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Whether it's through a bad business-model, poor planning, a loss of interest or whatever, many domains are eventually either retired, change hands, or become an event-horizon that freezes at the moment of last-update.

The 7am.com website falls into that latter category and is a snapshot of the news on its last day of publication back in June.

Other once-well trafficked domains such as Soda.co.nz become bits of flypaper owned by various companies hoping to scoop up a bit of traffic from links that still exist out there on the web.

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But, every once in a while, an old website that belonged to a long-defunct business plays another important role -- that of bringing an idea or business back to life.

One of the best examples I've seen of this in recent times is that of Split Cycle Technology, the shonky enterprise set up by Kiwi Rick Maine.

Several years ago, as has been well documented previously, the Split Cycle company went bust -- not long after I suggested that it was it was a suspect setup.

A couple of years later I noted the whole thing had gone belly-up and that the company's website had disappeared.

Well, like a phoenix from the ashes, the Split Cycle website is back -- resurrected by a group of folks who believe that although Rick Maine was full of it -- there may still be some life in the basic concept. What's more, they're intent on continuing development in a very open manner, freely publishing their results and effectively making this a kind of Open Source engine project.

Although it would seem that they've already missed one of their goals (getting an engine running in 2004), I wish these folks well and hope that their use of the website as a method of sharing and harvesting ideas with/from others produces much better results than the old site did.

I wonder if the folks over at 7am.com might want to donate their domain name to some enterprising open-source news service? Somehow I don't think so.

I'd like to hear from readers if they've found any defunct websites that have risen from the ashes to revive a good idea, business model or service.

Oh, and has anyone else noticed a once-haunting similarity between the way IndraNet was doing just what SplitCycle did? ie: promise a fabulous new product based on revolutionary ideas then, after failing to deliver, start investing in unrelated technology (hi-tech fans in the case of Split Cycle, air-powered cars in the case of IndraNet).

It seems that I'm not the only one to have spotted this.

Go have your say in The Aardvark Forums

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