If you visit Loser.com right now, you can see it forwards to the Wikipedia page for Kanye West. After noticing this forward, USA Today, The Washington Post and MTV published articles about Loser.com. Both articles cited the Whois privacy on the domain name, but I was able to use DomainTools’ Whois History Tool to get in touch with the owner of the domain name. I also saw that the owner has a Twitter profile that links to Loser.com.
Brian Connelly is the owner of Loser.com, and his name is listed as the domain name registrant as early as 2002 (the earliest DomainTools Historical Whois record). The domain name has a creation date of March 30, 1995, and Connelly told me that he “registered loser.com in the early days,” so this was not an aftermarket purchase.
Loser.com gets quite a bit of type-in traffic, despite not having a website. The last time Connolly checked, the domain name saw “anywhere from 30000 hits per day and up.” Connelly struggled a bit to figure out how to use Loser.com, once posting a question on Quora to ask “What are some ideas for using the domain name Loser.com?” Obviously building and managing a website is time consuming with no guarantee of income, so Connelly has been using Loser.com as a humorous forwarder that has gone viral.
I asked if Connelly is a Beck fan, and although he does like Beck, he isn’t a “super fan” as MTV labeled him. He shared more about why he is forwarding Loser.com to Kanye West’s Wikipedia page and other forwards he has done:
“Over the years we have done a few forwards sometimes motivated by politics or just being silly.
Really I setup this the day after the Grammys…at first I thought it was an act on Kanye’s part but sadly it was not.Besides the interruptions caused by Kanye at the reward shows I had the opportunity to see Kanye preform at Bonnaroo. He was so obnoxious and just full of himself that it was very distracting and left me not being a fan which is funny because my wife does like his music as she states “It was as if we were at two different shows.”
But seriously what he did to Taylor Swift and then almost an encore performance should demonstrate this guy may be successful and makes major bank but his behavior and ego is nothing but deplorable.
From what I have read and seen of Kanye I’m sure he has happy for the press — after all — All I have done is point to the man’s accomplishments which should speak volumes of his greatness — unfortunately for the public his greatness and genius is missing a verbal filter/regulator.”
I have seen other people using domain names as humorous forwarders. For instance, when Digimedia’s Scott Day and Jay Chapman each turned 40, their colleagues forwarded Old.com to their individual websites.
I do think Loser.com could be used in a more fruitful way for the owner, and I think he agrees. He has received quite a few inquiries and offers, but nothing has induced him to sell the domain name yet. Perhaps someone with a solid plan will get in touch one day… Beck, perhaps?
That would explain the recent uptick in inquiries on http://www.YoureALoser.com 🙂
It seems Brian is leaving a lot of money on the table not using it all these years. He should have at least parked it when not forwarding it for special Kanye type events, although maybe he did do that. Mainly, he should list it with a domain broker to try to sell it. It is a very hard domain to sell because there are not many good money making ideas for websites to build on it, but I am sure some companies would want it. Maybe even a weight loss company, as in losing weight.
I
Love
it!
Funny stuff. Kudos to the domain owner, and EXCELLENT use of this domain!
It’s amazing that a term like “loser” would get anywhere near that many hits per day. Just goes to show you the value a .com still has. With that much traffic I have a heard time believing he could not have been earning some kind of substantial revenue.
*that would be “hard time” of course.
@funny There is a counter attack from Kayne’s side, now HipHop.com is redirecting to KanyeWest.com
*Kanye’s side