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48 Comments

I bought 300 emoji domain names from Kazakhstan and built an email service

  1. 7

    Nice idea, I lke the process as it has been driven by pure technical curiosity.

    How did you make the PH promotional video? Very engaging!

    1. 2

      I command the video-making beans to be spilled!

    2. 2

      Ok spill the beans on the video.

    3. 2

      I was thinking the same thing! It is brilliant.

    4. 1

      Edited it together using DaVinci Resolve & Spline for the 3D stuff. Both AMAZING free tools.

      I spent years editing RuneScape YouTube videos as a teenager - finally came to some use!

  2. 4

    The well documented story of how you executed the entire thing was just too compelling.. Had to grab one myself!

    1. 1

      Awesome, thank you so much Markus!

  3. 3

    I am keen to hear how people make such cool promotional videos? Is it just Davinci resolve or AE?

    1. 1

      DaVinci Resolve, Spline & Years of editing Runescape YouTube vids..

  4. 3

    I was just reading this on HN and what I found really interesting was how you used TikTok to get the word out. Was that your first video or do you regularly use it?

    1. 1

      First video! It was on a fresh account with zero followers and zero views. It's crazy how much free exposure you can get if TikTok picks up your video.

  5. 2

    Awesome read - super cool. Thank you for sharing!

    1. 1

      Thank you so much Harrison!

  6. 2

    Nice! Thanks for taking us through the process. TikTok is insane!

    1. 1

      The TikTok algo is so powerful, I'll definitely be trying it again. Although, I'm pretty sure that Gen Z can smell that I was millennial from a mile away, and boy did they let me know about it.

  7. 2

    The video is amazing. Imagine someone seeing brand@🚀.kz on a business card 😂

    1. 2

      Thank you so much! My dream is to see an emoji email address on a blimp.

      1. 1

        Haha, that would be amazing. And what about elon@🚀.kz on a rocket? 🤔

  8. 2

    Good stuff. Tiktok was definitely a good channel as this is a product for zoomers

    1. 1

      Cheers Fabio - I'd never tried TikTok before, but if the algo picks up your stuff its great free advertising with amazing reach.

  9. 2

    Haha what an awesome idea and such a great story!

    1. 1

      Thank you so much! :D

  10. 2

    Great story.

    I can just image my mum struggling to figure out how to type the emoji for stephen@⭐️, haha

    1. 1

      Grandparents and technophobes beware..

  11. 2

    That's a great story.
    I'm not in target audience for this kind of domain, but your marketing strategy is really awesome. Tiktok, video with actor voice,....
    Very professional, congrats!

    1. 1

      Thank you Tim. I really suck at Marketing so that's very awesome of you to say! Strangely the best marketing is usually these project posts I put out.

  12. 2

    I feel like your projects are getting better and bolder :)

    1. 1

      Thank you Chumra! Definitely feel like I'm finding my groove a bit.

  13. 2

    Great idea. Replying to emails and threads can be complicated but a great product to go with a brand image.

  14. 2

    Ben, you are a genius! Thanks for sharing this story.

    1. 1

      Thank you so much for reading :D

  15. 2

    This is brilliant, Ben!

    1. 1

      Thanks so much Marc, RandomDots looks awesome!

  16. 2

    Woah. Your explainer video is legit! I watched it twice, because #mesmerizing. ;) I love this project and am signed up to be notified of the greatness that you create in the future! keep rocking!

    1. 1

      Thanks so much Courtney :D!

      1. 1

        Just the truth! I am excited to follow your journey.

  17. 2

    Wow! These should be freakin' NFT's! Way to go! A legitimate use for NFT's!!!

    1. 1

      Emoji domains are really similar to NFT's. There's a limited supply of single-char emoji domains (about 45,000). Some people are selling .ws for >$10k. They have very similar characteristics to NFT's - except you can actually do stuff with them.

  18. 2

    This is the best thing I've seen on the Internet in a long time. Just bought jules@🦁.kz

    1. 1

      Looking forward to chatting with you more Jules!

  19. 2

    That was a fantastic thought. Super Cool😎

    1. 1

      Thank you Akash! 😎

  20. 2

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 1

      Thank you so much Sonia :D

  21. 5

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 1

      Thank you so much Karl! There was this amazing comment when I posted this on HN:

      "The customer's words echoed in his mind. 'robert at lightbulb emoji dot kz, but with a real lightbulb emoji.' The clerk had registered thousands, maybe tens of thousands of e-mails into the Nordstrom Rack Nordy Rewards program, and he had seen it all, but this, this was something entirely new. This wasn't the single letter username or the overly sexual address or the gmail address with the plus sign, all mildly interesting but within the bounds of what was possible. What was normal. What was sane. This was something entirely new. The point of sale workstation has no key for the lightbulb emoji. This was the predicament. But if an emoji can be an e-mail address, maybe some other part of the computer can be a keyboard. Maybe the floor can be a table. Maybe hands can be screwdrivers. The clerk began touching the screen. Pawing at the sides of the monitor. He began mumbling as he moved his attention to the receipt printer, ripping it open, 'there's gotta be an emoji button in here somewhere.' As his search intensified, so too did the stares of customers waiting in line. In a final effort the clerk hoisted the register above his head before smashing it on the ground, bringing himself down with the machine. Associates had pooled around their coworker and were urging calm. Emergency Services had been notified and were en route, and slowly the chaos turned to calm. An associate reached out to ask the customer if she could finish ringing him up on another register. 'Sure,' he replied, 'but this time let's just use my gmail address.'"

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