big Idea's brand fairly well known, it is definitely an opportunity missed.

Contrast this with Barry Judge's blog post about marketing in a down economy. In one of the items in the post, the Best Buy CMO discusses how they will be focusing on the forced entrepreneur (my words) segment, as that segment is one that always grows in a down economy. Maybe Best Buy will take up the mantle and not just provide networking equipment, but become the de facto resource for these new entrepreneurs.