Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

It’s Friday, time for the world’s first domain name industry cryptic crossword

Kevin Murphy, August 6, 2010, 12:00:14 (UTC), It's Friday

I love cryptic crosswords.
Not the boring, brain-dead variety you get in the American press, I’m talking about the proper UK-style wordplay-based brain-teasers.
So I’ve written one. A small one. Focused on the domain name industry.
All the answers are the names of people, companies, things, concepts related to the business and politics of domain names. Any domain nerd should easily be able to recognize the answers (though not necessary work out the clues).
Click the image (made with puzzle-maker.com) to see it full size.
Crossword

ACROSS
1. To kick a household pet down the field. They do it in Spain. (7)
8. Messed up dose is secondary concern. (4)
9. Registrar to scratch a computer screen. (10)
11. Lucky if it lands on you? Rick Schwartz ain’t buying it. (6, 4)
13. Captain Car Kid crazily drives really, really fast. (6, 7)
14. A bastard of a registrar gripe site. (7)
15. The Most Important Person On The Internet. (4, 4)
DOWN
2. Scout about the west for a Canuck registrar. (6)
3. Te Kanawa’s first on a Greek island, and first in most ICANN comment periods. (7)
4. Odd tests rot, oddly, a breast-based marketing copycat. (7, 4)
5. May be done by the leader of a race or a registrar with insider information. (5, 7)
6. RFC editor to mail the Spanish. (6)
7. A short haircut. Then, in postscript, burning down a building for kicks. Having a mid-life crisis. (3, 7)
10. Making endlessly confused, up-in-the-air error. A cause for concern two years ago. (8, 3)
12. Registry sounds like the rear end of a young horse. (7)

Did I mention there’s a prize? Yes. The first person to email me with all the right answers. I’ll give them a lovely prize. I’ll think of something. Probably a free ad spot or something.
Feel free to speculate about the answers in the comments.
I’ll post the answers in the comments after we have a winner, or after a week, whichever is sooner.

Tagged:

Comments (3)

  1. Michele says:

    Nice idea 🙂

  2. Andrew says:

    I really liked the idea, but cryptic is a a great word for this. Talk about hard. I got 4 and a half answers. 5 down, 3 down, 12 down and 14 across. I also have a guess at 6 down, but there are many potential answers for this.

  3. Kevin Murphy says:

    Here’s the solution:
    http://domainincite.com/images/DICrossword1Solution.png
    The first set of correct answers came from Adam Strong of DomainNameNews.com, who’s now the lucky winner of a permanent blogroll link.
    Congrats Adam!

Leave a Reply to Kevin Murphy