The .ME Registry and NameJet announced the that it would be auctioning off 300 “personal” domain names reserved by the registry, starting in just over a month on April 5th.
When it comes to .me I think I know the extension well as I’m the guy who bought the most expensive .me sold by the registry to date, well it was date.me that I bought to go with meet.met and marry.me.
Take my word for it.
When its comes to .me the extension is valuable.
After these natural sayings and phrases that go bang on with a .me, first and last names, along with Geo Domains are the next best.
For someone with the first name of say Adam for example how great and valuable would it be to have the email address of adam.me and a blog under adam.me. It’s memorable, bang on, and with plenty of Adam’s in the world pretty valuable.
One of the best things I ever did was register berkens.com and I only use it for e-mail.
This auction not only has some of the most popular first names in the world, including the first names of som of the biggest celebrities in the world, but some of the most popular family names and some Geo gems, (Just ask Bruce Marler about Geo .me’s)
I predict your going to see some big dollar sales out of this auction.
Here are just some of the domain names that will be up for auction (to see the whole list click here):
First Names:
| john.me |
| william.me |
| daniel.me |
| scott.me |
| eric.me |
| paul.me |
| jason.me |
| sarah.me |
| simon.me |
| brandon.me |
| amber.me |
| wendy.me |
| clark.me |
| megan.me |
| monica.me |
| samantha.me |
| susan.me |
| laura.me |
| kelly.me |
| chelsea.me |
| erica.me |
| edward.me |
| donald.me |
| luke.me |
| taylor.me |
| kayla.me |
| dylan.me |
| carrie.me |
| brianna.me |
| elizabeth.me |
| patricia.me |
| heather.me |
| katherine.me |
| courtney.me |
| kristin.me |
| jeffrey.me |
| martin.me |
| shawn.me |
| adam.me |
| brian.me |
| ryan.me |
| cody.me |
| sean.me |
| richard.me |
| jordan.me |
| anthony.me |
| jennifer.me |
| bryan.me |
| grace.me |
| steven.me |
| jose.me |
| natalie.me |
| julie.me |
| tina.me |
| chloe.me |
| ashley.me |
| nathan.me |
| amanda.me |
| christine.me |
| gabriel.me |
| kenneth.me |
| tracy.me |
| danielle.me |
| stephen.me |
| timothy.me |
| kathryn.me |
| james.me |
| jamie.me |
| kevin.me |
| andrew.me |
| jonathan.me |
| kyle.me |
| justin.me |
| sara.me |
| melissa.me |
| christian.me |
| jessica.me |
| rebecca.me |
| chad.me |
| gary.me |
| stacy.me |
| michelle.me |
| lisa.me |
| lindsay.me |
| nelson.me |
| travis.me |
| jacob.me |
| julia.me |
| shannon.me |
| alyssa.me |
| jasmine.me |
| katie.me |
| hal.me |
| davis.me |
| pamela.me |
| brooke.me |
| connor.me |
| brittany.me |
| zachary.me |
| mitchell.me |
| kristen.me |
| kimberly.me |
| lindsey.me |
| steve.me |
| maria.me |
| smith.me |
| jack.me |
| robert.me |
| thomas.me |
| jeremy.me |
| mary.me |
| amy.me |
| keith.me |
| lauren.me |
| emily.me |
| nicole.me |
| ronald.me |
| joseph.me |
| karen.me |
| todd.me |
| rachel.me |
| sandra.me |
| evan.me |
| vanessa.me |
| anderson.me |
| pat.me |
Here are some of most popular last names (Family Names) on earth up for grabs:
| jones.me |
| fernandez.me |
| walker.me |
| sanchez.me |
| thompson.me |
| lopez.me |
| alvarez.me |
| peters.me |
| edwards.me |
| garcia.me |
| kennedy.me |
| miller.me |
| martinez.me |
| jackson.me |
| johnson.me |
| hernandez.me |
| martinez.me |
| ortega.me |
| ortiz.me |
| johnson.me |
| roberts.me |
| perez.me |
| harris.me |
| braun.me |
| moore.me |
| lewis.me |
| marino.me |
| klein.me |
| cohen.me |
| douglas.me |
| schmitt.me |
| diaz.me |
| williams.me |
| bauer.me |
| hoffmann.me |
| collins.me |
| rodriguez.me |
| oconnor.me |
| obrien.me |
Here are some Geo Gems:
| victoria.me |
| madison.me |
| austin.me |
| fortwayne.me |
| tyler.me |
| redmond.me |
| savannah.me |
Here are a few real interesting domains:
| candy.me |
| brown.me |
| darts.me |
I picked up several first name and geo .me domains (judy.me, tampa.me, NewYorkCity.me, CostaRica.me) during the land rush. Very interested in seeing the results of this auction.
Cool .me ad on the right sidebar.. I like it 😉
Lance
Have you received any offers on any of those domains?
I think most .me will be worthless just like mobi/info/biz etc.
People will hold for 2 years and then drop after paying big bucks as always. Pumpers profit, suckers lose.
Of course that’s just my opinion and believe me I have had my share of losses buying in to the new TLD hype over the yeras……so just avoid the .me imo.
@MHB – I have not received offers on these.
I predict that this auction will be a bust. In my humble opinion .me has nowhere near the value that you seem to be trying to attribute to it.
Time will tell who is right…=)
Why? Exactly what is so “huge” about this auction? Its just a bunch of over-hyped .me domains.
There wre other TLDs that sold over a million names quickly (such as mobi/biz/info/tv etc) and where is their success? I just want to caution the newbies to stay away from the hype, just stick to dot-Com or may be ccTLD of your country.
Everything else is just hype imo.
I have sold or dropped almost all of my sucker domains that bought in non-dot-com TLDs.
Let’s see what happen in a year to 2 year period.
.mobi had a singular purpose like .tel and is should not be lumped into .me.
.me domains are being developed into sites which help make the argument for them.
Check out http://www.missouri.me/ currently ranked 288,000 by Alexa.
.me has some uses and applications where the domains are IMHO very valuable and I think first and last names and Geo are among the best uses.
We will see if 5 years who was right.
I agree with rkb, another .meaningless extension getting pumped up & auctioned off by the registrars for big bucks (in this case directly to domainers to try and create a bidding frenzy).
The extension looks stupid for most uses eg: john.me ?? Prague.me …wth ??
notfor.me
As a good friend of Bruce’s I’ve seen first-hand the success he’s had with .me. It madeabelieveroutof.me 🙂 I’m still actively buying .ME’s and each .ME I buy with the intent of developing and monetizing it myself before ever thinking of selling it 🙂
And Bruce will be the first to tell you he wish he had Missouri.com 🙂
I will be bidding in this auction for sure. I love the concept of owning first name dot me domain names. There are plenty of bloggers that would love to own theirs. Of course at the right value. With this many domain names being auctioned at one time, I’m sure there will be some great deals to be had.
I was gong to pick up my kids names but unfortunately they were already registered 🙁
David
Of course Bruce wishes he had Missouri.com, hell I do, but that’s not going to happen
I’m sure you would like to own David.com. but your not getting it.
So Bruce like anyone trying to brand a site is going to have to look for the next best most brandable alternative within their budget.
All I’m saying that firstname .me or lastname.me or geo.me is one of the best alternatives your going to find.
I think Missouri.me or Jeffrey.me is an excellent alternative when the .com isn’t available or not affordable and a lot better than Jeffrey.biz or Jeffrey.info or Jeffrey.gd
Chef
I see what you mean
littlechef.me is taken
Wow, I don’t need to add anything:) Well said Mike, appreciated.
One thing I just talked about in my post concerning this is I will be re-branding BruceMarler.com in the very near future to Bruce.me just for all the reasons Mike talks about.
I can say from first hand experience that .ME is the first extension since .COM that is resonating with people that I speak with. People remember it, unlike many of the other extensions that have tried to make a play .ME is something people just resonate with.
Also, the .ME team has done a great job showing how their brand can be used, and people like Facebook (FB.me) and WordPress (WP.me) have even taken a liking to it and used it for products they have.
May be you guys can gamble with .me and afford the losses (or eventual profits if any)….and that is just fine.
But I would say that this post is more like .me pumper and newbies should not fall for it. Be wise, don’t go overboard buying .me or you will possibly be saying in few years:
WhyDidIbuy.me 🙂
The problem with .me isn’t that it’s all that bad an extension, it’s that next year there’s going to be some other ‘must have’ extension leaving .me in the dust. And then after that there’s going to be another ‘must have’ and so on.
Future options?
Gary.email?
me.Gary?
Gary.blog?
email.Gary?
Gary.home?
Gary.co?
Gary.business?
etc….
It’s a never-ending cesspool of forgettable extensions replaced by ‘better’ ones every year and .me is no different.
I think the jury is still out on .me domains— i own a few, have actually put a few sites autoblogs on them–they do get indexed pretty well, though without a linking strategy not in the SE’s yet.
.Me is perfect for either geo blog and/or a professional directory.
Whoop-de-fuggin-do
Pick an exception – and an Alexa 288,000 site at that! – an define it as a success in order to back up your position.
Another nortmal day in domainerland where seemingly every domainer puts PT Barnum to shame..
Bwahahaha…
@Aggro
Well considering most of the competing sites from the local newspapers that we compete with are Alexa 14 million I am pretty damn happy, oh yeah and we actually get more traffic at the local level than those local newspapers I would say you are valuating traffic completely out of context.
Gotta know your market…..
Always glad to know another person likes to go off half cocked trying to knock down something that actually works…. Its about more than the domain….
Bruce
Has anyone taken into account that the success of the geo domain missouri.me may be partially attributable to the fact that Missouri is the “show me” state? I’m not passing judgment on the entire extension, but this is kind of a loaded example, is it not?
Dc
Pretty bad examples to make your point.
There aren’t going to 100 extensions for the top first and last personal names like your example of .gary, .frank, richard etc.
That’s not happening.
If there is a .email than obviously the use of the extension is going to limited for use for email and not to build sites around, just like .blog is going to limit you the using it for a blog.
Moreover any domain like gary.blog is going to be a premium reserved domain by that registry so your going to be back to an auction situation for those as well
Dave
I think the .me registry has been smart about the rollout of their 2 letter inventory letting WordPress have WP.me and Facebook have FB.me
There is another huge one coming but I’ve been sworn to secrecy.
As long as major player keep picking up the extension I think .me will be fine.
Better than auctioning them off for hundreds or thousands of dollars like .biz
@Dave
Understood on the question, and really the only people that have brought up the show me example are domainers. I actually expected more of it from the people of Missouri but they just like the .ME with community level involvement.
Bruce
Looks like wowis.me is available and there’s already a prospect: http://www.wowisme.net/
Let’s see if you take it before you publish this.
And like TV if you google the phrase I bet you find a lot of me before the dotcom
With the time and effort that Bruce is putting into Missouri.me he could get the same results with almost any other domain as long as it was relatively short and had “Missouri” in it. I suggest that he would get better results with most other domains because a .me is so dang hard to get ranked in the search engines.
Missouri.me is a brand, just like “VisitMissouri.com could be, or ShowMeMissouri.com or many other domains. I simply can’t see anything about .me that makes them any more valuable then the other 2nd and 3rd tier extensions.
In the end it is all about building a business, not having the right domain. Sometimes the right domain is a category killer, sometimes the right domain is a brandable and sometimes the right domain is a hand reg. But your post on .me makes them out to be WAY more then they are. You could of titled it:
SCAM.ME=)
the letters “me” have vanity built right in. That’s what makes .me more viable than average.
Example: I got RDH.me for my wife who is a Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH). It will be her complete resume.
The domain is perfect for the intended purpose.
Exactly Tim. That is why .ME works, even I admit I would not buy just random generic words in .ME, but the personal touch that .ME gives is something that makes it both memorable and hence more brandable than others.
And this comes from real people on the street, not just us domainer folks who tend to get wrapped around things the rest of the world do not.
As much as I am the first one to admit that .COM is king that does not mean that something new is not workable and brandable. Be careful putting .ME in the same boat as any other ccTLD being re-purposed.
I think the problem here is people think it is a competition between extensions, only we domainers think like that…I cannot remember ever saying that anyone wants another extension to die (.com for instance) but it seems everyone treats it like that.
.ME works because it is pronounceable, memorable, and personal.
Bruce
Troy
I could only be scamming you if I was trying to sell you something which I’m not.
I don’t own the .me registry just a few .me domains none of which are for sale.
So its doesn’t change my life one bit if you register any .me or you don’t.
Less people in this auction means lower prices for those that believe in the extension, so in this case the lesser the better for me, just sharing my thoughts with you.
Owen
You got the wrong guy for that.
Lets see if someone else bites
Granted, we would all like .com, but it’s just not available or affordable for most. With proper branding and marketing, there are several “second tier” TLD’s that can be just as effective for certain uses. I think .ME is a great TLD for personal websites, personal blogs and personal email addresses. Somewhere down the road, there is going to be a guy named Steve somewhere in this world who will pay for and use Steve.me. And, there will be an entreprenuer like Bruce who can build a good business with a city.me or a state.me. While I’m sure there will definately be a use for certain .me domains, I’m just not sure, from a domain investors point of view, how much the value of these domain names will appreciate over time.
I love these extension debates. They always get everyone so fired up “my extension is better than your. Na Na Na Na Ah”
I’m not a new extension hater but all the registry hype makes very little sense considering the extension. At least the likes of .tv, .eu, .us, .info were more rational/practical
eg:
“Due to popularity, a list of Premium Names (link below) have been held back by the Registry and are not currently available for registration. The Registry will release these premium domain names through various channels and processes in the future.”
Because .ME is about YOU! .ME has incredible potential for Internet users world-wide. Think about it. With a .ME domain, the Internet will, quite simply, be all about YOU.
For the first time in Internet history, domain names are essentially personal.
“.ME domains, with their universal appeal, are expected to be in high demand.
So some “premium” names – including verb-oriented domains, such as “Contact.ME,” “Drive.ME” or “Fly.ME,” – will be held back for auction after Open Registration. We will have more information available on premium auctions in the months to come”
http://www.domen.me/cms/site_files/dotME_Premium_Names.txt
Can’t wait for these “premium names” to hit the auction block!
fishingpole.me ….eeek, that sounds way too personal to .me !
informationtechnology.me
laundromats.me
machinetools.me
petsupplies.me
scooters.me
searchengine.me
alternativeenergy.me
automobileparts.me
campgrounds.me
cancunhotels.me …hmmm, could it be because the .com solf for $120,000 ??
addictedgames.me (…hmmm, could it be because the .c0m sold for $135,350)
caribbeanvacations.me
discountperfumes.me
europeanvacations.me
fertilitydoctors.me
eyedoctor.me
..last but not least is the premium pick of the day
fertilizer.me !!
So who is running the .me registry? – it has to be a domainer by the look of their reserved list.
…Halvarez…is that you buddy ??? 🙂
amazing list. Jack.me is kinda funny 🙂
Gazzip
Some of the domains you mentioned have already been auctioned off by the registry such as:
Contact.me for $10K
http://www.thedomains.com/2009/01/29/domainfest-live-auction-nets-only-665k/
and drive.me
http://www.thedomains.com/2009/09/16/namejet-com-to-hold-call-to-action-me-auction/
LOL – These are JUNK!!!! Just like the email someone just sent me alerting me to more junk: “doughmains.com”…the email says this is the next best thing to domains.com… (OK people, put the pipes down and come back to earth). Build a friggin site for god’s sakes…these crap domains are worthless unless you plan to spend 5-6 figures on marketing…
@MBH – I just copied and pasted the text off their current website.
Sure some of them “could” work well as a brandable type name (you obviously bought the cream of the crop (at a hefty price) with Date.me, Marry.me) but the .me registry calling loads of those reserved names “premium” and then selling them directly to domainers through auctions is pretty la.me hype IMHO.
fertilizer.me ??? cancunhotels.me ??? etc
If that ain’t hype I don’t know what is!
I guess this is going to happen alot more when all these NEW “best thing since sliced bread”. extensions hit the market thanks to ICANN
Is it going to be top-tier domainers becoming registrars so they can sell over hyped new domain extensions straight back to domainers through “premium auctions” ?
….sounds wonderful 🙂
Gazzip
I think those reserved domains were just mistakes by the registry.
If you or I did there reserved list we certainly wouldn’t have put some of the domains you pointed out on the reserved list, yet they let other really good domains release during the landrush, domain much better than these.
There a registry not run by domainers.
They make mistake like the rest of us.
Stupid domains that were reserved like great domains that were released in my book are just mistakes not a reflection of any greater purpose or motive
Last year, Brands-and-Jingles published their report on one year of .me [1] with many examples and an average price for a good .me name at the level of $6k.
In less than two years, the agency received bids for more than 100 domain names and is actively developing many of them, those that have a meaning in English and read as slogans [2].
Hundreds of “me” brands as well as the astonishing pace the .me is progressing are discussed on the blog [3]. You are welcome to have a look and have your say too.
[1] http://Brands-and-Jingles.com/white-papers/2009%20-%20Brands-and-Jingles%20-%20one%20year%20of%20dot%20me%20-%20for%20marketeers.pdf
[2] http://Dot-Me.Of-Cour.se/2009/02/08/verb-me-vs-noun-me-etc/
[3] http://Dot-Me.Of-Cour.se/
As to the reserved list, some names indeed were out of the line, but their number is negligible.
The registry secured top 330 verb.me combinations and let the folk grab and develop the rest.
With Facebook, WordPress and other joining in, the TLD stands good chances.
Let us keep watching it indeed.