I hear it all the time. And it drives me nuts.
By "it" I am referring to the statement: "all the best domain names are taken."
Not by a long shot.
While it is true that most (English language) dictionary words were scooped up long ago, there are still lots of opportunities to get your hands on a catchy and memorable .com domain name.
For starters, you can always turn to the domain name re-sale market
where thousands of previously-owned (previously-loved?) domain names
exchange hands every day.
Spend a few minutes poking around on The Domain Name Aftermarket and Afternic
and you will find thousands of desirable domain names ready to be
scooped up for under $500, and many for far, far less. (I paid a
whopping $5 – yes, five bucks – for the last .com domain name I bought
on the re-sale market.)
The other way to get a great domain name is to – pardon my bluntness – be a bit more creative.
True, croissant.com is not available, and you probably can’t afford
to buy it, but (at the time of me writing this) flakypastries.com and
frenchtreats.com are available. (I’m not saying that these are the
greatest domain names ever, but you could do a lot worse, and they took
me all of two minutes to come up with.)
Play around with a thesaurus, rhyming dictionary, and domain name research tools and you should be able to find a great domain name just waiting to be registered.
Great article, I think the other message to people is that the Domain is a fairly minor part of the business. Pick a name and start to establish an experience around it. In some cases its better if the name means nothing so that you can create its own brand/experience.