Have you read about this guy Kevin Ham? He’s made a career out of buying lapsed domain names (he owns 300,000 currently) and selling them to bankers, venture capitalists and web investors. He estimates his income at $70 million a year. And now he’s taken advantage of the cheapest (or, most brilliant) ploy in the history of domain profiteering. He’s entered into a partnership with the nation of Cameroon to purchase an untold number of domains ending in .cm, because a simple typo will now transport millions of hits to his website, where he can earn more from Google and Yahoo ads. He’s also planning to strike deals with Niger (.ne) and Ethiopia (.et) to profit off people mistyping .net, and Colombia (.co) and Oman (.om) to further profit off people mistyping .com. What a stupid, smart asshole.
Where’s my get rich quick scheme? How do these people conjure such priceless ideas? I wonder if their brains work on a different level, where the sole focus is on dishonorable ways to make a quick buck. And what about the people legitimately happening upon great new technological innovations? I admire those people for contributing positively to society, but I hate them for coming up with (or acting on) their idea before me. I think WIRED ran a short piece a few months ago about how to come up with your own great business venture online, but I can’t remember what it said I should do. Typical. I was probably getting high and watching House of Wax for the twenty-fifth time.
Maybe I’ll just take a week to lose myself in the desert, where I’ll spend my time coming up with a new get rich quick scheme. Any ideas?
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