Finally, a few hours after live registrations of .info
names (supposedly) began, the registration of my last pending pre-registered name,
via GoDaddy, went through. This means that the status of all of the names I
attempted to register has been resolved, although none of the registrars in question
have yet actually informed me of this status or added the domains to their online
control panels so I can set the name servers to make them work.In the meantime,
I had attempted a registration of that last name through register.com, not trusting
GoDaddy to get the registration through once live public registrations were in effect.
This registration, though it appeared successful at the time, apparently had no effect
(and I hope I don't get charged for it).
Now that all of my pre-registrations have
been settled, I no longer have to be secretive about them due to a possible need
to grab a name first in public registration, so here are all my registrations and
what happened with them:
1) tatiana.info -- Filed with register.com on 2001-07-12.
Registration succeeded, showing registration date of 2001-09-19. To be used
in conjunction with my fan site about Mexican singer/TV host Tatiana, www.chicadehoy.org.
2)
tatiana.info -- Filed with GoDaddy on 2001-07-24. The only .info domain I filed
with more than one registrar, to increase my chance of getting it. It proved
unnecessary, as the first registration I filed was the one that succeeded anyway.
I don't know if I faced any competition for this name (it would have been neat if
they actually showed such statistics as how many others tried to apply for the same
name); similar names like tatjana.info and tatibana.info were registered by others,
and every other person's first name I could think of was taken by somebody, so I'm
sure somebody would have registered this one if I didn't.
3) protest.info -- Filed
with GoDaddy on 2001-08-03. One of several I chose as good "base domains" for
subdomains for a whole range of sites, in this case for protest sites, protesting
anything and everything... for instance, icann.protest.info could be a site protesting
against ICANN. I would use some such subdomains for sites of my own devising,
and make redirected subdomains available to others' protest sites -- I don't know
if I'd try to get people to pay for that or just give them away for free as a service
to protestors everywhere. But I didn't get this one.
4) fan.info -- Filed
with GoDaddy on 2001-08-03. An "inverse" to protest.info, a good "base domain"
for fan sites of all sorts, like baseball.fan.info, britneyspears.fan.info, etc.
But it was taken by a sunrise squatter.
5) campaign.info -- Filed with GoDaddy
on 2001-08-06. A good "base" for subdomains for campaign sites. I wouldn't
expect major Presidential candidates to get subdomains from me rather than registering
their own domains, but it might make nice addresses for local candidates, as well
as people running for office within private organizations, etc. But another
sunrise squatter got it.
6) dan.info -- Filed with GoDaddy on 2001-08-11. Well,
it's my name... it might have made a nice address for my personal site, which I've
never really liked having as a "dot-com" since it's not particularly commercial.
But yet another sunrise squatter got that.
7) sucks.info -- Filed with GoDaddy
on 2001-09-11. This one somehow got through the sunrise phase without being
squatted on -- it's a great suffix domain for "anti-" sites about anything, like
microsoft.sucks.info, aol.sucks.info, or afilias.sucks.info. I didn't expect
I had much chance of winning it, and I didn't. But it was worth a try anyway.
It was part of a batch of registrations I attempted in between the sunrise and landrush
phases to replace the ones I had already lost to squatters; I submitted them in the
morning of the 11th, less than an hour before the first plane smashed into the World
Trade Center and took most people's mind away from domain registrations.
8) hater.info
-- Filed with GoDaddy on 2001-09-11. Another "anti-site" suffix domain; not as good
as "sucks.info", but with some potential. And I actually got this one; it shows a
registration date of 2001-09-13.
9) haters.info -- Filed with GoDaddy on 2001-09-11.
I couldn't decide whether the singular or plural form was best for this use, so I
tried both. This was the domain I've been remarking about that seemed to go
into limbo, not showing up in WHOIS when the landrush names went live. Finally, it
registered now, showing a registration date of 2001-10-02, with a timestamp of 01:48:38
UTC.
10) fandom.info -- Filed with GoDaddy on 2001-09-11. Another possible suffix
domain for fan sites, and also shows solidarity with other fans with "fandom.*" domains
that were recently harrassed by the now-bankrupt fandom.com, which made ridiculous
claims to trademark rights on the generic word "fandom" (but which seems to have
self-destructed so much that they didn't even do a sunrise registration in .info).
But I lost out on this one.
11) haters.info -- While waiting for the GoDaddy registration
of this to either succeed or fail... to do *something*!... I tried a registration
at register.com once live registrations started. Obviously, it failed, since
I got the name ultimately at GoDaddy.
OK... so I guess my final score is:
11
different registrations attempted
9 unique names requested
3 taken by sunrise
squatters
3 taken by other landrushers
3 successfully registered