Idea Lab

Choosing a Domain Name: Getting to Know Cyber Squatters (Starbucks Scene 1)

by Alexander Zolotarev
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

It's not the case when you can remain unnamed. At this stage - when working out the site structure and drawing graphic schemes, you can't stop thinking about the domain name. Soon after the Knight Foundation announced that my proposal made it and I was selected one of the winners of the '08 Knight News Challenge, I registered several domain names which could alternatively be the site address. In case with Sochi, most of the domain names bearing a word 'sochi' or a combination of words 'Olympic' and 'sochi' were purchased in a wholesale format by cyber squatters several hours...

• January 19, 2009
• 5 comments

Finding a Good Domain Name

by Dan Gillmor
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Are all the good Internet domain names already owned by someone? No -- only the obvious ones are taken. Every new enterprise, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, needs a domain name -- the identifier that shows up in a brower's address field. For example, the MediaShift Idea Lab blog lives inside the Public Broadcasting Service's pbs.org domain. The absolutely perfect name for your new project or company, or at least the simplest one, may well be owned by someone else. In fact, it probably is. The odds are definitely slim that you'll get a domain name that a random person would...

• April 28, 2008
• 3 comments