An entrepreneur with a startup looking for a domain and business name will often play around “with sounds in hopes of hitting upon a unique combination of vowels and consonants that he could turn into a brand” according to this Business Week story, the story in itself an example of the importance of domain names today. Using this method, Business Week reports it’s given us a range of start-ups with names like Bebo, Etsy, Lala, Lulu, Zlio, Zoho, Ning, and Zing. Business Week notes all but 20,000 of the available combinations of 4 letter domains have been taken. With such a scarcity of 4 letter domains, it’s led to domainers getting in on the act. An example given is of one domainer who now owns several thousand 4 letter domains, selling 7 or 8 domains per month for an average of around US$1,000. Business Week notes less than 1% of domain sales break $100,000.
http://businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/aug2007/sb20070813_986517.htm