Mike O'Connor helped popularize the internet in Minnesota, and in the mid-90s he registered a handful of one-word .coms.
One he tucked away and never built on: corp.com.
While it sat there, @Microsoft shipped Windows 2000 with "Corp" as the example name for an internal network, and thousands of IT departments kept the default.
Those laptops spent years knocking on corp.com's door, sending passwords and emails to whoever held the domain.
When @briankrebs wrote about it in 2020, Mike decided to sell, mostly because he didn't want his kids inheriting a domain that passively collected Fortune 500 credentials.
Microsoft agreed to buy it, and corp.com now sits in their portfolio…doing nothing.
After 26 years of leaking secrets by default, corp.com is finally taking a long, overdue time-out.
Read Full Story 👇
snagged.com/post/corp-com-th…
Free $100K, equity-free for your start-up just for building on a .tech domain? Pretty sweet!
This is both cool for founders and a smart play from @dottechdomains. No better way to nudge folks to your TLD than by helping them succeed and fund their companies.
OPPORTUNITY‼️: $100K for your startup. No equity, no SAFE, no board seat.
@dottechdomains just launched a $1M No Excuses Fund for builders from day zero to pre-Series A.
What you get:
- grants of $10K, $50K or $100K
- any stage can get $100K
- no deck, working builds only
- bootstrapped / seed-funded teams
- cloud, AI and dev tool credits
- mentorship and support
Who can apply:
- 18 or older, in eligible locations
- working build, day 0 to pre-Series A
- work you own outright
The catch: your product has to run live on a .tech domain. Redirect doesn't count.
Submissions close Dec 15 👉
noexcuses.get.tech/
A startup's first domain often comes with a small caveat attached every time it’s brought up in conversation...
The name has an extra word, the extension isn't the one you'd expect, or the address describes the company before they pivoted.
Eventually “those” explanations start appearing more regularly, like a relative who wasn't invited to your house, but brought a suitcase “just in case,” for an extra long stay.
Here are five domain upgrades we like – all for different reasons.
@NotionHQ kept its name and moved from the TLD notion.so to notion.com.
@RocketOTD gave home search, financing and servicing a shared front door at Rocket.com.
@loom retired the "Use" in UseLoom.com
@owner moved from ProfitBoss.com to a name that points to its customers
@cryptocom went from Monaco at Mona.co to the name of the entire category
Loom's deal is one worth highlighting.
According to cofounder Shahed Khan (@shahedkhan), the company paid $75,000 for their Loom.com domain, and $75,000 to ANOTHER STARTUP (who was competing for the domain) to walk away from the deal.
Dig deeper into the upgrades ⬇️
snagged.com/post/top-5-domai…
Testing a new fulfillment vendor for our swag store. Giving away three (3) free Snagged Bobbleheads to get some reps.
swag.snagged.com/products/sn…
Use code BOBBLE2 at checkout (just pay shipping). Enjoy, nerds!
Ghost.ai
🥰
Ghost announced Monday its official emergence from stealth and an $11 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
spr.ly/6011BGLWTB
Snagged retweeted
Thanks for the love @jordihays @johncoogan always fun working with you guys!
I've tried to keep my personal life private, but I want to address the rumors swirling across Domain Twitter.
Yes, I'm .si-curious.
In total this week, I’ve only heard from *one* startup that is even remotely .si curious.
For any non-mainstream TLD become a legit option, some company needs to build on it and then do very well, raise money and get a lot of traction. Which then gives other startups “permission” to use that TLD, as well.
Kind of like what @NotionHQ did for .so.
In 2005, Bob Innes paid $9.20 for RentAHitman.com.
He had a totally legit IT-security business in mind, where "hit" meant website traffic, and the plan was to offer network penetration testing and cybersecurity.
The business never launched, but the domain did its own thing anyway.
A few years later, Bob checked the inbox tied to the site and found hundreds of messages.
Some people wanted to FIND WORK AS HITMEN.
Others were asking, in all seriousness, to have someone killed.
The site was an obvious parody with fake testimonials, a fictional operator named Guido Fanelli, and nearly 18,000 "field operatives."
And, somehow, people still filled out the request form with their own information, details about their targets, and what they wanted done.
The first request Bob treated as a real threat came from a woman who wanted three relatives killed.
He asked if she wanted to be connected with a local field operative, and she said yes. The field operatives were law enforcement, and she was arrested.
Since then, Bob has kept forwarding credible requests to the authorities, and the site has contributed to arrests, prosecutions, and convictions.
He describes himself as accidentally becoming customer service for criminals, which might be the best job description on the internet.
It's also a wild example of how much a domain can say before anyone sees the website. In this case, people read three words, decided exactly what the business was, and acted on it.
Most companies spend years earning that kind of clarity. RentAHitman.com got it for $9.20… it just attracted the worst possible customers.
Read Full Story 👇
snagged.com/post/rentahitman…
