Hand registering - going to your favorite registrar and typing in domain.tld, seeing that it is available and registering it.

Buying aftermarket - buying it from someone else or a company (TDNAM, sedo, DNForum, person to person, Traffic etc..) or a drop catcher (Pool, Afternic, etc..)

OK, people when should you do which?

What I think:

Hand Registering:

  • New technology (recent - MT9)
  • Definite development (you will develop it)

Aftermarket:

  • (Any hand-registering reason)
  • Good domains
    • Revenue
    • Traffic
  • Investment (LLL.com, NNN.com etc..)

What else?