.IM Discussion

[gilescoley]

I have seen quite a few registered lately, has anyone got any comments on these names. What if there was a good keyword name, is it worth grabbing.


I believe its the Isle Of Man, but are people possibly going to use the "Instant Messaging" acronym for these domains??


Thanks for any advice??

 

[mainhoondon]

I reg c-o.im
Worth anything ??

 

[Shahid7]

tracking.im
ancient.im
perfumes.im
trance.im
ambient.im
latest.im

my last .im domains

 

[El Bandolero]

I know there is still good names out there for the .im but idk my mind is 50/50 if I should reg them or not. Most ppl that have feedbacked that extension are mainly right and turns me off on regging them.

 

[Larry Fling]

Not a bad extension, I don't this theirs much future but i though id reg a couple.
GTA.im - GreaterTorontoArea
dub.im - Would look cool as a logo. And "dub Instant Messaging" has a nice ring to it..

Good luck guys and gals..

 

[CDM]

so what is the normal renewal cost for .im then? someone said $19.99 but i think someone else said $xxx renewal.

 

[zoogo]

I think the only domains here with real value are the ones with relationship to IMing - usually only if developed - super prime keywords (though not much, as we saw a few posts back), and hacks - even less because of the awkward "im"

If the domain industry changed from being .com to com. I think personally it would make more sense, and a lot of these tlds would be much more useful.

 

[Blitz]

so what is the normal renewal cost for .im then? someone said $19.99 but i think someone else said $xxx renewal.

It looks like with name.com it is $75 but they should lower to be competive maybe, found domainmonster.com and it looks like the regular price is $19.99. Anyone have any more?

 

[Catch.Center]

These are what I know::hearts:

Some double characters XX.im that can be registered at NamePros - Buy, Sell, Discover Domain Names have the price of XXX pounds.

General renewal fee in iDotz.Net - Domain Name Registrar: Cool Domains @ Great Prices is 40 dollars.

It looks like with name.com it is $75 but they should lower to be competive maybe, found domainmonster.com and it looks like the regular price is $19.99. Anyone have any more?

 

[Shahid7]

hello, thought i was going to stop but i bought 3 more .im

Cargo.im
Shipment.im
Sweets.im

as for the price, i think the best thing is to go to Domain monster and register ur first year for US$ 5 and pay yearly fee of 19.99 US$ / year without asking your self twice if its 10000 or XXXXX / yr :D

i am going to shift all my .im from name.com to Domain monster, as name.com is charging 75 US$ per renewal now

 

[exsedo]

Just regged another one, feel free to take a look. PEARLS

 

[dotker]

hello, thought i was going to stop but i bought 3 more .im

Cargo.im
Shipment.im
Sweets.im

as for the price, i think the best thing is to go to Domain monster and register ur first year for US$ 5 and pay yearly fee of 19.99 US$ / year without asking your self twice if its 10000 or XXXXX / yr :D

i am going to shift all my .im from name.com to Domain monster, as name.com is charging 75 US$ per renewal now

thanks for sharing this one shahid7! i have few im myself..

 

[sids70]

I got

fever,im

No harm in 4.99, I guess.

Sid

 

[iSKY]

The .im will be more valuable maibe in the next 3-4 years ... I`m almost sure about that!

 

[zapdaddy]

The .im will be more valuable maibe in the next 3-4 years ... I`m almost sure about that!

Your right the good keyword .im will be worth more than the 4.99 special pricing in 4 or 5 years , but will it be worth 4 or 5 years of $xx reg fees. Thats the question we have to ask ourselves. Alot of domainers will be debating that in about 1 years time.

 

[dobidder]

Just couldn't resist the $4.99 temptation

Got Showcase.im this time, tons of ideas pop up when I saw the name was available.

 

[Nattydomain]

bought four IM domains and thats it....will see what happens in a years time...

British/Isles

Islands

Bye

Texting

 

[Shahid7]

I personally feel .im will do good since renewal fess are down too.

 

[Kate]

The .im will be more valuable maibe in the next 3-4 years ... I`m almost sure about that!

Huh ? I'm afraid *very few* of the recent regs will avoid drop when renewal comes due next year at standard price.
The truth is, the local market is very limited.
Sure you can try to brand the TLD like 'instant messaging' or something else, but so many other extensions have been pimped like that, with limited success at best.

 

[Shahid7]

Maritime.im

Funky.im

 

[akcampbell]

Why did you register Maritime.im? The keyword maritime has sold 4 times, all in .com, all in the range of $2k-$3k. If the keyword hasn't sold in any extension other than .com and even then not for very much, why would you spend $5 regging the .im? To me, it's like getting a $5 bill and burning it.

Let's imagine there is a company with an interest in the keyword maritime, what are they gaining from buying it in .im? I'll tell you what they are losing;

1) It will be a 2009 registration and search engines give preference to older continuously regged domains
2) Search engines will give .im domains a lower relevance than gTLD's on non Isle of Man search results because of the geo ending.

For those two reasons alone, no developer with any SEO knowledge would ever develop Maritime.im.

From a branding angle, "Maritime.im" makes no sense whatsover. The phrase "Maritime im" has 818 Google uniques, "Maritimeim" has 27.

For alternative extensions to stand a snowball in hell's chance of making any progress, they have to add something to the keyword, either to complement it or make it brandable. So for example, I regged Marine.pro in November 07. It wasn't a play on the keyword Marine, it was a play on the combination of the keyword Marine and extension Pro. "Marine Pro" has 57,900 Google uniques.

Take another of your registrations on this thread. Cargo.im, I regged Cargo.pro, again in November 2007. "Cargoim" has 264 Google uniques versus 4,730 for "Cargopro". My registration of Cargo.pro wasn't just for the keyword cargo, like Maritime it's not that lucrative, if you look on dnsaleprice, there have been 10 sales of Cargo keyword domains, 9 out of 10 were .com with the highest at $10,000, with just the 1 alternative eCargo.eu at $1,100. I regged Cargo.pro because Cargo and pro rhyme so combined with the Pro branding suffix, it makes it brandable.

The odds of making money out of alternative extensions are very slim so you should pick a keyword and extension pairing that makes logical sense, adds value, and might be more preferable to a buyer than the usual .net and .org alternatives to .com.

I'm a fan of alternative extensions and not just the extensions I've invested in; .info and .pro, I can also appreciate the branding appeal of certain keywords in .tv and .me. However, meaningless ccTLD's with "it could mean" hype like .cc, .ws, .im and so on which rely purely on their keyword are destined for the dustbin. They only have value when certain keywords are scarce but with 100's of extensions floating around and 100s more on the way, the only wheel of fortune being span when people hand over $4.99 to reg domains like Maritime.im is in their head.