If you’re like most online veterans, you probably like buying domain names for fun and profit. I know I do. I’ve been doing it for about twelve years now.

But it was not until very recently, as in about like 10 minutes ago, that i realized this: how I end up buying domain names is probably very different than the way you do. Read on, and then if you want you can share your opinions in favor or to the contrary in the comments, or win a shiny new domain name.

That is, if you’re a real a person and not some robot spider sent by Google.

Many of us buy a domain name because we think somebody else might want it later, or perhaps somebody forgot to do something obvious, like register their own name or company or slogan or whatever.

I guess I might do that sometimes. But that’s usually when the domain name doesn’t end up being worth much.

I usually come at the whole domain thing a little differently. Usually when I decide to buy a domain name it is because there’s that semblance of a seemingly marketable idea bouncing around my head and I think I might as well go ahead and buy a little insurance policy on that idea. Like a $10 policy. $50 if i want the 5 year one.

Who knows, maybe it was a great idea. Maybe in 4 or 7 or 10 years I’ll circle back to that idea and think; right time, right place. Let’s do this. Or you will. No worries, you can have it. If it is the right time, right place for you, then I would be happy to contribute to that. Redirect and transfer!

Then I will have given someone a present while having a new story to tell…for $10 - what a bargain!

So here’s a little sample of five particular gems i’m sitting on right now. If you have a good idea for using one of these things, tell me below. If I like it, the domain is yours, free. My call.

feedbreaker.com
pillowbank.com
snufflebug.com
tastemakr.com
scubapals.com

Four tech guys living in an apartment in downtown San Francisco have just launched Justin.tv, a site where you can watch the world through the lens of a camera strapped onto the helmet of one Justin Kan. Live. Twenty-four hours a day. Even when he’s taking a leak. Apparently until either you, or Justin, cease to exist.

Oh, and you can also chat about it in real time with others who are doing the same thing, or watch highlights of his life. Or you could call Justin directly. Go ahead! His number, posted on the site, is 415-948-3219.

Justin was formerly the founder of Kiko, a now defunct online calendaring company that he started two years ago and was funded by Paul Graham’s early stage fund, Y Combinator. They ended up selling the assets of the company for $258,000 on ebay, and now Paul’s back as the financier behind Justin.tv.

So, what’s it like watching Justin’s life? Well, he mostly goes around meeting with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and other twenty-somethings hanging out in SF. A few days ago the cops showed up at his apartment in response to a prank caller claiming there was some bad sh*t going down. Oh, and there was the night when all his buddies tried to push some site to the top of digg. Not exactly HBO.

But the interesting thing here is that the guys behind Justin.tv are apparently using the web site to test out their technology and garner some publicity so that in the future, when they launch their *real* business, we’ll all be able to stream our lives to the world 24/7 wherever we may be. Think about how awesome that will be. Um… yeah.

Are these guys brilliant marketers? According to Alexa, Justin.tv has skyrocketed after only being live for seven days to a traffic rank of 3,086. Not bad, really. And the media is flocking…who wouldn’t want to write a story about these guys…inevitably it makes us all ask the question, “(Why) Would people want to watch my life 24 hours a day?”

Or is Justin.tv going to end like the story of the man who had his name legally changed to dotcomguy, and locked himself in his house in January 2000 for a year with a few dozen web cams and a laptop with an Internet connection, so all the world could watch him…um…shop online.

Dotcomguy also generated massive publicity, and was reportedly getting about 20 million page views a day on his site the first month he went live. But by the time he finally emerged from his house a year later and rode off on his moped, the sponsors funding his adventure had reneged on their commitments and dotcomguy had become a joke within the tech community.

The most popular video in the blogosphere right now is this one by Michael Wesch (see http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro…), Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University.

It’s pretty awesome - worth spending the next five minutes of your life watching, no matter who you are.