Show HN: DomainWhirl - A free daily newsletter with available startup domains

7 points by nbrochu 15 years ago | 14 comments

Hello HN,

About a month ago, I posted an "Ask HN" to see if there was any interest in having daily available .com domain name lists. The names would all be appropriate for startups, blogs and websites, nothing else. While the response wasn't overwhelming, it was quite positive and a few individuals got me motivated to go through with this. I decided to go with the free newsletter format so I could keep some form of exclusivity for the subscribers, giving them a better chance at getting a name they before somebody else gets to it.

You can find the old discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1671129

Fast forward to today, the service and website are ready, so I am launching it and am ready to accept subscribers. You'll find that the newsletter is very lightweight and contains no ads or irrelevant content. I may sometimes slip in a quick word about projects I am working on but that's it! If you ask me, it makes it a little more human. I run this for fun as I like writing algorithms to find gems in huge lists of data. The mailing list is managed on MailChimp so no funky business; I will respect everyone's privacy.

So I encourage everyone to subscribe! It's free and is a very passive and non-intrusive way to stumble upon great domains for your projects and businesses.

Feel free to also give me some feedback on the website, especially on the copy since English is not my first language. That's it for now! Enjoy!

http://domainwhirl.com

Thanks, Nicholas

P.S. If the DNS has not yet propagated, you can temporarily use http://domainwhirl.heroku.com until it does.

hkuo 15 years ago |

Your sample of domains actually look like very good and memorable names. But I'm hesitant to sign up for your newsletter because I'm not currently in need of one, but even if I were, it would be for a specific idea I have in mind, and thus, I'd be looking for a related domain name. I'm not sure if there's anyone who needs a domain name to get inspired to build a website around it, but perhaps there are, though maybe this would be a good service for people that buy and sell domain names, but that just feels like a dirty field to be in.

But good luck with it! Maybe you'll make some discoveries in the near future and implement something to make this more useful for someone searching for a specific related name. There's quite a few out there, and they all help, but I could still see some room for a new form of domain discovery.

templaedhel 15 years ago |

Oh man, I'm very opposed to email newsletters, but this looks very nice. I am always trying to think of creative names for projects so I can register them cheap. I have a feeling I will be browsing this each morning. I am also very curious about the algorithms involved. Where are you getting the list of unregistered domains? Or are you generating good domains, then checking to see if they are registered? Are you basicly just looking for combinations of a list of words you have, or is it some other method? In all, a very impressive project, and if you be willing to share more on the technical side, I would be very interested.

nbrochu 15 years ago |

Clickable links:

Website: http://domainwhirl.com Temp if DNS hasn't spread: http://domainwhirl.heroku.com

Old discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1671129

templaedhel 15 years ago |

I just want to share, I have been subscribed for 2 days now, and I see a ton of good domains. For example. hotelhawks.com That sounds like a business, a great brand etc. This is a great tool, and is now my goto for brainstorming names.

ma2rten 15 years ago |

Sounds not too bad, but I haven't gotten an email yet, so I can't say anything about the service. Do you have any plan for monetizing it ?

petercooper 15 years ago |

Good luck. You would convert a lot more visitors into subscribers by making the subscription method front and center.

nbrochu 15 years ago | |

Thanks.

I thought the block quote in the first paragraph was in-your-face enough but I'll definitely listen to this advice as I have very little experience trying to convert users. Most sites I build already have a defined audience.

petercooper 15 years ago | | |

It's in your face but unless you've done some A/B testing, you'd be surprised what can affect conversions! :-)

FWIW, I have an e-mail newsletter myself at http://rubyweekly.com/ and the way it is right now is the best I've got it to convert. Every time I removed more from the page, the better the conversion, and unsubscribe rates are low (about 8 in total in the last month).

Of course, flat out "lots of subscribers" isn't necessarily your goal and you don't need to optimize for that if it doesn't make sense for your plan.