I put this down whilst killing time on an errand as I was thumbing through the comment thread  on TheDomains in response to the Adage article that had the posited Facebook as “a domain killer”. Just a harmless riff on an old theme with no disrespect intended.

How Many Domainers Does It Take to Screw In A Lightbulb?

First, a prominent domainer registered screwinalightbulb.com.
This precipitated a run on lightbulb/screwing names.

• lightbulbscrewedin.com
• screwthatlightbulb.com
• lightbulbsscrewed.com

But the latecomers had to settle in around the margins

• I-will-screw-in-lightbulb.biz
• screwedbulblight.info
• lightbulb-screw-4u.ws

And typos

• litebulbscrewin.com
• lihgtbulbscrew.com
• screwlightblub.com

But then a bunch of web 2.0 companies did an end-run around them:

• Lightscrewr.com
• Bulba.licio.us
• Scrood
• Bu.lb

Much to the dismay of the domainers, many of those companies received huge funding rounds at massive valuations, even before any of them had actually changed a lightbulb. Some were acquired by large media conglomerates. A few S1’s were filed to IPO in the lightbulb/screwing space. Domainers holding inventory figured the ship was coming in.

After a few high profile aftermarket sales of screwed/lightbulb names under .net and .org, the .co premium auction on screwlightbulb.co hit 6-digits.

Meanwhile, the lightbulb still had not been changed, until a janitor happened upon the scene and promptly switched out the lightbulb and deftly screwed in new one.

Then a long  thread on a prominent domainer forum ensued where everyone vehemently agreed that the janitor was a “pigeon-shitter” of the first order who “just doesn’t get it”.