One of Internet trends that has started to irritate people over the last few years is dropping vowels from company names - Flickr, Tumblr, Pluggd, Talkr, Anothr. As diehard members of the spelling Nazis, we decided to see what had become of the correctly spelled domains, which are still racking up pageviews from visitors who can actually spell.

Flickr.com - Flicker.com

Flicker.com doesn't really contain anything of value, except a big "For Sale" sign. If we're to believe the traffic numbers cited on the page, Flicker.com averages some 150,000 monthly uniques, which is nice enough but nothing to get rich with. The page also cites several offers the owners have supposedly received, with the biggest being $350,000, and all of them being declined. While we do agree that domain names based on single English words have a certain value, with the traffic the domain is generating, and given the fact that Flickr is already a hugely successful service, $350,000 might have been a good deal.

Tumblr.com - Tumbler.com

While Tumblr is a neat service which enables you to create TumbleLogs, which are basically simplified and easy to use blogs, Tumbler.com unsurprisingly sells - tumblers. If you believe the PR, they're shatterproof, and easy to wash, too. We're unaware of just how big the tumbler market is, but these folks have the right domain for the job.

digg.com - dig.com

If dig.com were available at the time, I'm sure that Kevin Rose and co would have bought that one instead for their social content site. Luckily, it wasn't - Digg turned out to be a fantastic brand, and the extra "g" makes it instantly recognizable. Dig.com, on the other hand, leads to a Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) corporate website. Bo-ring!

Profilactic.com - Prophylactic.com

Honestly, we've expected something nastier from this one, but it's just a placeholder domain with a boring list of birth-control related links. And a popup, thank you very much. Profilactic, if you haven't heard of it, is a "lifestyle aggregator", which collects data from your profiles at various social sites, creating a stream of life style mashup.

Plazes.com - Places.com

The "correctly" spelled counterpart domain of the popular location detection service is, once more, nothing more than a placeholder with a bunch of travel-related links. You'd think that whoever is holding a strong domain like places.com would try to capitalize on it in some other way than just nickeling and diming from affiliate links clicked by people who have no clue where they are, but hey, if that's what's keeping them happy, so be it.

Pluggd.com - Plugged.com

This is one of those rare instances when the "correct" domain name is actually being used for something useful. In this case, Pluggd.com is a podcast aggregator, while Plugged is another Web 2.0 project, currently in invite-only beta stage. The text present on the site doesn't explain much about the service except that it's going to be about 'knowledge sharing'. They also promise to give out three iPod nanos with special engraving to three lucky beta testers; the signup form is right there, what are you waiting for?

Talkr.com - Talker.com

Talkr is a service that converts text-only blogs to podcasts. Talker.com, on the other hand is a web hosting company specialized in hosting MUDs (Multi User Dungeon) and Talkers. Being a huge MUD addict back in the days when World of Warcraft wasn't even on the horizon, I salute these folks; but having in mind that MUDs and Talkers aren't really the in-thing in the last couple of years, I do have to wonder if a fantastic domain name like talker.com is worth more than their entire business.

Anothr.com - Another.com

Here's another rare case of correct spelling actually being put to some use. Anothr.com is an RSS aggregator which sends you news right to your Skype or IM client. Another.com, on the other hand, offers customizable e-mail addresses, enabling users to choose between 6000 different domains. Unfortunately, Another.com is currently undergoing an overhaul, and invites are closed.

reddit.com - readit.com

Well, the difference doesn't get any more obvious than this: while reddit.com is a highly successful social content site, readit.com doesn't even have a placeholder page on the domain; not even a link - nothing, nada, zilch. It's just an "Under Construction" page, and it's outdated even at that. One more piece of evidence that today, a solid domain name doesn't even guarantee you coffee money.

stikkit.com - stickit.com

While Stikkit is a nifty service that helps you organize your life with the help of little yellow notes, Stickit.com sports an oldschool image of an atomic bomb explosion, and a run-of-the-mill under construction notice - all in all, nothing to write home about. One more win for incorrect spelling.

Of course, this list doesn't exhaust all the "incorrectly" spelled services out there, but most aren't worth mentioning. Here's a quick recap of several others:

icebrrg.com - iceberg.com - the first does web forms, the second gives you a Flash-induced headache aggreg8.net - aggregate.net - which do you prefer - feed aggregation, or heavy machinery? zpeech.com - speech.com - the website annotation service had to settle for the "z" version since Philips grabbed the speech.com domain topix.net - topics.net - One would say that topics.net is quite a strong domain name, but at the moment it's dead: doesn't even return a 404 error page. The correctly spelled .com version leads to the Indianapolis Star. phixr.com - fixer.com - Phixr fixes your photos online. Fixer helps you fix your VCR. Yes, that VCR which you've thrown into the garage 7 years ago.

The lesson is learned. If you have a good product, the domain name doesn't matter. If you have a crappy product, a great domain name won't save you.