One more great idea. This time it's mine!

Don’t you just hate it when you see a great idea on the Internet? An idea you didn’t have, but should have. Things like Twitter, eBay, Myspace, surf exchange, pixel ads. Things that are quite simple, but ingenious! Well, here comes another one (I hope).

I’ve always wanted to get in on one of those awesome Internet memes. My husband and I have registered countless domain names through the years on a whim. Some worked well, others were duds. We’ve been searching for that magic idea that just takes off like lightning. Did any of them work? Probably not, or you would know who I am.

But this one, this one is killer. I tweeted something a few weeks ago, asking a question and saying that the first person to answer gets a free link on my website. I mentioned this to my husband (working away on some program a few feet away from me). His reaction astonished me: “REALLY! A free link? I’ll answer that”.

I kind of laughed. And I asked “Are you a link whore?” We both laughed (ROTFLMAO laughed), and then the little light bulb came on for both of us. There was a mad rush to our domain registrar to see if linkwhore.com was already taken. And an excited discussion of how we could use the question in social networking, whether it would be offensive. What would people do to get on a site like that (similar to asking “What would you do for a Klondike bar”?) Alas, this name and several similar ones were registered. And it’s sure to offend many. But what a fantastic idea. We had to do it. We thought of all the nonsense names that have taken off. Yahoo, Amazon, Google. It didn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with linking. But it needed something catchy. Something short. Something that was challenging and could be asked as a question.

Something like “I dare you!” Which is what we settled on. Linkdare.com Available, and so full of potential.

So how does it work? We want you to talk about your site, sing about it, make a video about it. We want you to write about us, tweet about us, tell jokes, juggle, and rate others. In exchange, we link back to you. What will this be? It’s all up to you, the user. You create the content. Simple? Yes. Easy to do? Certainly. So what are you waiting for?

We’ve already had a few entries. Robert Bravery of Integral Web Solutions and The Brave Programmer did a nice little write-up . He talks about the value of “link juice” and why people will “beg, buy, borrow and steal” to get it. Why he likes it? “The reason why I like LinkDare is that you just don’t get free worthless links. In order to get a link from LinkDare, you have to add value to the site. It’s what networking is all about. You scratch my back I scratch yours. LinkDare is all about doing some crazy things. You can do dares and crazy things in order to get link backs in a variety of ways.” He’s even offering extra free advertising, if you read his article and follow through. Good deal? I think so. So go check it out, do something crazy. And I’ll link back to you. Dare you!