I just emerged the loser in a battle of wits with an imbecile. But I’m laughing.

Although I own about a dozen domain names (and carry a couple more in trust for other organizations), I’m still purchasing more names for my upcoming book. It’s fun and feels like buying really cheap real estate (at $10 a pop you can’t get cheaper land). I came up with one combination of words that I thought I would like to own but it was already taken.

The owner, Mr. A., has been sitting on this site for four years. It’s a parked page. I did a little more Google-digging. Turns out he owns several domain names, all but one purchased on the same day four years ago (the first one was purchased on the same day seven years ago). He must’ve had a birthday on that date and used his birthday money to buy the names. Or perhaps they were from Christmas money. At any rate, none of these domains have anything but a parked page and none seem to have had any real sites on them at any time.

Even more damning–he tried to sell the sites on a webmaster’s forum two years ago. I assume there were no takers; there certainly no messages replying to his post.

So I figured I was a shoo-in to take the site off his hands (I planned on actually doing something with it). I wrote him under a neutral name and after the initial exchange, I offered him $50 for the site. I was willing to be bargained up to $100 but let’s face it, domain names are cheap and as plentiful as my imagination. Apparently I insulted him because he swore up and down that he was developing a killer site for this name and that the name itself was worth six (unspecified) figures. I wished him luck with his site, and added that I couldn’t wait to see such a successful site. (After four years in development, it had better be the best damn site on the Net!)

The name google.com is worth quite a bit of money; now. So are a lot of other names like msn.com and amazon.com and so forth. I think you can figure out for yourself which names are worth a chunk of change. One name that has been worth nothing but lawyer’s fees? Sex.com. So far that site has cost it’s two “owners” (who have been battling in court) nothing but money and has made them zilch. That’s supposed to be the most valuable piece of real estate on the Net. (Right now it seems to be an affiliate page or search site for whomever owns the site. It isn’t really a site with a purpose.)

Mr. A. decided four years ago to buy domain names that have to do with escorts. Guess he felt that anything sex-related translated to big bucks. They’re mostly stupid names and it’s little wonder that he hasn’t sold them yet. Unfortunately for me, he did figure out one name that I would like to have and use. It’s not integral to any of my plans, but it would be a very nice addition to my collection.

What he fails to realize is, logically, sitting on a name worth so much (according to him) and not doing anything with it is not exactly a winning argument. I can’t imagine what he plans to do with this particular name besides sell it. I certainly don’t see him being able to utilize it in any sane way. So yeah, I’m mad that I don’t get what I want because I plan on doing something with it, whereas this dumb-ass keeps something he will never do anything with and lucked into in the first place.

He also seems to think this is the late ’90s and that someone will pay thousands and thousands for a single domain name. This is where I start laughing. He probably thinks that if he could just get to the right venture capitalists that he could start a killer site too.

Mark Cuban extolled the virtues of domain speculation in his recent Playboy interview. But Mr. A. isn’t Mark Cuban. In fact, I’m beginning to think I was dealing with a teenager trying to sound older and more mature. He also doesn’t realize that the everyday people who make money off their sites are usually very prolific bloggers. No one these days makes real money off domain speculation. At least, not that I’ve recently heard.

There are just too many domain options. In fact, this site (texasgoldengirl.com) came about simply because my first choice of names (goldengirl.com and variations) were already taken. So I came up with this and there you go. It’s funny, because this name, Texas Golden Girl, has become a sort of trademark for me. It will probably follow me the rest of my life. And it came about because someone else already had the domain name I first wanted.

But, if any of you are interested in buying goofy-sounding, escort-related domain names at inflated prices, drop me an e-mail! I can point you to the right guy.