| I have no data so I'll give an anecdote instead. :) When I finished the first year of my return to University in 2001 I decided to buy myself a domain name as a reward. (Positive reinforcement and all that...) Due to all the single word domains being long-gone I looked at two word combinations that were still available and--exactly how is lost to the mists of time--ended up with: rancidbacon.com I decided that it would serve my purposes in the short term but figured eventually I'd have to get a more "professional" domain for supporting my freelance contracting career. One thing lead to another, I got some contracting gigs from various places and then got involved in Google Maps hacking which lead to the first amusing domain reference. I got invited to the O'Reilly Where 2.0 conference and got referenced in telephone press conference for the event: "He runs the rancidbacon web site, where all of this was first documented,"
<http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/39/transcript.html&#...; On meeting fellow map hackers on the trip to the conference the first question I got asked after introducing myself was "Hey, what's the story behind your domain name?". As a result of that hacking I got more contract development work (and an email from Google but that's a story for another time) and I started to think "Hmmm, maybe I won't have to move to a 'more professional' domain name after all..." In the end I kept the name because in the circles I moved in, it had good "brand recognition" and I figured the name itself acted as a filter for people who could work with my more laid back style (although I must admit I hadn't considered the cultural issue before now...). The second amusing story happened a few years later when I ended up being interviewed on a nationwide publicly funded radio show because I was the user of a local startup. Before I went on air the producer said "Hey, look we'd prefer if you didn't mention your domain name on air because some of our listeners might not appreciate it." Then as soon as I got on air the host introduced me as being from "rancidbacon" and once she was wrapping up the interview finished with "So, what does rancidbacon mean?". In response, I got to spend a minute of nationwide radio telling the story behind the domain. And a recording of the host saying "You're the Rancid Bacon guy!" on air. :) (Although she also said she hoped the name wouldn't come back to haunt me if I ever turned vegan.) Plus, it gives random people on the internet something to do if time machines ever get invented: "If they ever invent a time machine, I'm going to go back to 1995 and say that sentence to somebody: 'In this case, the enabler is ... Python libraries made available by rancid bacon.'" http://hello.typepad.com/hello/2005/06/the_future_of_o.html /end anecdote |