going once, going twice...

i spent the past half hour putting "common word".com into the url bar on firefox. things like true.com, false.com, shame.com, and right.com all have websites with varying degrees of worthlessness. i wanted to branch out and put some quasi-nonsensical words.com into the bar, just to see what happened. my first try landed this gem:
crikey.com
honestly, i'd completely forgotten the crocodile hunter existed. such is the case with oz/kiwi fads i suppose. still, someone, somewhere believes crikey.com is worth at least $45,000.00, as this is the starting bid for the rights to crikey.com. now, let's consider the market valuation of this domain.

possible content for crikey.com:
1. crocodile hunter fansites
2. personal website for cameron rikey
3. sometimes funny but mostly racist website about odd japanese paraphanalia, a la engrish.com

potential windfall for each market in reverse-numerical order.

3. racist japanese site: i included this because 95% of the results google gave me for "rikey" were stupid americans trying to say "me likey very much" in a condescending, stereotypical japanese dialect. since assholes don't have money, let's assume the total valuation of this market to be at $465.35. since the internet accounts for about 8% of global economic transactions (link to a reputable source), we can safely say that crikey.com, your home for asianic-racist humor, has an estimated annual revenue of $37.23. after you factor in hosting costs (about $108/yr), crikey.com will recoup it's $45,000.00 investment in infinity years.

2. cameron rikey's personal website: since cameron rikey doesn't exist, the projected annual revenue is $0.00. however, the reduced bandwidth means you could use a free hosting service, such as doteasy, for $0.00 annual. this is slightly better than the racist crikey.com, as you don't add to your debt, but it's also no better, since it still takes infinity years to recoup the initial $45,000.

1. crocodile hunter site: despite it's obvious upsides (brand recognition, maybe something else), this option is fraught with pitfalls. just buying crikey.com doesn't entitle you to use of the crocodile hunter's name or likeness (which is most likely the property of animal planet [maybe the crocodile hunter himself, but i doubt that- he hugs alligators for a living. i can't imagine he's too business savvy]). then there's the possibility they might make "crocodile hunter: collision course 2", which would futher dilute the crocodile hunter brand. once you factor in hospital bills for the beatings you recieve for running a crocodile hunter fan site, all potential profits are sucked dry. once again, tell your investors they can expect an infinitely negative return on investment.

summary and reccomendation
well, it is a website, and we are living in the information age, so i say float a second mortgage and go for it.