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GrahamTheDev
GrahamTheDev

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Do you own a domain name without a purpose? Let me give you a project for it!

In a rush? Head down to the comments and share a domain name you own without a purpose, I (and hopefully some others) will give you a fun side project idea for it!

For those not in a rush!

I own quite a few domain names. I recently wrote about my emoji domain πŸ‘©β€πŸ’»πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’».to, I also own a domain name purely for the fact it sits on the million dollar homepage and is a part of internet history!

I even bought a domain name a few years ago that I still think could be great for a codepen competitor - codersplayground.co.uk!

Oh and don't forget ultimatemot*******kingwebsite.com (Warning, do not click this link if swearing offends you), which is probably the naughtiest domain I own and actually use!

Today, for the first time in a while, I bought a domain name that not only fit a big side project beautifully, but would also work for loads of different use cases.

It is probably the "best" (best when talking about commercial viability and an obvious use case) I have bought. In fact, I am that amazed it wasn't taken it prompted this whole article!

The domain is:


[a2z.dev](https://a2z.dev)

I will be writing loads about that domain as it will feature heavily in my content creation strategy over the next year, but it had me thinking about all the domains I have bought over the years that maybe weren't as great!

Then I realised I can't be the only one with random domains (or really good domains that you are surprised weren't taken) sat idle and needing a purpose!

So that leads me to the question:

How many of you have random domains with no purpose?

As I said I have several domains that are good (and some not so good ones!), but have no purpose at the moment.

And I certainly can't be the only one.

So put your unused domain name into the comments below and I will come up with a fun project and possibly a serious project as well that you could build around that domain name!

I want to see who has a) the best domain name (can you beat a2z.dev?) and b) the silliest domain name.

Hopefully a bit of fun coming up with ideas for how to use a domain name will turn into a silly side project, that then turns into something beautiful and massive, and we can all say that it started here and we helped make it happen! 😁


Add your domain name(s) below that you want a project for and I (and hopefully others) will come up with a killer idea!

Top comments (145)

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jwanner83 profile image
Jonas Wanner

Oh man, I own a lot of domains without a reason. One of them is dail.one. I've thought about building a suite of web applications like notes, calendar, e-mail client etc. which then would all be placed beneath this domain but it turned out, I dont have this much time on my hand so I stopped πŸ˜…

I also have multiple Liferay domains (liferay.space, liferay.tech, liferay.blog, liferay.us, liferay.at, liferay.ch). I work in a company which uses Liferay to create digital workplaces for companies and I thought it would be funny to buy some domains and do something cool, but I really don't know what I should do with them πŸ˜‚ Any idea is appreciated :)

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev • Edited

OK so these are some tough ones, I doubt I will come up with a sensible one but let's see!

dail.one

  • You create custom voicemail answer machine messages for people that are voiced by "Dail", a virtual AI, they are free, but if anyone ever needs support your whole phone tree requires you to press 1 varying amounts of times to get to the right department (Dial one!).
  • A URL shortener that only works for Daily Mail articles published on the 1st of the month.
  • You create a course called "Digital Access for Independent Living", you sell it to governments to get older people and vulnerable people online to help towards inclusivity goals.

liferay

  • You have a sunflower in a blacked out room. People send positive tweets to an account and every tweet adds 30 seconds to a UV light run time to give the plant some much needed "life rays".
  • A site dedicated to preserving the habitats of Stingrays and reintroducing them into the wild.
  • A site where there is a 24 hour feed watching a guy called Ray. Think Truman show!
  • A live feed of the sun with motivational messages popping up on the screen on how to live a healthy life.
  • Liferay.space - you set up a super powerful laser that people can control remotely. They can point it at a planet (solar system) using a star chart and send a message in morse code to that planet to see if you get a response.

I have to admit, I struggled as they are both super specific lol, I will see if I come up with a better idea as I am not happy with these yet!

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torik17 profile image
Tori

I love the sunflower idea from the positive tweets 🌻

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev

I can be wholesome sometimes 😜🀣

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maddtech profile image
Eric Maddox

Wholesome as fuck!!

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l4znet profile image
Charly Escalona • Edited

Hi!
Recently i've bought leblogdesgensquivontauboutdesblagu... as a joke, but, in fact I dunno what to do with

(In same spirit I've bought lescuilleressontenrealitedespelles... than can be translated by Spoonsareactuallyshovels.fr.. don't ask me why.. dunno..)

(In english we can translate by Blogofpeoplewhogoafterjokes.fr, it's a very litteral translation, I hope you've understood the meaning)

Any idea?

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev

As I think some of the meaning is lost in literal translation I am guessing this is about people who completely miss a joke and take it literally?

If not let me know what it should be and I will then come up with silly and sensible ideas!

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l4znet profile image
Charly Escalona

In fact you right, but the meaning was most, I’ll do my best for that joke « existΒ Β», to be more funny..

For example, I’ve created a website about spoons and showel because someone gave me the idea, but doesn’t think I’ll buy a domain and create a website.

In fact, the meaning of my domain was « A blog for all who do his best to make real a fictional funny idea »

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l4znet profile image
Charly Escalona

So, if you have any idea, I'll take it!

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair • Edited

The only random domain I have at the moment is littlest.website. I have a host called "the" so I could have the.littlest.website which is kind of a riff on The Littlest Hobo but that's as far as I got.

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev
  • A site for code golf tournaments. Think CSS battles but instead they are code golf battles.
  • A site that showcases any website that is under 20kb? A great way to discover random lightweight sites for people on low data plans.
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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

I was intending on getting something adjacent, like the.littlest.network and hosting a Mastodon instance but most of the good names like that are gone.

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embed profile image
embed • Edited

I have tons of domains I do not use, some I shouldn't use to be honest.
catgirl.design
femboy.us
racist.live
catboys.shop
femboy.creditcard
femboy.codes
zenithcoin.net
femboy.fit
owo.rocks
cock.trade (was my screenshot site and probably will make it my screenshot site again)

I've bought all of these as jokes and have never used them for anything. maybe I can do something fun with them

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev • Edited

Well as most of these are NSFW I think I will have to be creative here and fly close to the line a bit!

  • catgirl.design - A very out there brand of clothing (probably ideal for e-thots!) that has the slogan "nice pussy" and the logo of a cat-girl. (I know this isn't a catgirl but money is money!)
  • femboy.us - tips and tricks for people who identify as femboys to improve their femininity and a community forum!
  • cock.trade - an online market where farmers can advertise their prized roosters and offer them out for impregnating hens - similar to bull breeding!
  • racist.live - a serious channel where people can ask the questions they want to ask but are afraid people would think are rascist. "Do black people...", "are white people...". Then panel members can give a real education on what is stereotyping and what is true etc. A moderators nightmare and probably not suitable for any Social Media ToC, but could be an awesome resource to get past the "you can't ask that" fear people have that stops them understanding each other!

Unfortunately I think any other ideas would not be suitable for DEV! 🀣 With that being said I imagine you could build a nice interconnected community with some of these domains.

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embed profile image
embed

thank you! do really like the femboy.us, catgirl.design and racist.live ideas, maybe when I eventually have the bandwidth, time, and money to host them I will try some out!

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natalia_asteria profile image
Natalia Asteria

femboy.us should just be a forum for Astolfo cosplayers, rofl. 🀣

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oknoorap profile image
Ribhararnus Pracutian

catgirl design is suitable for NFT project.

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theoparis profile image
Theo Paris

I bought this one originally as a joke:
throwouterror.com. (instead of throw new error). However, it sounds a bit weird when you put it together as TOE πŸ˜‚ i had originally owned toes.tech but it expired and it would have cost $40 to renew.

I also own malware.design. I don't want to make something illegal obviously - but maybe a learning site for cybersecurity would be neat?

I have many more weird domains but these were the ones that stood out to me.

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev

Throwouterror.com

  • a site where people boast about things they found β€œdumpster diving” that were worth a fortune and rub it in the faces of the people who threw it out in error 😜
  • a site where developers can showcase the worst error messages they have ever seen and how completely unhelpful they are.
  • Throwouterror is a new error reporting library that can broadcast errors securely to multiple API endpoints for different processing requirements.
  • a sports clip site where you showcase wrong calls by referees calling things β€œout” when they were β€œin”.

Malware.design

  • β€œcyber security” game where you level up a computer virus (think plague.inc) and have to infect the world!
  • epic custom geek and tech merch (Mal Wear)
  • A site for architects working in Malwa in India who only do redesigns!
  • you start an ethical hacking and penetration testing company?
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bleonard252 profile image
Blake Leonard

malware.design could just be a page where you go "poof, designed a malware just for you <3" or something, as a joke site

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev

So give me some ideas for:

  • codersplayground.co.uk
  • db20.org.uk

as they are two sites sitting idle at the moment. They can be super silly too if you want!

Oh and if anyone can actually come up with a good idea for how to use my πŸ‘©β€πŸ’»πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’».to domain (good luck!) for something then let me know!

I hope we get some fun domains and some silly ideas for side projects in the comments!

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siddharthshyniben profile image
Siddharth

codersplayground.co.uk

  • CodePen alternative (like you said)
  • The site for a programming themed playground for kids
  • Site for learning codes like Morse or the Ceasar Cipher
  • Call of duty-ers playground?

db20.org.uk

  • Some sort of database hosting?
  • A site which can detect how many decibels any sound from the microphone is
  • All dragon ball episodes of 2020?
  • Top 20 news items? (daily bulletin)
  • The news from the Daily Bugle which was written on the 20th?
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posandu profile image
Posandu

codersplayground.co.uk

A Forem Community (Installing Forem is also a challenge! XD) + Code Challenges site. Focused on Javascript, CSS, PHP, Angular, React, etc

db20.org.uk

Top 20 items?

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dilutewater profile image
Rachit Khurana

I own 3 proper domains & a couple of free domains.
Out of those 3 domains, 2 domains are in use. (1 for my personal website , & 1 for few other things like a cryptic hunt & a trivia quiz).

I have 1 more domain dilutewater.xyz
(DiluteWater is my pseodoname that I use for online accounts.

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev

Right I will focus on dilutewater.xyz then!

  • homeopathy website (but you explain how homeopathy is a load of rubbish then redirect people to an actual online pharmacy for a commission)
  • you start a band that plays music under a waterfall on a couple of old string instruments (Di(2) Lute)
  • if you don’t mind questionable marketing You become the next β€œsmart water” and market that your water is more wet than other water as it is more diluted.
  • you turn a pickup truck into a herb garden and sell speciality herb mixes to Australians that are dried and just neeed rehydrating (Dil(herb) Ute(Utility vehicle is AUS))

Yeah, I went silly with all of them (except the two lutes idea, could be the next 2 Cellos! 🀣

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dilutewater profile image
Rachit Khurana

if you don’t mind questionable marketing You become the next β€œsmart water” and market that your water is more wet than other water as it is more diluted.

Nice Idea 🀣.
I will try to make when I get time

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stealthmusic profile image
Jan Wedel • Edited

denksaft.de

It’s German for β€œthought juice” which relates to coffee. I thought about starting a German developer podcast but never did it because i found a very good one existing already πŸ˜…

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev
  • you create a coffee brand that is enhanced with vitamins and minerals that is designed to replace the energy drinks people drink with a healthier (not healthy!) alternative.
  • You create a site that asks a single, thought provoking / philosophical question each day and then people can add their answers. You can only add one answer a day and then you vote on answers you think are good and each day has a "top 10" answers section.
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stealthmusic profile image
Jan Wedel • Edited

This one question a day is actually a brilliant concept, I like it a lot! Just need some thought provoking questions πŸ˜… but that could also be voted on…

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev

I am glad at least a couple of my ideas have been decent, most have been silly!

I liked that idea too, I should stop giving away all my best ideas 🀣

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stealthmusic profile image
Jan Wedel • Edited

Lol, I wouldn’t be mad when you would register thoughtjuice.com and make an English version yourself. ☺️

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev

thoughjuice.com is already taken domain name

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stealthmusic profile image
Jan Wedel

🀣

Someone was quicker!

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev

I mean the letstalk.dev (and spanish version) is an awesome domain name for streaming so I think you have a good purpose already (although a podcast would be great too obviously).

But that isn't the game so:

  • A site where developers actually use their voices to communicate...almost like this old thing called a phone call. Think voice notes in discord style / slack style chat threads.
  • A place where you can find out loads about your favourite developers (let stalk) and they post stories about their day to day activities so you can stalk them (get to know them!)
  • A Text to speech software platform that is optimised to read code in IDEs.

Those are my initial ideas! 🀣

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dmoranf profile image
dmoranf

Wow! Such a great post!!! i own many stupid domains ... i give you this two!

doulove.me, always thought about making some crush app around facebook friends ...
networkingcrew.com ... maybe i was drunk when i bought this :D

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev
  • doulove.me - a virtual "they love me, they love me not" daisy petal picking game.
  • doulove.me - a site where partners can ask questions about their partners and see if they know the answers. Where this becomes fun is that you can play it with friends (probably while drinking) so the questions will probably get a little risquΓ© and you learn if your mates know more about your partner than you do as you can all vote on / give the correct answer!
  • doulove.me - a site for housing stray animals, like the RSPCA.
  • networkingcrew.com - An online business networking site with a twist. You for "crews" with businesses that compliment yours (same customer base but not competitors). The site let's you build a mini site for your crew that you can each refer your customers too and find each other business.
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dmoranf profile image
dmoranf

Im very impressed by your creativity :D thank you so much!