ALUMNI IN THE NEWS
King of the Dot.com Domain
With over 1,400 domains in his collection, Hal Meyer ’82 is probably in the top quarter of private collectors, buying about 100 domains a month. Although there are over 30 million registered domain names, only a fraction of those actually have websites at them. NEWS-TIMES/DAVID W. HARPLE
At DotCom Cowboy he buys domain names. At MentalInstitution.com he provides free e-mail addresses for more than a thousand people who want something out of the ordinary. No doubt about it, Hal Meyer ’82 is an Internet entrepreneur. “Back in 1998, I was doing a lot of web searching—still do!” says Meyer, “and to make things easier, I uploaded a page on one of my sites where I listed ‘all search engines.’ It was a pretty bare-bones page, but it was still my favorite. I told some friends about it, and everybody loved it, and it mushroomed and look at it today!” AllSearchEngines.com now gets around 10,000 hits a day. “It’s starting to make money,” he told the News-Times 10
Taft Bulletin Summer 2001
of Danbury, Connecticut. Meyer gets paid up to three cents for every visitor that clicks onto another site.
Later that year, he attracted the attention of the major news networks with the creation of starreport.com, which published the entire transcript of Kenneth Starr’s investigation report on President Bill Clinton and received over 15 million hits. At NamingSystems.com, Meyer uses his naming knowledge to consult for corporate clients about naming, branding, and corporate identity. He’s also created Novelint, a “business team for intellectual property enforcement.” “Mostly we deal with patent infringement situations, but we also have an interest in copyright infringement and trademark infringement,” he says. The site even lures new clients with an allexpenses-paid fishing trip. “You have to figure out what your most profitable products are,” he told the News-Times, “and you have to think strategically.” His latest venture? Free e-mail sites for all the Ivies: YardMAIL.com, EliMAIL.com, BigCatMAIL.com, BrunoMAIL.com, BigRedMAIL.com, BigGreenMAIL.com, BigPennMAIL.com, and MorningsideMAIL.com. Next he hopes to start an Internet service provider called EarthAccess.com and a venture capital firm at Copient.com. Source: Joe Hurley, Danbury News-Times
Athletic Honors Tammy Shewchuck ’97 has “scored more than anyone else who has ever played ice hockey at Harvard,” according to Harvard Magazine. She set Harvard career records this year for goals scored (152), assists (155), and points (307), bettering the marks of fellow Taftie A.J. Mleczko ’93 in all three categories (128, 129, and 257 respectively). Nick Kyme ’99, who plays squash for Trinity College, was named first team All-American. Max Montgelas ’99, who plays squash for Williams College, earned the Malloy Championship from the National Intercollegiate Squash Racquets Association.