[WEB4LIB] Chemistry website content change

[Dan Lester]

This is a growing trend.  Companies in the porn business buy up domain
names that have recently expired and then link them to porn sites that
they own.  They get the benefit of visitors they'd probably never
otherwise get, and if only a few of them sign up for memberships,
they're ahead.  Also, they're generally willing to sell the name back
to the original owner.

As a local example, the site http://www.caldwellid.org/, which was
owned by the Caldwell, Idaho, Chamber of Commerce, wasn't renewed.
When I discovered it and notified them, they were shocked.  It turned
out that they'd moved their office and the bill wasn't forwarded, as
it had been more than six months since they'd moved.  The email
addresses that were on the domain registration were for people who
were no longer employed there and no changes had been made with the
registrar.  Basically, a combination of errors and ignorance.  That
kind of thing isn't at all surprising in a membership organization.
Rather than try to buy the name back for several thousand dollars,
they simply registered http://www.caldwellidaho.org/ and are now
running it.  The old URL links to the same site as a couple of others
that have been mentioned here, so I'm not sure how many companies are
doing this as an attempt to make money.  Will this experimental
business model succeed in the long run?  I personally doubt it, but
only time will tell.

That's why idaholibraries.org is registered in my name personally. It
is paid for by the Idaho Library Association, but I know that I'll
keep it paid, renewed, and so forth.  When I retire, I'll transfer it
to ILA and by then there should be someone who knows the details of
keeping it all up to date and paid for.  It should probably always
have "personal care", as association officers and mailing addresses
change much too often in most cases.

I also can understand how people start up a project and it eventually
falls by the wayside for various reasons.  When I started
www.postcard.org it was almost the only postcard collecting related
site on the web.  Now there are hundreds of them, the vast majority
much more comprehensive and up to date than mine.  I'd like to find
someone to take the domain off my hands (for very little money...I'm
not a speculator).  But so far that hasn't happened and I've just let
it sit out there and languish.  And so it goes.....

dan


Wednesday, August 15, 2001, 7:33:13 AM, you wrote:


EOM> FYI:

EOM> Our reference librarian recently brought to my attention that 
EOM> the content of www.webmolecules.com has....um...changed
EOM> to a discussion of a different type of chemistry altogether.



-- 
Dan Lester, Data Wrangler  dan at RiverOfData.com
3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho  83716-7115 USA
www.riverofdata.com  www.gailndan.com  Stop Global Whining!