The LaunchPad WordPress Theme As A Hipster Domain Holding Page

I haven’t made much progress in deciding on what to use as a hipster domain holding page system since I last wrote on the subject. In short, that’s some kind of page to use as a placeholder on all of those oh-so-clever URLs you’re stockpiling. Although I’ve had few deep thoughts in the interim, I did decide to start testing out some ideas. Since I have a bunch of dormant domains, I’ll set each one up a little differently and see what feels and works right to everyone involved(this means you too).

First up for consideration is a WordPress theme called LaunchPad by Ian Stewart, a blog theme with no content, specifically designed to attractively hold domains while you decide what the heck to do with them. I came across it on the Weblog Tools Collection blog. The theme is mainly just a fairly attractive blog front door with an email subscription submission form that hooks in to Feedburner’s FeedMail service. To set it up, all you have to do is set up your feed at Feedburner.com, note your feed URL and ID, and pass those on in the LaunchPad options menu.

So far, it seems like a decent option. The setup of the theme itself is easy, though going this route does mean you need to set up a WordPress install on your new domain, which is a consideration. The page it generates is fairly good looking, though I’d probably make a few tweaks. It gives your users a call to action to sign up for future updates, which I like. It doesn’t have ads or sponsored links or paid content or any way to make money, and depending on your perspective that could be a boon or a boo. It also doesn’t have any content that could be of value to a random visitor. I’m not sure yet if that’s the way I’d want to go. But it is simple, clear, and doesn’t insult the intelligence of the visitor. All good things.

Last week I invested in yet another brilliant domain name, Rickeypedia.com, and that’s where I have LaunchPad set up. I have no idea what Rickeypedia will be yet, except that it ought to be an information resource relating to Rickey Henderson, one of the most entertaining baseball players of the modern era. If you have ideas or would like to put something there yourself or lend a hand, I’m all ears. In the meantime, check out the LaunchPad theme there and let me know what you think of it. I’ll be trying out other approaches on other domains, until I figure out what I like best.