Colbert for pope? Over 100 “pope” domains registered yesterday

A retiring pope? Some smell a profit opportunity.

After the sudden resignation of Pope Benedict XVI yesterday, I wrote about some of the likely names for the next pope and their registration status. (Hint: they’re all registered.)

Although the likely names were taken long ago, that didn’t stop people from registering over 100 .com domain names yesterday that included “pope”.

A lot of the domains are bets on who might be next, including popejuliusiv.com, popeposterous.com, and popepeterthesecond.com.

But many of the other domains are more amusing.

Consider ColbertforPope.com, registered by a Washington D.C. man.

I also like the visual from PimpMyPope.com, which it turns out is actually the name of an existing game.

Hoping for a little diversity? FirstBlackPope.com and NewBlackPope.com were both registered. (Of course, no one was silly enough to register a domain related to a female pope.)

TopPope.com would be good for a show like America’s Next Top Model.

And despite the hyphens, I kind of like the ring of Pick-a-pope.com.

You can see a full list of the registrations here.