I was watching the Fox Sports channel with my brother, and I saw an ad for Xoom.com, a global money transfer service. While their demographic targeting was smart (we were watching a soccer match), the domain name doesn’t pass the tv or radio test. Apparently, “xoom” is pronounced, “zoom,” so the announcer sounds like he is saying “goto zoom.com” when in fact, he wants people to visit xoom.com.
This is a major reason why those brandable web 2.0 domain names del.icio.us, flickr.com, and now xoom.com don’t really make sense and could cause major confusion.

I am not an active bidder on Namejet at all.   In fact, I’ve probably backordered less than 15 domain names there it total – with about 10 in the last few weeks alone. One day a couple of weeks ago, I decided to use “Lowell” as a keyword to see if there were any pending drops happening that might help bolster my Lowell.com network.
Lo and behold, I saw LowellRealEstateAgents.com dropping. I had previously picked up the .net for registration fee, but Domain Active (a subsidiary of Dark Blue Sea, parent of Fabulous) was selling the .com for more than I was willing to pay.   Since the difference in their price and my expectation was so far apart, I didn’t even inquire about it.   Surprisingly, I placed a backorder and was able to acquire it for just $69 as the only bidder.
A couple of days ago, I was doing some Namejet searching and I came across CheapEntertaining.com. While it’s not a cream of the crop name, I think it is fairly strong – especially in light of the tough economic times. I was the only person who backordered the name, and I was able to acquire it for $69. I did a bit of research, and I found that this too looks like it was owned by Domain Active.
Clearly the name wasn’t making much money as a parked domain name, otherwise they wouldn’t have dropped it.   However, I think this is a pretty good name for just $69. Now is a great time to keep your eyes on the dropped lists. Some scanning programs may not pick up on the good names that don’t look like they’d have strong revenue stats.   IMO, it sometimes takes a gut instinct to see a good domain name.