Yafla has an interesting and amusing analysis of registered internet domain names and some of the characteristics they exhibit:
If you want one of the 676 possible two-letter sequences, for instance for an acronym or abbreviation, you’re out of luck: They’re all taken. Even allowing for digits, giving 1296 combinations, again every single variation is taken.
Of course, that’s ignoring the fact that .COM registrars now mandate a 3-character minimum length, so it wouldn’t be an option anyways.
Of the 17,576 possible three-letter sequences, again every single one is already taken. Adding digits to the mix (note that I’m intentionally ignoring obtuse dashes for such short domain names, though technically they are legal from the second character onwards), giving 46,656 permutations, yields a larger number of garbage domain entries (either REGISTRAR-LOCKED, REDEMPTIONPERIOD, or with no nameservers), giving a false hope of 228 seemingly open domains, yet they aren’t actually available.
technorati tags: dns, domainnames, speculation, fun