You know, I keep reading this stuff on self-hosting, and it gave me an idea that has nothing to do with this original post. I think you'll like the idea, though.<p>Imagine an AI kind of program that:<p>- determines the cheapest, most capable hosting provider
- determines the top 20 trending niches and randomly picks one
- determines the best available domain name for that trending niche
- uses a credit card and sets itself up with hosting
- finds trending content and through synonymizers writes short summaries about it and links to it
- signs up for and uses multiple ad networks until it can find the most lucrative top three for the content it serves and rotates these three
- every week, broadcasts a link about itself to other social bookmarking and social networking sites
- automatically uses whitehat SEO techniques to try and increase its page rank
- within three months, reproduces itself to build yet another site like that
- after 12 months, sells that copy on flippa.com automatically<p>The only thing it needs is a credit card and someone to respond to captchas or click the Submit on a form it suggests.<p>Each new owner merely sits back and collects the profit. It's a self-aware affiliate marketing system.<p>Pretty funny, eh? However, it also would be pretty interesting to watch.