Edited OP with an offer to merchants. If I can get a similar amount of private donations from potential users, I can pass that on the programmers and waive the merchant fees for the early adopters instead.

Still seeking any comments from potential users. Thanks freemoney.

Thanks for the responses! Please note that I am very serious about being generous to anyone who is in this, if profits on my end become a reality. I think having two guys available to do work at different times would be great, and so would collaborating on a certain script to get more done than you could have yourself.

The two of you may want to message each other and discuss your skillsets, and hit it off, if you will.

I have to get some sleep now, but expect a group discussion soon if I can get some merchant contacts.

Preliminarily: The first merchants to sign up will pony up some BTCs to the programmers for the rights to have their database added to the search engine for 3 months. Renewal is therefore on a quad-annual basis. Listing rates and inventory lists can be updated at that time.

Thanks for the interest. I am hoping to get enough merchants to chime in and then we can start talking more. For you and any other potential programmers reading, I also want to get an idea of your 1) Interest in doing this for more of a large royalty/stake or alternatively a principal cost plus interest paid back by revenue over time than for an upfront project fee (is that a dealbreaker?) and 2)Whether you could be a part of a small team with 1 or 2 other coders.

Essentially I am looking for some people like me who sees this as something that would be a step in the right direction for the community, and that doing it right over time could result in a better payout. Something we could say is the site "we" built and not just some code you programmed and sold me. Ideally it is a continuing association, and for upgrades we mutually agree on what can be done so you're not just a hired gun. Say I can message you and say "hey can this be added" and you say "yeah I could do that" or "how about this instead" instead of "that'll be $xx for x hours of work." Then you program the new feature while I communicate with merchants. We understand that we should make a better site to get more traffic, because we both have an ownership interest.


Feel free to send responses to PM.

Update: Seeking merchants. First three to sign up and send their inventory list can put a banner on the homepage with free click-throughs for a month. Asking for just a small 2 BTC total for 3 months of the service, to be split to the programmers. Private donations graciously welcome.

The idea is to run a simple search engine that goes through the listed inventory of products that can be bought from bitcoin-accepting sites. To keep things simple, for any matches for a given input, the output results would be a link to the business home page, not actual product url. But users would know that they could then follow that link, and the product WOULD be available on their site (up to them to be in stock). As far as the algorithm for positive results with multiple business matches, I would like to keep it randomized so there is no bias to alphabetical or signup order. Perhaps a pay-for-first-results link could be implemented if there were ever more than a handful of matches.

Programmers - would you want to code the search engine itself? Graphically this is a low-frills project to get it up. I would like the search to have some smarts though.

Businesses - would you like to be listed (either a flat fee or click-through ads on the home page, no fee for search results)? If you don't have any digitized inventory lists, would you be willing to create one? If so I am willing to create tags if you want me to so that searches can become more generic in the future.

For example, for now I would like to return results for "ATI Radeon HD 5970" (hypothetical item description which comes from a business' inventory spreadsheet), but on my own time I would end up putting tags "graphics" and "card". The search would be tailored to show results for one or all words in the product description, and include an option to include tags if wanted.

In my mind this will enable people to easily see if they can buy a specific product from a bitcoin-accepting vendor.

I will absolutely not accept indexing any sites that are offering illegal goods or services.

Anybody want to be involved?

Oddly enough I registered bitcoinreviews.com a few days before you did this but you beat me on the release of your site. Here's to hoping there's no business-animosity between us as time goes on. For now I need solid development just as you do.

Pending my own live site, we should try to communicate on how to co-exist with basically the exact same concept and name. Maybe some specialization is in order?

The reason I liked tidbit when I came up with it because tidbit is already a word that indicates a small quantity that manages to not be insignificant (ie it reveals enough) and I thought it would be cool that anyone who wanted to start with bitcoin could go to the faucet or similar site in the future and get a few tidbits to start their journey. just a couple of tidbits and they would feel compelled to know more / would go deeper into the bunny hole. After putting enough tidbits together they would have a new understanding (or a whole bitcoin).

I would be considered a domain hoarder. You can see my thread on the subject here where I listed a bunch of available second-level domains related to bitcoin. No one replied, presumably because I irritate them or they had no use for the information. See thread at http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8891

Notes: - I am not making any money on ads. The ad-parking program costs a monthly fee that I doubt I could recoup (at current demand for bitcoin). There is no serious market for bitcoin advertising yet, and additionally I have a hunch that bitcoiners would be less willing than normal people to click on generic ads. No sense in putting up a bum website, either.
 - I plan to develop as much as I can but need more funds before I can move on. Right now the bitcoin economy is looking stagnant, and makes it harder to justify going broke over, and harder to find investors for. If the pace of growth can kick back up, I would love to pay skilled developers with a hefty share of anything earned, perhaps all of ad revenue until they get their "principal" (agreed project price) back but for that to happen, they would have to rest assured of longer-term viability to be willing to develop for free in the short-term.

If anybody actually is interested in registering a site and thinks they are all taken, I can list some more (better?) options that I didn't list in the thread that you might want. I doubt I will be buying more domains, or likely, if a better forecast incites me to want to, they would be taken by then. Just ask if so.

Haha it IS a tiny universe! I've seen you play dude! Seen the Funk group on Mondays, jam on Tuesdays at the 5, also saw Newberry at Grant Park Fest last year.    Nice to know you're a bitcoiner and nicer to know about the show. PM me your addy with the btc figure you want sent to it. I think I could pick up the tix if you'll be at the 5 on monday or tuesday.

The creator posted it in selling yo ...

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8864

I have low standards, so I don't know if I should join 

Think this should be done at a college and not at a mall. Mall crowds will be more diverse but I can't see most shoppers caring enough to look it up on google, and we don't really need an influx of confused junior high students who will flood the forums and suck it up.

With college kids you get people who are naturally on their laptops often and don't mind satisfying their curiosity while procrastinating. Aim for the Apple crowd. Aim for hipsters who might trend us and blog us. They could be the next demographic to join in. Too early for most everyone else. Need name recognition so the ball gets rolling.

For people to really care though, the community needs to have more buying options and better looking, more advanced sites. Most everything looks underdeveloped, in beta.  It would have been easier back in the day when angelfire and geocities were acceptable. Now that quality is like playing tennis with a wooden racket.  

now that is a nice signature banner!

lol did you post that yourself ?     jk i wouldn't care if you did.

No offense, I think it's fitting that you're the lottery guy and your signature is a giant bilboard. I find it funny right now, but it will be annoying tomorrow.   

this is sweet I'm gonna post here to find it in the future. You might want to add simply "(USD)" under the numbers row.

This is a smooth move. Correct me if I am wrong but the buyer gets what they want at market price and incurs no fees like they normally would (thus being able to get more for the same btc), the amazon seller gets to obtain btc for market price (again minus fees), or less depending on what kind of commission/discounts he gets as an amazon affiliate.

EDIT: Since it wasn't clear, I don't own that long list of domains. That's what I meant by taking a pass, and saying they're open. They were unregistered at time of OP.

This will be a wide post, wasn't sure where it should go so put it here.

I have been extensively investigating and investing in domains for the past week. I understand the low opinion many have about domain hoarders, for good reason. However, I also believe that "you snooze, you lose" and I saw an opportunity just like others do when they buy a mining rig. But as part of my mission, I want to give back to the community and not be a domain douche. So I will develop what I can as I can, to where, if it comes time to sell I can offer a good site to an end user (a good one). We can work together to lessen the chances of corporate america getting to google with crap websites before we do with high-quality content. The last thing new bitcoin users need right now is a lot of content farming crap.

Q: Is it worth it for me to do what you did; get foggy eyed from trying every website I can think of for days on end?

I went through thinking of several hundred names that were already taken. I also came up with a couple hundred still available. Not that they all make economic sense. Trust me, the big generic ones are now pretty much reserved. Registry records indicate that there have been many recent acquisitions with btc-related words in the title. Many ORIGINAL names, however, are still available. They will, of course, take more work to stand out in search results, though.

Q: What's the best way to check if a domain is open?

http://instantdomainsearch.com/   It may run a day behind the ICANN registry, though.

Q So what sites ARE still available for registration?

Some that I won't reveal today that I want to keep to myself in case I want them in the future. If you find them and buy them, good! I like your thinking. Anything that a whois registy search reveals is available. Anything in the list below.

Q: You're still a dirty domain squatter

Whatever. Right now the value of my purchases are worth what I paid for them, or less, considering how from the incarnation of bitcoin to last week nobody wanted them. I took the risk with my money. If I want them to get traffic, I have to put more money and time in. If you're sitting on a lot of bitcoins because you think they will multiply in value, well, then you're a dirty btc squatter. There are only 6 million to go around right now! Anyways, I plan to be a good guy with all of this. No telling what kind of lame SCAM company could end up on google with my names if I wasn't able to make a move on my thoughts.

And, without further ado, here are currently open .COM top-level domain names I'm going to take a pass on. They are all available as of the time of this post. They get somewhat better in quality as you go down the list (imo). Some have business potential, some are more viable as your personal btc appreciation site. I would probably own a few for safekeeping for the community (aka I would sell to someone trustable here for little or no markup) if I hadn't already spent too much on regs.

I don't own these. I am not selling these. They are there for the taking. I just mulled over them.

With 'bitcoin' prefix: (Format: www. bitcoinword .com)
(goods) apparel,clothing,gear,condoms,sunglasses,bev,comp,
(lamer) yearbook, yes, ok, rolls, whybother, dispensary, marketbasket, recession, stability, endeavor/s, mission/s, build/s, handout/s, handbook/s, grab, chase, yield/s, know, wise, tycoon, everything, anything, skills, principles, things, methods, estimate/s, what, mission/s, quest/s, always, circles, collective, give, brackets (for next March), spin,easy, melt, wow, sense, truth, union, content, authority, brochure, returns,assets, budget, technology, sector, earnings, performance, evaluation, inventory, commodities,
(better) development (this should really be taken by someone involved in the community), middleman, story, history (again, belongs in the community), appreciation, zeitgeist, collective, arena, society, town, magnet, issues, generation (2 interpretations), bestpractices, ledger, assist, assistance, office, drawer, envelope, dropbox, guidance, tomorrow, tricks, happenings
(better, original:) headsortails, thatphrase, mineshaft, minetour/s (please someone pick this up and show off rigs),

With no prefix (Format: www. wordword . com)
bitcoinpimp, okbitcoin, bitcoinsyall, whattabitcoin, friendlybitcoin/s, gitbitcoins, somebitcoins, bitsforbites, bitsforbets, believeinbitcoin/s, mintbitcoins, acquirebitcoins,  considerbitcoin/s, discussbitcoin/s (maybe redirect to the forums), confusedaboutbitcoin/s, wespeakbitcoin, blamebitcoin,getwithbitcoin, realmenspendbitcoins, whatthebitcoin, lolbitcoin, othersideofthebitcoin,

If you pick up any of these sites because of seeing this post, say so in this thread. It is fun documenting the 'land grab' and I can edit the OP.

Sites that I DO own and want development on

bitcoinratings, bitcoinreviews, bitcoinupdates (.coms)

They should be the first results on google for the search terms in the title, and they should be able to pass muster with their equivalents in the non-bitcoin internet world. If you want to help more, we can talk about my programming/webmaster/advertising agent needs. I would like good graphic artists, or atleast to be set up with the right template for the job, allowing me to fill in the daily posts. Need a solid review/rating user submission system set up (I can moderate posts on the day to day). Would like some modules programmed that display streaming stats, and contributors for the updates site.

If you have all-around skills and find the potential of a name valuable, and I find your skills likewise impressive, we may be able to deal for you retaining most of advertising revenue in exchange for me keeping the domain ownership or most of it. One thing we can talk about is me transferring the ownership of one of my domains to you in exchange for work setting up another one.

The only problem with the advent of browser miners is that if they become really widespread, no one will be able to break even with electricity, pending a large increase in btc price.

Awesome awesome idea though. Do you have any experience with web design, OP? I am wanting someone to code modules for my sites that aggregate data and spit it out in feeds similar to twitter, and I want them to look real attractive.

Unfortunately I cannot help because I am not a programmer and can't script. But the problem is there. Our bitcoin related info and shop sites are not pretty enough, are too convoluted, technical, and look too amateur to be accepted by a flock of non-tech newcomers. We need to get a lot closer to Apple's design sense to get the hipster crowd, who would be most likely among non-nerds to get into the market. Practically every site looks beta right now. This is not acceptable to the hipster crowd. On the software side, running command lines is instant turnoff to the non-tech-savvy-majority.

Understandably all of the btc related companies are pretty short on money but they need to find a way to get all of the GUIs and shopping sites to come out looking like something in the 'normal' online business world. Who cares if a programmer can hack and is a linux guru. The public wants graphic artists so bitcoin doesn't look sketchy.

Shoutout to the guy behind bitcoincharts.com, that site looks real nice for the more advanced investor and has no 'bitcoin site handicap' imo. It stands up against any trading statistic site. It's the sites doing the exchanging of btc that bother me. Hope someone finds the capital/time to get the next revisions of homepages looking nice. And expand the FAQs while they're at it.

great thats good! Sorry I didn't want to offend you. It's people like you that got the market started and help with demand. I also don't get any btc handouts every day, so I just have to wait idly by and hope my investments pay off.

we are all tied to btc success no matter how we got in to it.