.me The .ME Discussion and Showcase

[BigSotong.com]

The Government of Montenegro recognized the potential worldwide appeal that .ME could have and decided it should be operated as a generic name space to gain the maximum benefit for Montenegro. The Government issued a public RFP in November 2007. The goal of the RFP was to find a Registration Agent that could operate an international registry, provide world class backend registry services, and provide the marketing and promotional muscle needed to make .ME a worldwide success. Ultimately, we believe they made an excellent choice!

The contract was awarded to doMEn, d.o.o., a Montenegro based joint venture (doing business as .ME Registry) whose partners are Afilias Limited, GoDaddy.com, Inc., and ME-net d.o.o.

Landrush will start June 6 till June 26, domain names with more than 2 applications will go into Auction.

Go Live on July 17.

SO, what do you all think about the coming .me?

 

[Alex]

yes Alex, Time is Money...

Yes, but in Montenegro or Romania time is less money than in UK or USA. That is why I love the internet .. equality of chances.

 

[mwzd]

Personally I had thought off ordering 3 hacks... but the price is too high for an unknown ccTLD.

I also don't like the fact that the registry is 'reserving' what seems to be a large percentage of good names. But then I guess they learnt from the other recent launches.

I'll stay away for now, but thatsjust.me

 

[Alex]

Submitted my application to 3 more .me's, and I think these are the last ones for the landrush. I will hunt for more hopefully on open registration, when they will be cheaper too.

yes, the registry is smart, but this attitude is not in our advantage.

I entered into domaining because of .me . I mean I knew about .eu in 2006, but I saw I had no chance, when I checked eurid's site.

Then I knew about the independence of Montenegro, and while typing the email address of a friend of mine from Beograd (it ended in .co.yu), I thought what will be the tld of Serbia and Montenegro now that they are independent.

This happened in December 2006, I know because the email was a Christmas greeting card.

So I went on, and checked Wikipedia .. and saw .me ... and I said ****.me (replace by a common dirty word). This is going to be huge. I will be a millionaire if only I will know about this.

So, I got passionate about domains, I started reading about them, on January I was a member of this wonderful forum, and started reading more and more. I realized I could not stand a chance against other cctld lovers as Sam (dammitsam at that time) or Kev, or even NameTrader. So I prayed that the registrations will be restricted and I will make a company in Montenegro and register the 217 domains I wanted (yes, I had such a list).

But to have a company, you need money. I had no money. So I said to myself that I will start investing in domain names, at least to feel what sells and what not. So I put aside a $20 investment, and regged 2 names. And then from the profit of one (RFVO,com), I will buy other things. And I invested in cctld's, high risk investments, but for me they were high reward ones too. In 2 months I made $1500 out of my initial $20, and I started loving .com more and more.

And then I realised this launch will be very public. First RJ announced it on NP, then I heard Godaddy and Afilias will manage it ... ouch.

But .me is in my heart, and yes I am a bit sentimental about it. So I will invest in it. In fact out of the 217 names that I wanted 209 are on the reserved list. This just shows they did a great job selecting the names.

They even had a bilingual forum on their first site: http://89.188.44.88/nic/eng/e_index.php, but now I can't seem to find it. I was the first person to post in the English forum exactly on April the 1st 2007.

Will I invest a lot in .me? Not now, I will look for some niche's, but most probably I will not participate in high dollar auctions, as I still can't afford them.

But it was a nice dream ... And anyway when I first wanted to register a company there in case there will be restrictions, I looked up for real estate there and it seemed very attractive last year. Don't know, but it seems prices went up high, in Budva where I looked for property.

Ahh, good old memories when I started thinking about domaining .... and dreaming about moving to Montenegro (hey I can still do that)

 

[mwzd]

Great story Alex, thanks for sharing.

I guess I know how you feel since I feel the same way about .in

Good luck with the others, hope you get all you want, seems apple is buying a lot of .me's too from the buzz doing the rounds... unverified though.

 

[Makis.TV]

i applied for .me that its going to get a website of mine redirected over there since its has the best keyword i can get while the .com version that i own whille great as keywords are not so great as the .me i chose plus the .me is so easy to promote.

 

[lilpooh]

It's a pleasure reading Alex's story. No wonder he still has the passion on .me No doubt this extension is nice, but too expensive, I'll pass on it.

 

[Hurley4540]

I will buy a .me if it goes down to 10 euros/$10 a year like that one NPer said..

 

[WORDSWORTH]

I ordered one about a month back. The $100 didn't put me off at all with this particular name. I hope it'll put a few others off from ordering it though as I'd love to snag it without an auction

All the other names I would have ordered were not available.

Matt.

 

[ecigs.net]

.ME ccTLD

Are you sure its $99,98 to reg.? It must be for 2 years, otherwise use another registrar.

But back to your question. I did think alot over if I should get a .me, but the yearly fee. is too much for now, maybe if they get cheaper, but not for around $50 per year, which is the price in most registrars.

If the yearly fee gets to the level .com is then I think hey will be extremely popular, and if the price get down to .info level, then I am sure it will be like a rocket and be more popular then .info, .cc and .ws. Just my opinion.

Best regards,

It is a mandatory two year registration @ $49.99/yr. Sorry, I should have been more exact in my word phrasing. In any case, if you want to buy, sell.me, buy.me, love.me, whatever, you have to come up with $99.98 per domain.

What you are saying is a really big investment problem. I have a twofold problem with this:

1) If I have to pay $99.98 (2 yr. reg), and the prices drop to $7.99. Then I have gotten two years of registration for the price of 14 years of registration fees. For most domains, that is really going to limit their resell value.

2) If the prices don't drop and a person invests a lot of money in these domains, they are going to find it more difficult to offload them. Hence, yearly renewal fees are going to be heavy.

Also, IMHO, if .ME drops to .info prices, sure they will be popular, but their value is going to drop too. The worst thing that ever happened to .INFO is the massive drop in price. Nobody takes the TLD seriously now.

I see both situations as horrible.

I'd pay that much for a cool verb, but the rest of regular domains are beyond my budget.

 

[BitcoinDK]

imo, I dont think what has happened to .info's reputition will happen to .me if the prices got down.

.me has a more broad public market then .info. More private persons would reg. .me, because of the branding of the extension as a personal domain. (does this make sense, little hard to explain what I mean )

Best regards,

 

[dmday1]

Have you registered a .me domain?

Has anyone submitted a pre-registration request for a .me domain name?

Will any be worth registering?

 

[Hurley4540]

imo, I dont think what has happened to .info's reputition will happen to .me if the prices got down.

.me has a more broad public market then .info. More private persons would reg. .me, because of the branding of the extension as a personal domain. (does this make sense, little hard to explain what I mean )

Best regards,

You never know, .info gained the 'spam domain' rep and .me could also gain that if it goes down to 1 USD or so...which it probably won't but .info were probably used to for informational sites (hence .info) but now is just the 'cheap spam domain'

 

[Alex]

You never know, .info gained the 'spam domain' rep and .me could also gain that if it goes down to 1 USD or so...which it probably won't but .info were probably used to for informational sites (hence .info) but now is just the 'cheap spam domain'

.me won't get down to that amount. I don't see why it would. They will go down to the price of .in maybe.

Well, anything can happen really, but I do not see this happening, at least not in the immediate future.

 

[ecigs.net]

.ME vs. .INFO

imo, I dont think what has happened to .info's reputition will happen to .me if the prices got down.

.me has a more broad public market then .info. More private persons would reg. .me, because of the branding of the extension as a personal domain. (does this make sense, little hard to explain what I mean )

Best regards,

I don't know too many regular people (non-domainers) who would be willing to pay the current .ME price for a domain name. Most people are happy with [email protected]/gmail/aol/hotmail.com. The only people who might be willing to pay this much are Real Estate Agents. And for me personally, the dot MOBI extension seems to be more designed for professionals than .ME.

(P:S: I get 50 times more spam from free Yahoo accounts than .INFO domains.)

 

[Jasonn]

Will the price go down after the 26th when the pre-reg is done? I hope so.

 

[BitcoinDK]

Maybe I was misunderstood.

My point was that .me is not interesting for regular people, with the high prices there is now.

If the prices get down to .info price it would be very appealing for regular people and imo be extremely popular.

And I dont think the low price would mean a reputition problem with .me as with .info, because .me is more appealing for regular people then .info. Imo.

 

[ecigs.net]

.Me?

Will the price go down after the 26th when the pre-reg is done? I hope so.

The price is supposed to drop, but to what level, I am not sure. At GoDaddy, they put out this information: Open Registration begins on: 7/17/08 (Domains issued on a first-come first-served basis.) So, the price isn't going to drop on June 26th because you can't register any until July 17th.

 

[BitcoinDK]

anybody want to share, what they go after primarily when the open registrations begin

Is it the first names, the last names or word(s) that fits to the extension you go after first?

Do anybody dare to tell.

 

[Dean]

It wont drop to 1$ or 7$ or 10$. Look at other similar ccTLDs like .tv and .cc they are like 18$ and 20$ each which is where I anticipate this to be once it is open registration. Someone earlier said 11 euros so they probably know something we dont and that might be the price which is like 18/19$ from a very rough guess I am making.

 

[weblord]

too expensive for me.

 

[tucal]

.ME What do you guys think?

I have found a great one word .me that makes great sense. Do you think its worth the $100 for 2 years?

 

[awal]

Landrush Ends after 18 hours
Open Registration 7/17/08

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Have you?

I submitted 2 domains in Landrush period. Bought from Godaddy each for $99.98

 

[whitebark]

With ICANN's latest announcement this tld is not so attractive anymore.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

On Godaddy it is mentioned now that

"Estimated initial pricing will be $19.99/yr (Two year minimum registration required)"