I’m proud to announce that MostWantedDomains.com has successfully brokered the sale of the domain name Meet.Me for $450,000 in what we believe is a world record price for a .Me domain name.
The Domain was jointly owned by My company, Worldwide Media, Inc., Rick Schwartz and Ammar Kubba.
The domain name was acquired at the silent portion of a TRAFFIC auction for $5,890 back just over three years ago.
The domain will become the 7th highest sale of the year on DnJournal.com YTD chart and the 3rd highest non-.com sale of the year.
Beyond the money, there are some other important takeaways from the sale.
1. It’s a recent transaction.
Some of us older domainers (and it pretty hard to find domainers older than myself and Rick, although it should be noted that Rick is MUCH older) get tired of hearing that we are only successful because we got started back in the day, usually meaning the mid to late 1990’s and are riding out all of those hand registered domains all these years later.
Here is a domain that was purchased just a few years ago in an auction opened to all and for a pretty modest sum.
I believe there was only one other bidder in this auction and the reserve was set at $5K.
The domain name was bought from the Registry who at the same auction sold date.me and marry.me which we as a group also purchased.
As a personal note being involved in a sale with Mr. Schwartz is quite an education even for an old domainer like myself and the power of the word “no” that Rick frequently chats about cannot be underestimated.
2. The buyer is a big boy
There is another line of reasoning that I see in many comments that buyers of a non-com are uninformed or simply can’t afford the .com.
They buyer is a public company and owned the matching .com meetme.com but still felt it important enough, $450,000 important enough, to get the matching .me domain.
In actuality the buyer got a great deal.
With this .com they have locked up the space and is in a position to take there online conferencing business to the next level.
3. The bar has been raised on .Me domain name values, especially the domains with verbs, call to action type of domains as well as other bang on domain in other right of the dot extensions other than .com.
I have spoken about the expansion of the domain space for a few years and people have accused me on on other blogs & forums that I’m shilling for new extensions.
I guess they have ignored that I have actually invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, putting my money where my mouth is.
The only reason we sold the domain at this level was to raise the bar on valuations of other .Me domain names which we jointly and individually own.
Of course it also raises the value of .Me domains owned by a lot of domain investors.
Great domains for the extension, just got a huge boost.
No it doesn’t make a crappy .Me worth more but domain names like date.me, marry.me, love.me that we own jointly as well as domains I own like use.me and text.me are worth more now.
Yes I see opportunities in the right of the dot extensions.
At the most recent TRAFFIC Conference auction we once again were a buyer of a new extension this time .XXX.
Don’t be surprised to see a similar story to this one in a few years announcing the sale of one of those domain names.
Yesterday we saw a .ly sell for $100K
The domain space has an is going to continue to expand.
It’s just not a 100% .com world any more.
This is awesome news. Congratulations Mike!
Marvelous!
Congrats! This is a celebration for all of us. I’m glad to hear that a ccTLD has sold for this amount of money. I have seen a number of folks quick to judge ccTLDs because they are getting frustrated with the massive amount of names they are sitting on. Again this shows there is potential and in order to exploit that potential you’ve got to partner with the right people and/or make a few brisk moves. There are a number of domainers out there with great domain names, but they aren’t letting people know they own them. I am especially glad this was a .me! I am a big fan of .me and really appreciate the staff over there.
Btw, I think you increased the value of Ammar Kubba’s freshly grown stash as well. 🙂
Congratulations on the sale. Great deal.
Great news. Champagne!
For those with smaller budgets: meetsexy.me will be auctioned via Sedo soon.
In before the ‘tards come in with lists of similar names & fantasy offers received..
Then it will digress into a .CO thread…or maybe a 3d thread..
Then Costello will chime in to remind everyone how smart he was to get PalmSprings.com & Nashville.com…
Great sale! I believe meet.com was listed for sale for 1.2 Million on Sedo. It did switch hands I believe last year though, so there may be a private sale we don’t know about there.
Congrats on the sale. Another record for a CCTLD.
BIG Congratz to all involved. Very Nice. 🙂
Nice work fellas.
Mike, think this raises the bar for the value of *me.com domains too . . . like what does that make meetme.com worth ?
Any serious offers on move.me?
Wow. Awesome news! Congratulations!
that’s just silly… how could anyone pay that kinda price for a worthless domain?
i’d rather have the grilled cheese sandwich that golden palace bought for $28.000 on ebay and i’d sign a nondisclosure agreement as long as it didn’t contain a clause that said i couldn’t get drunk and eat it if i ran outta potato chips. just my opinion… other opinions may differ.
Congrats Mike
“silent portion”
domains that common people can’t know and buy?
Incredible what domainers get away with.
Sweet! Rick Schwartz bought a domain at his own TRAFFIC auction. But all domainers should feel very comfortable about that. There is no conflict of interest. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Great job, Mike! Great to hear that other extensions other than DOTCOM are selling for good money!
Congrats! My first thought when I saw the price was holy crap! It is definitely a word that suits the extension really well, but I never would have thought you could get that high a price for it. Great negotiating.
Congrats Mike. And to Rick and Ammar. Very nice sale. I sat behind you when you bought Love.me last year at TRAFFIC. That should turn out be to be a good one too when it happens.
Gnames
Sony as you may know launched a product after I acquired the domain name move.me and filed for a trademark.
We have filed to oppose the mark
We will see
Congrats!!!
This makes me VERY VERY happy:)
Great job guys!
Excellent sale Mike. I knew that name was going to eventually go for big bucks but admit I didn’t expect mid-6. Congrats!
Thank you Mike, Rick and Ammar for opening yet new horizon.
Thank you Conference Plus – good luck with the new name.
P.S. “Meet.Me” is so much easier to remember than “ConferencePlus.com”
This is great news for everyone. Thanks for sharing.
New High Tech
The silent portion of the auction is also called the extended auction or the online only portion
Those auctions have been on snapnames.com
Traffic until recently as well as Domainfest has had a live auction with 200-250 domains and then hundreds or thousands of more in the silent, or extended or online portion.
Opened to all.
would have loved to have seen the negotiating.
Was it like…no…no…no…no…YES!
WONDERFUL Sale! Congrats to all parties!
Before YES insert ‘Buyer capitulates after going insane at having to offer ten times more than anyone else likely would have’
This was a very educational post. This is an astonishing sale.
My one question is how do you when to stop saying “no”. You could’ve stopped at 100K, 200K, 300K, 400K… What made you stop at $450K?
Great sale Mike! Congrats!
Wow nice sale! Very high price for domain .me extension.
MHB – regarding your first point: “1. It’s a recent transaction.”
Guys who started in the 90’s, early 00’s, can afford to take risky speculative gambles. Just like FS can afford to risk $1.7M on his 40 or so .XXX’s. The early start affords you a bigger leeway with the risks you take more recently.
Not discounting anything you guys have done as you three clearly know how to make money. Just saying you do hold an advantage that is very real.
Tony
It was a joint decision as it was a jointly owned domain.
I would have to say gut feeling based off of who the buyer was which we determined upon receipt of the offer (although they never identified themselves) and flow of the emails and discussion we had.
Although our early responses were essentially no’s, I did not just respond back “no”, but explained the value of the domain and what kind of an offer it would take to buy it.
Tony
Point taken however this domain was priced under $6K no comparision to Frank S purchase of .XXX domains
For the record
Frank acquired 20, not 40 .XXX domain for his $1.65
Tony,
I believe the main advantage is knowledge, not dollars.
There are millions of people with more money than any of us.
This was not an expensive domain by any standard. However there is a BIG difference in mindset.
Many buy today to sell tomorrow. I don’t think we are wired like that.
We are playing a different game on a different field looking years down the road.
Lastly, business is all about advantage.
Whether in information, a better product or just getting there before the next guy.
Great team, domain and sale. Congrats guys!
Great return of investment. Congrats.
The sales price might be surprising, but it is one of the top .ME domains possible.
All domains are one of a kind, and this is what happens when the right buyer is interested and the owner(s) are willing and able to say “No” to lower offers.
Congrats.
Brad
Thanks, for the insights, MHB and RS.
“Guys who started in the 90′s, early 00′s, can afford to take risky speculative gambles.”
That is true to an extent.
Sure, it is a lot easier to produce great sales when you have massive portfolios of generics, and are financially secure enough to say no to what others would consider great offers.
There are many big time domainers who have basically retired on what they did in the 1990’s.
However, MHB is active today. I constantly see him in auctions, making good buys almost daily.
He is not just targeting high dollar domains, he targets value. I have been in many auctions with him that only had a few bidders, so I give credit where it is due.
Meet.me was obviously an excellent recent buy, and an even better sale.
Brad
What a sweet sale ! congrats.
That is a surprising price, but I congratulate you all for sticking it out. It certainly paid off and more!
@ MHB said, “ridding out all of those hand registered domains all these years later.” You did good – congrats!
Great sales comp for the entire .me space. Thank you for the update!
This just opened up a whole new can of babang
.Co just got a lot more valuable.
Told you
the right of dot era is up on us
@ Aggro
“In before the ‘tards come in with lists of similar names & fantasy offers received..
Then it will digress into a .CO thread…or maybe a 3d thread..”
@Robert Cline
“This just opened up a whole new can of babang
.Co just got a lot more valuable.
Told you
the right of dot era is up on us”
You called it.
Brad
You cannot discount the fact that the company is called MeetMe. If the company was not called this, would this domain have sold for this price?
@TLD, aka Captain Obvious,
Duh! Isn’t that the point? Hang on to the premiums and wait for the end user who has that great combination of an idea & CASH…cha-ching!
Nice Sale – congrats guys
Meet.Me is a marketing gimmick – the consumer will still be typing in MeetMe.com – no matter what they see on the billboard – i that regard I am in Todero’s camp.
And Yes – the top 3000 – 5000 non.com’s will always sell fine – but will never stand on their own – i.e. MeetMe.com is needed.
The losses mount with the suckers buying the next millions of domain s after the first 5000 have been gobbled up.
Holy crap, that is an amazing sale. Sweeeet 🙂
Congrats to you all
TLD
The company that purchased the domain is not called meetme.com they just own the domain.
In general as a domain holder it would serve you well to know as much about the person/company inquiring or who is most likely to be inquiring about your domain as you can.
Brian/Todaro
Domain names are by nature all about marketing.
Did you see this story also from today:
“””Any.DO is backed by $1 million in angel funding from Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Blumberg Capital, Genesis Partners, Palantir (Joe Lonsdale), Felicis Ventures (Aydin Senkut) and Brian Koo and includes Erick Tseng, head of mobile products at Facebook, and Elad Gil, Director of Corporate Strategy at Twitter, as advisors.””
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/10/any-do-launches-a-social-to-do-list-app-with-1-million-in-funding/
The thing is that you seem to want to ignore is that the market values marketable domains whether or not then end in .com.
When I say the market I’m talking about the bigger picture, the VC money, public company’s money, big money.
Look not only at the money but the people backing the any.do
not suckers
All have made 1000X’s more than all of us will ever make
Combined
So if you want to save your money and buy more “grilled cheese sandwiches” please do.
The domain name game like any other business, industry and investment is in constant change.
Adapt
They are throwing millions into marketable domains.
You can ignore all of it, hell better off for me if you guys do.
However as long as I blog I’m going to give the best advice as I can.
I started this thing to give back to the domain community.
Now I’m making a few bucks in ads but I’m not doing it for the ad revenue
Mike, Ammar, Rick – Congrats on the sale. Definitely a strong play for the .me space.
my prediction
.com will be dead ext. in a few years
I remember
just 2 years ago
when country code tld was a rare oddity.
maybe 1 or couple sales reported.
now they make up more than half the sales.
I believe .com was a mistake from the beginning and people are
only beginning to realize this.
.Co
is the upgrade that people are making now.
no one ever meant to say mystore.commercial
everyone meant to say mystore.company
besides company is searched 20x times more than commercial.
Congrats Mike, Ammar and Rick!
It’s always great news to see the domain market expand with solid sales like these.
Aggro:
It’s Castello, not Costello, punk 🙂
@Michael,
“Domain names are by nature all about marketing”
You are 100% correct – but .com’s also are about one small additional thing – called “Brand” – that is my only claim – regardless, that kind of sale is very huge news for all domain investors.
@David – missed you and your brother Michael at the TRAFFIC show this year.
BTW – When you wake up every day do you open up a little note pad window that says:
“It’s Castello, not Costello, punk”
Brian
and its my point that we aren’t the one’s who decides what is valuable or marketable
That is the big money guys and you can see that for them all things that make sense are on the table
Congrats on the sale. Well done!
@Michael,
Here comes the broken record again – I am just a realist – I do not make the rules – I play by them ….
How many UDRP and ACPA cases have there been where the TM Holder goes after a non.com when they do NOT own the .com already – very few, in fact Switch.net appears to one of those rare few.
All the countless millions of dollars of venture money collectively does not even represent a fraction of the cost involved in overturning how the consumer has been programmed by lawyers, courts, ACPA and UDRP that the .com is the only one on the shelf.
My opinion is worthless – its the courts opinions that are gold.
A $450K sale is huge – but my reality check says much more the exception than reality
Big Congrats!
Awesome job
Rick , mike would love more discussion on negotiations process.
Congratulations
Just wondering… When you arrive at the post tax cut, how does the sale stack up relative to your entire investment in the .me extension?
I’d imagine you guys are well to the black, but has .me roci outperformed, relative to the same amount invested in a random basket of premium .com?
Brian
Actually as someone that gets the email everyday there are quite a few UDRP filed on non.com’s
this weeks decisions include
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=DLI2011-0001
swiss-casino.li
swisscasino.li
> Transfer
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=DAU2011-0021
pelican.com.au
> Transfer
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2011-1416
oakleys.uk.com
> Transfer
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2011-1413
legostarwarsvideogame.info
> Transfer
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=DME2011-0008
marie-claire.me
> Transfer
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=DCH2011-0016
jako.ch
> Transfer
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2011-1545
almaylipstick.net
> Transfer
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2011-1512
bankamatik.net
> Transfer
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2011-1322
ibarclays.info
> Transfer
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=DPH2011-0005
youtube.com.ph
> Transfer
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=DNL2011-0058
scotchsoda.nl
> Transfer
LS
This sale represents about 4x more our entire investment in the .Me space.
That’s pretty awesome.
Goes to show that quality is what pays.
@ Robert Cline
Please stay on topic.
This post has everything to do with the sale of Meet.me, and nothing to do with .CO
Brad
so cool. I bought several .me’s including vegans.me, rubs.me and cashloan.me along with several others.
@Michael,
You have reinforced the reality I am emphasising – tm holders go after the stray non.com or variants to protect the marketing of their .com brand – with the reverse rarely occuring:
SwissCasion.li – Complainant already owns SwissCasino.com
Pelican.com.au – Complainant already owns Pelican.com
Oakleys.uk.com – Complainant already owns Oakleys.com
legostarwarsvideogame.info – Complainant already owns Lego.com
marie-claire.me – Complainant already owns MarieClaire.com
almaylipstick.net – Complainant already owns Almay.com
ibarclays.info – Complainant already owns Barclays.com
youtube.com.ph – Complainant already owns YouTube.com
The only one that could be an exception is:
bankamatik.net
and something they are going after bankamatik.com next.
As far as the generics :
scotchsoda.nl – What Scotch & Soda carries a TM in UDRP ?
jako.ch – looks like Heinz JAKOwitsch owns Jako.com
Is it all cash?
Congrats!
@professionaldomains
This is the point of the exception vs. reality.
Regularily you here someone say “Meet Me” at 5pm or whatever.
But no one says “Rubs Me” and CashLoans Me” – no offense but your email provides concrete eveidence that .ME is unbelievably limited. When someone sees “Meet.Me” on a billboard – they will type in:
Meet.Me.Com
or
MeetMe.com
And as far as our friend R.cOBERT .CoLINE – compete site analytics does not provide very conclusive evidence of the success of .co – in fact horribly dissappointing.
This is a huge sale in the non.com – do not get me wrong – its the followers the read this stuff that will get smoked.
Josh
All cash and in the bank
Excellent, with todays economy and markets, cash is king… or gold but you follow me heehee
Josh
couldn’t agree more
cashisking.com
Lol! You own that domain!
one way to look at this is the .me is simply a “domain hack” (as that term is defined by the nerds) on a .com they own. but unlike many domain hacks it separates cleanly on word boundaries and maybe that’s worth something.
maybe the idea that the dots might start shifting right or left in the user’s mind if new gtld’s become reality is a factor in this decision to buy a .me?
the buyer is in the conference business. were they represented at the recent palm springs conference mhb attended?
this buyer owns plenty of generic names. they do not have all their eggs in the tm basket by any stretch.
and let’s say domain hacks might be appealing to this buyer. so you do a diligent search in the tm databases and elsewhere and nothing turns up.
confpl.us is available.
“world record”?
how do we know there’s not an unreported sale that surpasses this?
it might be hard for some web fanatics to believe but there’s a lot that goes on in the world that is not documented anywhere on the web. not to mention there is a lot of non-english content to be accounted for. and it will probably be that way for many more decades to come.
“(english-speaking) web record” is probably more accurate.
Congratulations on the sale 🙂
Nice sale! And congrats to Michael Berkens,
Rick Schwartz, Ammar Kubba and buyer!
Nice sale! And congrats to Michael Berkens,
Rick Schwartz, Ammar Kubba and buyer!
the fact of the matter is
there has/is been plethora of signs/evidence that
cctlds have/is been exploding.
just this week we see sales like:
BEK.Co $1500 SEDO
UND.Co $900 SEDO
news just out today
Founder Institute Rebrands to FI.CO
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/11/prweb8947608.htm
If you want to follow what you see in your rear view mirror you profess .com is the coming of the anti-christ
If you want to look make money as a domain investor, you start looking at the right of the dot.
this is where 99% of the money will be, especially I dare mention
.Co
Mike,
What is the problem with being lucky? In the final analysis, we are all lucky or unlucky in one form or another. If someone is kind enough to say that we are lucky, we should just say thank you. I’d say having a little bit of luck really helps in this domain business. Maybe more so than most.
Domain sales and records are based on reported sales.
Ron Jackson has been the “official record keeper of domain sales”
In his own words:
“””Including sales for which the actual price in unknown, someone’s best guess, results from a ouija board, fortune cookie, divining rod, etc. would make any ranking of sales meaningless. These big sales for which the actual price is unknown are widely publicized so people know they occurred, but if they are not announced publicly they can’t be included in rankings of publicly announced sales.””
@Poor Uncle
I my world no one is lucky – we all create our own luck.
Life is not about winning – it is all about mitigating our losses – i.e. policing our territory – and there is a lot of policing in the domain investing business.
Success is based solely on limiting your exposure
a
fuc*in bomb blew up in many
readers here
today.
This is the kind of shock and awe that
shake you to the core and make you do
a 180 degree turn.
This is the kind of shake up
that makes you look at
the right of the dot
There are domain hacks, and there are catchy jingly domain names. The differences is, among other things, in price.
For more formal definition, see http://brands-and-jingles.com/glossary/
@MHB
don’t know if it matters but you may want to inform your friends at Meet.Me or MeetMe.com, that doing a whois on domain tools says that MeetMe.com is still for sale, at Sedo (and of course the same searching sedo), and when I went to http://www.meetme.com in my browser it tried to take me to a moniker marketplace auction for the domain although the page never seemed to finish loading. I’m guessing it’s not really for sale.
I’d say having a little bit of luck really helps in this domain business. Maybe more so than most.
—————
This sale didn’t come from luck. They deliberately positioned themselves to own this domain, anticipating that this exact outcome may occur.
I’ll pull a number out of my ass and guess there are probably 100-200 words that, when coupled with a .me, make for an intuitive brand. This was one of them. Meet.me, see.me, kiss.me, date.me, love.me, fuck.me,… These are the kinds of names they bought, while domain forum denizens spend their money on InterestOnlyMortgageRefinancing.me and wonder why they aren’t making any money.
What happened to MHB, did he get promoted or reborn ? 🙂
2. The buyer is a big boy
Did BT buy the name?
@BrianWick
Great to see that you have such an opinion on the matter. If meet.me could never stand up without having meetme.com in the line then can you please explain to me how about.me has managed to stand on its own? If you go to about.com or aboutme.com none of these domain names redirect users to the about.me website. In my honest opinion and not that it matters there is no problem with registering a .me domain name and building a brand on it. Your speculative comments are unwarranted and about.me completely defeats anything negative you could say in regards to this matter. This is the new world of domain my friend, its time to save that negative energy for making money and turning profits not for speculating.
“Meet.Me is a marketing gimmick – the consumer will still be typing in MeetMe.com – no matter what they see on the billboard – i that regard I am in Todero’s camp.
And Yes – the top 3000 – 5000 non.com’s will always sell fine – but will never stand on their own – i.e. MeetMe.com is needed.
The losses mount with the suckers buying the next millions of domain s after the first 5000 have been gobbled up.”
the fact of the matter is
there has/is been plethora of signs/evidence that
cctlds have/is been exploding.
just this week we see sales like:
BEK.Co $1500 SEDO
UND.Co $900 SEDO
news just out today
Founder Institute Rebrands to FI.CO
If you want to follow what you see in your rear view mirror you profess .com is the coming of the anti-christ
If you want to look make money as a domain investor, you start looking at the right of the dot.
this is where 99% of the money will be, especially I dare mention
.Co
(i) somehow the sale tag in the news is correlated with the number of comments in the post
(ii) f-ck.me is still held by the registry – one can buy wank.me instead, cheap.ly.
to be clear, it would be spurious to suggest this is not a monumental sale or that there is a bigger sale that has not been reported to a certain domainer who attempts to keep records of sales.
the point is that “news” can be presented via the web (where anyone can publish anything) in a way where hype and hyperbole are used very generously. and it will have an effect on some readers. this is true in general. but in domaining, it’s especially relevant.
and further, there is the idea that someone or something can become “famous on the web” far more easily than becoming famous in the real world. the former type of “fame” is far more circumspect. only those who are fully tuned in to the web will be privy to it. however, again using the web, people or things can be presented in such a way, using hype and hyperbole, that makes their notoriety appear to be a reflection what’s true in the real world. but for those not living behind a keyboard, it might not be.
“world record” seemed a bit over the top.
instead of something like: highest reported sale to certain domainer who attempts to document sales.
why does it matter? because hype can affect a market differently than unadorned factual information.
as a commenter above said, some people might get smoked.
I guess they should do that with sports records as well
Mr. Bolt is the fastest runner on the earth “to certain runners who attempts to document times”
Yes there could be a person somewhere on earth that has clocked themselves at a faster 100 then Mr. Bolt but for myself I will respect the records.
@The domain name was acquired at the silent portion of a TRAFFIC auction for $5,890 back just over three years ago.
Reading what I’m reading, I would hate to be the previous owner of that domain name!!!
Congrats boys! That’s a return of about 2,547% per year for three years.
Alan
The domain was sold by the registry prior to the launch of the extension.
There was no previous owner
Dave
Thinks that beats the stock market just slightly
@MHB
in all fairness
we must tell the full story.
as good as this story is
there is a flip side that MHB must tell and that is that
his expenses are probably in the neighborhood of
$1,000,000 in annual registration fees, right MHB ?
so in all fairness he needs a few of these sales just to keep up with
the renewal fees before he can count anything as money in his pocket.
so the story is not as rosy as it may seem at first blush.
Robert,
MHB is very open about this, http://www.thedomains.com/2011/01/01/its-january-1-we-are-750000-in-the-hole/
Businesses have expenses. Why is it not still a rosy story?
Amazing how small minded people can be or how jealously can show in every comment.
Robert
I already told that story
http://www.thedomains.com/2011/01/01/its-january-1-we-are-750000-in-the-hole/
oh yes, I see.
but to all these hi fivers and readers just salivating reading this story and seeing the numbers
they may get the wrong idea.
if you too had 75,000 domains, I can guarantee that you will have some sales as well.
But what is most prominent to note is that the sale was
number #1 a high value sale and
number #2 that it is in a cctld
this is where the game changer is.
No one can and will look at cctld like
.Co .Me .TV and even .net .org .edu
the same again.
In my opinion this is Midway,
this is where the inflexion point is
this is where it now shifts to the right of the dot.
remember it is less than a few months away now.
So ConferencePlus bought the name. You positioned yourselves but it was pure luck…Even Fuck.me and Sex.me wouldn’t command a price in that range.
We bought energy.me earlier this year and branded our entire company based on the domain name. Happy to see a big .me sales comp.
@Jason Thompson
None of us really knows how successful about.me is with or without those domains. Maybe they are feeling pressure because they don’t own about.com or aboutme.com. You’ve countered Wick’s points without a complete picture. Just because they use a .me and people use their site, etc does not make them an example of “what works” in alternative extensions.
I’ve just talked to an entrepreneur who did market research and found that the general populous has no clue about the “right of the dot”. Early adopters, venture backed guys, angels, tech crunch readers and those of us in the know understand that about.me is “about dot me” but the general public, from what I’ve been told, still don’t.
I love the creative new extensions and definitely wouldn’t pass the chance to make some cash on the upside, but the vibe I’ve gotten from entrepreneurs is, if you are going to aim to be a globally recognized big brand and appeal to the widest consumer base possible you can’t do it without the .com .
@.ME Of Course!
f-ck.me is still held by the registry……………
I found that out last week, so I hand reged F-*-*-*.me and listed it with Sedo with a $500
“buy it now”. When I got home tonight, I got a letter from Sedo’s legal dept, saying that they
“removed” it from sale because they felt it was “obscene”. I sent them an email saying you need to type in F*** in your search portal and see the thousands of names listed for sale with that word. I’m curious to see what they say about that.
In any case, when F***.me is released, they will have to find another selling platform to sell it!
The amount of “knowledge” in this thread has become overwhelming !!!
certain _former_ runners. that organisation which verifies athletic records is internationally recognised with a history going back to the early 1900’s. before the web and more recently blogs, it was not so easy for anyone to publish anything to a large international audience with zero oversight and without a significant degree of scrutiny. the organisation that keeps athletic records like bolt’s was operating in that environment for 90 some odd years before “just say whatever’s on your mind” blogs came along.
those record keepers are not still competing. they’re not trying to sell assets to make money to pay business expenses. and the records they keep are not influential on markets for those assets in which they are participants.
what a strange comparison.
congrats on the sale.
That’s a cool price
“So ConferencePlus bought the name. You positioned yourselves but it was pure luck…Even Fuck.me and Sex.me wouldn’t command a price in that range.”
This was not pure luck – this was the business of making dough off a very very very very very very small niche – and absolutely nothing do do with .ME . LY or whatever non.com.
This is pure sales for something that will ultinately sit on the fireplace mantle – but who cares – they made a sale – and that is good for the domain investing business.
Congratulations to your group, Michael as well as to the buyer.
It’s possible that they’ve noticed the huge success of LogMeIn’s online meeting and conferencing service Join.me and purchased the name with an eye to creating a similar offering. By the way, Join.me also owns Joinme.com but operates on Join.me. Check the traffic numbers for the site, they’ve been experiencing very strong growth.
Google has taken over the domain name Schemer.com
techcrunch.com/2011/11/11/whats-google-scheming-over-at-schemer-com/
that is a phenomenal sale!
what all this tells us is that
the adoption of the
“Right of the Dot”
is going better than
anyone ever expected.
more companies are open to using it
and most people are certainly open to seeing it.
XQS.me nice hack for sale.
Congrats, Michael!
What a sale !!!! That is fantastic news for .me domain owners, perhaps someone might now will take a good look at my SPONZOR.ME and give me the break I have been waiting for. .Me – is about You….
I’m NOT too impressed with that world record…
I’m more impressed with this new world record…
Over 100 responses on this story…
Now thats a world record within a world record…
Nothing to sneeze at…
I’m impressed!
No wonder you got the Blogger of the Year Award!
Wow!!!
@Anunt
Of course creating sub-pages is all about the playing the Google SEO game – but the content Michael is significant and so relevant to all parties – even the crusty old .com’ers !!!
We all know that
@Anunt
you must be a newbie. this ain’t no record. we’ve had over 150 responses on
.Co
stories in the last year.
sponzor.me I would not touch that with a 10′ foot pole.
do not be a follower, be a leader.
Intuitive.it sells for 20,000 Eur on Sedo
as I’ve said
I think
the right of the dot is beginning to gap open wide.
”
do not be a follower, be a leader.
”
OK R.cObert .CoLINE – We all want you to get out whole friend
How Will The New gTLDs Impact ccTLDs?
09. NOV, 2011 0 COMMENTS
New gTLDs has been one of the hottest topics in the Domaining industry all year, and with very good reason. There is no doubt that the new gTLDs will impact the space, some think it will be a good thing, others think it could hurt the value of existing TLDs. In the great gTLD discussion I find a lot of times the discussion is about the impact of gTLDs on .COM, .NET, and .ORG. Since this is ccTLDInvestors.com I thought now would be a great time to discuss the impact I think the new gTLDs will have on the ccTLD market.
First things first – there is no right or wrong answer here. When it comes to gTLDs the best we can all do is speculate, only time will tell the real impact. That being said, as investors it is absolutely critical for us to do our best to understand the market and how it is changing to make sure we end-up making the best investments possible.
I personally think one of the biggest impacts that the new gTLDs will have is growing awareness for the Domain Investing space. Never before have domain names or even the acronym “TLD” been in the news more than this year. More and more people are learning about our industry every day and more investors are entering the space than ever before. This is a good thing for all TLDs since more investors in the space means higher demand and greater liquidity.
The ccTLDs that I think will benefit the most are those that have seen the most liquidity and highest sales over the last few years like .CO, .DE and .CO.UK. Think about it, when a guy in Germany learns about the Domaining market for the first time after reading an article about gTLDs one of the first TLDs he/she will look to is .CO. The same is true in England for .CO.UK and India for .IN and .CO.IN.
Past sales data will provide an inspiration as well and if you scan a list of ccTLD sales it’s pretty easy to see that .CO, .DE and .CO.UK have been the leaders of the pack for quite a while. This is why I think investors anywhere in the world that find-out about the space and want to get started will lean towards the dominant ccTLDs. In this respect the new gTLDs are actually inspiring new investors and putting even more demand and liquidity into the top ccTLD markets.
Now for the negative. That’s right it can’t all be rainbows and lollipops. I do think that the new gTLDs will impact the geo-Domain ccTLD space. If a TLD like .LONDON become available then I think geo-targeted ccTLDs like LondonRestaurants.CO.UK or LondonHotels.CO.UK could become a second choice next to Restaurants.LONDON or Hotels.London. This is the only place that I can really see gTLDs taking business away from ccTLD Investments. Still, there’s a flip-side to this as well. I think that if a major company buys a name like Restaurants.LONDON they will probably want to own LondonRestaurants.CO.UK as well for brand protection and expansion. This could put premium price tags on select geo-domains buoying the market as a whole.
So what can you do as a ccTLD Investor to stay ahead of the curve? At the end of the day, investing is all about data. You need to make sure you are staying on top of every piece of data you can. When a new gTLD is released look at how many registrations they get, what names sell for the most, etc. Now is the time to invest carefully and learn absolutely everything you can about your market as it changes.
There is no doubt that the coming flood of new gTLDs will change the ccTLD market forever. The question for you is, how can you turn this change into an opportunity?
“It’s just not a 100% .com world any more.” – enough said.
Really nice sale of a really nice domain. Congratulations to the sellers and the buyers.
@ Robert Cline “sponzor.me I would not touch that with a 10′ foot pole.”
What are you talking about ? You don’t make sense of all you’ve been saying and for your information the keyword “Sponzor” means “Sponsor” in English and I repeat; for your information it is a widely used generic word in these upcoming and fast developing Eastern European Countries including: Czechoslovakia, Croatia, Slovakia. Finally, in future refrain from posting line after line of non-.me related posts as we were discussing the sensational sale of Meet.Me.
Have a nice day,
Alex
@Alex
good luck with that.
it may be a long shot but
it’s better than the lottery, right ?
@ Robert Cline !!! You’re starting to get on my TITS ….. Whats your problem ? Have you not got anything else to do apart from pigeon shitting your random comments here and there. I most certainly don’t need your good luck, I’ve got plenty of my own to go around a lifetime, so take this up your pipe and S.M.O.K.E it. End of Conversation
Have a nice day,
Alex
wow first i have heard of this …………my only .me is opportunity, seems to fit this thread well
That’s a great price for that domain….I have collected just
a few .me’s over the past few years FHA.me, MortgageLender.me, MortgageQuote.me, AllStar.me, AllState.me, Hangover.me, PrivateMoney.me, HardMoney.me, HomeEquity.me, Overweight.me, PimpleFree.me as well as a few others…. A few more sales like this will do well for all of us .me collectors.
@Anunt, you said, “I’m NOT too impressed with that world record…
I’m more impressed with this new world record…
Over 100 responses on this story…
Now thats a world record within a world record…”
Actually, this is nowhere near the record for domain blog post comments, however it turns out that MHB DOES hold that specific record, for another of hist posts on 3D domains which has garnered over 4,200 comments and still growing, as I’ve recently detailed on my blog: http://www.domainanimal.com/15-months-later-3d-acolytes-and-the-most-commented-domain-blog-post-in-the-history-of-the-internet/
Based on the fact that you partnered with Ammar and Dick on a 5K domain name I surmise that you didn’t have that much faith in the extension otherwize you woulda gone it on your own. As you partnered with Rick and came away with cash in your hand you should indeed consider yourself very very lucky. I bought some shares in flowers.mobi on some domain trading stock exchange type site and Shwartz sold the domain out from under all the shareholders for a song and a dance. And than man can not sing or dance. How many dot com names with an acquisition cost of 5K did you partner up with others on? I am sure very few. Truth is, its nice not to be the only one going down on a sinking ship right MB.
LD
I don’t know how buying a part of a domain for $6K and selling it for $450K is a sinking ship
The domain trading exchange you referred to, well I wrote about that one when I was out and warned people about it in May 2008
http://www.thedomains.com/2008/05/12/selling-buying-domain-interests-on-fusucom-is-it-legal/
Finally out of the 75K domains we own 50 or so are jointly own with another person or persons and some of them are .com’s
@Lucky Duck –
Your comment is fair game – but candidly a bit naive.
Sure .me is absolutely worthless except for the few verbs that make since (by removing the DOT and adding .com to the end) leaving ten of thousands of .ME domain investors with their tail between their legs. And yes – “.MOBI DICK” did not even have that as you state which is why it has gone back out to sea to the Bermuda Triangle never to be seen again.
But the real issue here is distributing risk in the few .ME’s that do make since – Sure the $450K in Meet.me is huge – but will that even begin to cover the legal cost in protecting his / their Move.me from Sony’s application with the PTO for MOVE.ME:
“2011-08-16 – Extension Of Time To Oppose Received”
Life is not about winning – it is about mitigating your loses in Court – and that is a lot of mitigaing these guy have ahead of them selves.
There is a big gap between domain name collectors and investors, though.
”
get tired of hearing that we are only successful because we got started back in the day
”
seriously, how else could you have done it without the luck?
and if you’re so smart how did Frank buy up all of the generics years later? that makes you dumb if you’re claiming you did it on pure smarts
”
In actuality the buyer got a great deal.
”
they did not. its some newbie at a big company spending someone elses money
“they did not. its some newbie at a big company spending someone elses money”
the company is westell, inc.
they manufacture networking equipment. customer networking equipment.
and they sell conferencing service to telecoms through a subsidiary that purchased the name.
if they overpaid i doubt it’s because they are new to the domain name market.
maybe just the opposite. they probably believe in the potential power of the dns more than most companies would.
Congrats Rick Schwartz you found your end user.
”
get tired of hearing that we are only successful because we got started back in the day
”
Getting tired of early domain guys asking for more credit than they deserve with stories that get more and more fanciful by the day until even they believe it lol
hmmm
VISA, launches V.me a great boost for .me extension
And Delicious is already using D.ME: http://links2.me/~Dwd1$XJ
So, I guess I should get MostWantedDomains.com to help broker my sale of know.me. Seems pretty close to meet.me…
The verdict of DNJ: http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2011/dailyposts/20111110.htm
@Adam et al: “knows.me” can be yours cheap.ly.
Sales prices can indeed reflect exploitation of buyer’s brand / idea as much as the value of the domain.
An item is worth what a buyer is willing to pay. The fair price is something else entirely. The buyer should only have to beat the next best bidder. Domain market is one of the few where sellers get to ignore this rule.
Lev
I disagree with you.
A domain like any other asset is worth what someone is willing to pay for it and what the owner is willing to sell it for.
I has nothing to do with having another bidder.
Back in the real world did you see this story today?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2076017/Russian-billionaire-buys-New-York-Citys-expensive-apartment–88MILLION.html
So this Russian Billionaire just paid $88 Million the full asking price of the seller for an apartment in NY.
If the seller asked only $60M that’s all he would have gotten.
There was no 2nd bidder to prove the apartment was worth $88M.
and before I forget, the Seller of the Condo only paid $42.4M for it a few years ago.
So he doubled his money in the worst economy and worst housing market of our lifetime.
Hi @ MHB! Nice argument!
Another dot me: http://unroll.me
Another dot me:
http://www.moneto.me
TechCrunch is reporting that Quepasa And MyYearbook are rebranding themselves as “MeetMe” — that explains the domain purchase.
Or, maybe not, as the buyer in November 2011 (Conference Plus) was later acquired by Arkadin. But, the Quepasa/MyYearBook are a totally separate company. So, it could either be:
(1) Conference Plus was a “face” for Quepasa/myYearbook in a long “stealth” acquisition, or
(2) Conference Plus flipped the domains (including meetme.com) to Quepasa/MyYearBook in January 2012, after they were acquired by Arkadin.
buying domains for the purpose selling them is a failed business model – especially a non.com.
the best thing you could do is not renew it – sorry friend