Your Last Good Idea

When I decided to start this blog a few years ago, the first few hours were mostly spent trying to come up with a good title. Not because I couldn't think of one, but because I couldn't think of one which wasn't already taken. I really wanted to use "Apropos of Nothing" because I thought that phrase captured the randomness which was going to be the point (or lack thereof) of this blog. However, not only was that web name already taken, so were about 10 different variations of it. Anyway, I don't know why I was thinking about this a couple days ago, but since it was on my mind I decided to check back and see if those blogs are still around. Most of them are and thankfully they are updated regularly. This is rare because the vast majority of blogs on the internet are abandoned after 30 days and some go without being updated for months on end. If you've wandered over to my golf blog any time recently (don't worry if you haven't, as you haven't missed anything) you know I am as guilty of this as the next guy. But the difference with me is that at least I don't feel like I am hogging a great domain name with an outdated blog.

I remember when I tried to start a band back in high school - the first three band 'meetings' were spent batting around a lot of possible band names while doing little to no actual practicing. That's because we knew, even at the tender age of 15, that a good band name is almost as important as the music. I firmly believe that some bands get signed just because they have a really good name to market. This way of thinking is not unique to me either. You would be surprised to learn (though, maybe you wouldn't) how much time guys spend coming up with names for bands we do not have (also names for bars we do not own and sports shows we do not have a chance of ever getting on the air). A lot of people think any thing can be made into a band name, but that is not the case. If it were than there would not be so many musical artists throughout history which have changed names after signing with a label. Think about it: do you think The Temptations would have topped as many charts if they had remained "The Elgins", which was their original name? Of course not. No one wants to buy the hot, new "Elgins" record. Clearly, The Temptations is much better.

Look, I get it - coming up with a great name for your blog is a fantastic moment. In that second you are convinced you are an extremely talented person who was simply looking for the correct outlet for all the things you have to say. But if you haven't come up with a creative thought for the site since that day it may be time to let someone else have it. Let someone else have a go at turning that catchy domain name into something which will actually produce content on a regular basis. There is no point in having a blog with a great title if the space underneath that title has one post from 3 years ago and that post is four sentences about how you though the end of "Lost" was really bad. You've had some time to come up with something more and nothing has come along so clearly, the well ran dry. You had one hit and it was that title - you are officially the Chumbawumba of blog writers (catchy, memorable name, extremely short career). So step aside and let someone else see if they can pick up the pieces.

Admittedly, I am a little neat-freakish when it comes to this kind of stuff. I hate it when people leave out-dated material about themselves on the world wide web for the entire world to see and misread. This is why I do things like delete my MySpace page as soon as I notice I haven't been on the site for two months. But I just think if you aren't going to update your blog than you may as well delete it and stop hogging the website. Honestly, some of the domain names otherwise creative people have been forced to use as an alternative to the one they really want because somebody had the smart idea to buy the domain back in 2005 but haven't had a good idea since are ridiculous. So, here is what I propose - Google (because they take care of everything else on the net) announces they are giving everyone six months of warning before they do a sweep of blogger and any sites which haven't been updated in two full years are being deleted. That way if you really gave a crap you would have enough time to go in, write something and save your blog. If you don't than you don't have to worry about it, as it will be taken care of for you and you can continue to put out your same level of non-effort. I'm willing to bet it would free up lots of domain names for people to claim. Just make sure you don't also stop updating once you get it, because a great domain name is a terrible thing to waste.