Website

Since registering a domain name with the goal of making a profit, I've been wondering if my investment will pay off, and it reminded me of a funny anecdote I once read about Milton Friedman regarding doubtful authenticity:

    One Saturday afternoon in downtown Chicago, Milton Friedman, the famous free-market economist, was shopping with his wife.

    "Look Milton!" exclaimed Mrs. Friedman. "There's a $20 bill on the sidewalk!"

    "Don't be foolish, my dear," replied the Nobel laureate. "If that was a $20 bill, someone would have picked it up by now."

Source:
Contemporary Strategy Analysis
by Robert M. Grant - page 223

If there is money to be made on AdvocateBlog.com, wouldn't the experts in the business already have registered that domain name? We'll see what happens.

My friend Lauren Kerstein is an expert in the field of working with children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders. She recently told me about an idea she had to create a website dedicated to featuring books on Autism.

Based upon her deep experience with the subject matter, Lauren put together a categorized list of useful books on Autism. I was glad to help her out from a technical perspective, and last week we launched the Autism Asperger Books website.

Lauren also just became an author at Autism Asperger Publishing Company, as her first book called My Sensory Book is pending publication. She describes the book as follows:

My Sensory Book is a workbook designed to assist children with understanding their sensory systems better and the impact sensory input may have on their emotions. This text is set up for adults to use with children and older children to use on their own. It may be helpful for use at home, in school and in the community.

It is insipring to see how people like Lauren can make such a difference and help other people in their line of work.

Inspired by a blog posting by Erik Heels about registering generic domain names with the goal of profiting from their future sale, I just registered AdvocateBlog.com.

Erik is conducting an experiment by taking a methodical approach toward making an investment in a portfolio of domain names. He took 183 frequently-used short generic words and then coupled them all with a "blog.com" suffix. He purchased these domain names in August 2007 and noted that there are already some interesting results after five months of ownership.

These days the value of domain names is widely understood, and it seems that virtually any potentially valuable name already has been registered. But I figured AdvocateBlog.com could be worth something to someone in the future because if you are an advocate for something, you would want to write about it, and where better to do that than on a blog.

So, I've now dipped my toe into the business of domaining by initiating my annual $10 investment in AdvocateBlog.com. It was somewhat surprising to me that this domain was available, as there are so many things to be an advocate about. But therein may lie its weakness; maybe it's too generic of a name. If someone wanted to start a blog advocating ethanol subsidies, wouldn't he or she just register EthanolSubsidyAdvocate.com? Time will tell.