Or are you getting annoyed with pertaining to all the scams and suckers that exist? And those that surf the web looking for the next Get-Rich-Quick Scheme?

I think something should be done about it, but what action should be taken, exactly, I don’t know.

My First Example

As I was searching for a good name for a site that I wanted to write top ten lists around (until finally settling on toptenlisted.com), I stumbled across topten.com, I thought this would be the perfect name for my new website. It’s not being used by anyone, and I find out it’s already taken!

So naturally, I was kind of peeved, but figured someone already conceived the concept of developing top ten lists (this is a whole other matter which I don’t want to ramble to much in this post). And I wanted to figure out what the competition was up to, even if I didn’t think I had any at the time (I was naive, and didn’t do much searching). While visiting the domain, I expected to find a flourishing website with tons of great content, only to discover there’s just a wasted page. That’s right…. all that was there was a search box, a couple of “community links”, and a few random keyword links at the bottom of the page, and I was thinking, “WTF, what is this?”

As my blood pressure rose even more, I decided to do some research into this “registrar”. I find out it is owned by some company known as Mark Monitor Inc.

I don’t know who “Mark Monitor” is, but they are a perfect example of what I hate about the domain business. They gobble up good, memorable domain names and just sit on them waiting for someone with enough cash to pony up, and come by and pay the costs of their heavy fee.

This was about a year ago….

Fast Forward to More Recently, Business is Insane

This domain “cybersquatting” business is huge. A few months ago after reading stories like: “Vodka.com sells for 3 Million” or “Business and ancestry.com acquired for roughly 300 Million a piece“, I’m thinking to myself “Geez, how can people or companies be paying so much for just a .com name?”.

Only the wealthy have access to these dictionary, one-word, top-level domains, and if that doesn’t make you angry, I don’t know what else does.

Crazy Offers

Another thing that bugs me about the domain industry is the people involved in the business and the ludicrous dealings they make.

Take PageRank for example. Some people think you can sell a PR3 Domain, or a Domain with good rankings, so I had to explain to them that this is not possible.

Then there’s also single webpage scams to consider. Some “marketing gurus” purchase entire domains like illmakeyourichthroughafffiliatemarketing.com just to sell their scammy $20 eBook. They’ll claim something along the lines like “Buy my book and I’ll make you rich!”. Here’s a newsflash: THE ONLY PEOPLE GETTING RICH ARE THE ONES SELLING THE EBOOKS. Do you honestly think if they knew how to make money online easily, they’d be giving out their secrets for cheap amounts of cash?!?!

The Leftovers…

There aren’t many good, short domains left, in my opinion. If you want something brief and unique, it’ll have to be something like sda48fs5ud.com. Yeah, just a bunch of random letters and numbers thrown together, not very appealing nor memorable.

Anybody looking to start their own website won’t have that many options within the domain field, unless your willing to fork out the extra cash to pay for a reasonable name, but most aren’t (or can’t afford to).

What Should be Done about this?

I consider myself LUCKY to have been able to register lightningshock before anyone else (whether it’s a domain company, a one person cybersquatter, or just a competing website developer) had the opportunity to snatch it up (although I wouldn’t feel half as bad if it was the final choice).

I say if you’re going to purchase and sit on a domain for awhile, you should at least put it to use and build a website around it, you know, something pertaining to the domain name.

Or else, I wouldn’t mind seeing a law or two passed and enforced against this travesty of an industry. If nothing is done about it, who knows I might decide to take a complete 180 and start registering spiffy domain names of my own, and see how they like it.

BLOG = Best Language Of Geeks

CODE = Collection of Disorganized Etchings

DELICIOUS = Database Entries Left Incomplete, Code Is Opening Up System

DIGG = Decrepit Inferior Gullible Garbage

GOOGLE = Good Only Once Goons Leave Everything

JOOMLA = Just One Of Many Lousy Applications

KEYWORDS = Kooks Exhausting Young Webpages, Once Ranking Drops Start

MSN = Minuscule Search Network

PODCAST = Probably Online Drivel Consumed Audio (Salary-Triggered)

SMO = Stupid, Moronic Operation

SPAM = Stupid People And Marketing

STUMBLEUPON = Social Tool Used Mostly By Losers Entering Unproductive Plains Of Networking

WIKIPEDIA = Web Index Killing Information Plus Enclosing Deceptive, Inaccurate Articles

Have anymore you’d like to add? Comment below

I know I’m surely not a coding expert (at this present time). This would probably require a whole new web browser system, heck, maybe even a whole new markup language to function properly.

I could see the first phase of this project involving just adding new HTML attributes (such as “depth”), and HTML elements which could contain different “sides” of the 3D projection (like the north side “title tag” or maybe they would ad an X,Y,Z “grid position”).

One other important revolutionary function I feel would be adding a brand new “Navigation System” to the website (which could end up replacing hyperlinks, well at least internally). You’d navigate by the ways of keyboard arrows (along with four more keys to navigate vertically, and much like the ways you control character in a first-person shooter videogame. But you’d still use your mouse to click whichever links, page elements, etc. are visible.

Potential Advantages I can see:

• Much more space to store, view and access information
• It Gives users a whole new perspective (current 2D sites seem a bit plain and boring now, don’t they?)
• Number of options are greatly increased, more freedom to choose what and how you want to design your site
• It would be on the “Cutting-Edge” of technology
• More business opportunities are created (like new advertising venues and fresh ways to communicate with one another)

Disadvantages of this Design concept:

• Very difficult to code and design (from a web developer’s standpoint, but hey, everyone can learn, right?)
• Choosing just how to implement this sort of idea will result in many conflicting ideas (Consistency is important)
• Probably tons of wasted space (if we’re designing in a cube format), most probably won’t need everything a 3D Website has to offer
• Navigation may seem difficult and unnatural for the first few months (or years) of use, new browser applications and improvements would have to be created for them to run properly

I realize this idea is kind of “out there”, but I still think they’d be a cool thing to see.

1. Consider offline environment

There are a few things I make sure of personally before I go online:

• I’m not hungry. I don’t want to surf the web and eat at the same time, even if I do sometimes eat anyways.
• Music. Having some background music while I look for stuff and participate online is a must for me. While this may just be personal preference, it gives me a clear mindset and I know what to look for.
• Limited Interruptions. I find it very annoying when I have to answer the phone, deal with someone talking to me, etc., while I’m trying to work. So every time right before I decide to go on the computer, I’ll talk with my family, and tie up whatever loose ends I have to before I begin.

2. Organize your Bookmarks
In order to easily find all your favorite websites, it is important that you make sure you keep your bookmarks classified properly. A good number of folders to have, IMO, would be ten, with categories such as Forums, School, etc. If your really bold, then Porn too (OK, I don’t have that last one). Then maybe include three or four sub-folders, depending on the category.

It is up to you whether you want to use social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us or not, however I prefer to keep my favorites private.

3. Stick with One Browser

As many browsers read with different font sizes, spacing types, etc. I feel it should be noted that keeping with one web browser will make your life easier.

4. Use as few features as possible

It is unnecessary to have many different things going on at once. Don’t use similar features such as the “Bookmarks Toolbar” then also have a system of organization in your primary favorites section.

While some users do not like to use tabs, I still find them useful. I do like to have multiple pages open at once, so I prefer to use the tabbing system instead of having multiple browser windows open, for example I’ll be reading Dan Price’s Blog, while at the same time commenting on Steven’s SEMMY win. And I may also have other applications running on my computer, like Microsoft Word or Notepad++.

5. Customize it to your liking

Here’s a stroke of Genius I like to use. I primarily use the FireFox Browser, so what I’ll do is install all the toolbars (Google Stumbleupon, etc.) onto Internet Explorer, this way my FF browser is not cluttered up and I have more screen real estate while surfing the internet.