poll Would you use .me for personal branding?

[abstractdomainer]

I've seen software developers use a lot of firstnameLastname.me for personal brand, using it to showcase their portfolio, the projects they have done, a complete repository perhaps.

How do you think .me is when compared to, say, firstnameLastname.com or say some other extension?
Also, would you prefer a .me over a .COM for personal branding?

 

[Samer]

No

 

[lock]

Not unless i planned on taking over Montenegro. cc geo

 

[Ritesh Chauhan]

yes

 

[lock]

yes

I still think with your name the dot com will be available. John Smith might need it.

 

[Ritesh Chauhan]

I still think with your name the dot com will be available. John Smith might need it.

Different views. no worries...
Cheers..

 

[griff]

it was popular for devs to use firstlast.me back around ~2011. I had firstlast.me for many years, managed to get .com eventually from the owner though so moved to that.

some of the newer extensions like .dev and .codes are used nowadays - checking out the urls you see posted on hackernews will give you a taste of what's "in"

 

[lock]

I would like to see extension for intended use as it will be tempting for most registering .dot me to register them as personal names all good. If dot us United States became just dot us and anyone could have one we might see it different in a few years.

 

[Josytal]

No.

 

[pb]

Yes, I would totally use pb.me if they didn't price it absurdly.

 

[lock]

Yes, I would totally use pb.me if they didn't price it absurdly.

Price gets us all the time here have a $100 a year gTLD for $10 I have gone for a few then dropped gotta not be too busy that first year...

 

[uzver]

I personally think .me is dead. You’d be better of going for .io or .co if .com is not available.

I’ve chosen to use [email protected]... Until I won my firstname.net at GoDaddy auctions

 

[BrandCollectors.com]

no

 

[lock]

Extreme example might be buyfrom dot me not in Montenegro or buyfrom dot us. being me in foreign country.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

My thinking is perhaps dated by several decades , but even though using a domain name for something related to the extension is not required I think it is still wise.

Therefore, while a .com is great or almost essential for a commercial enterprise, and a .net for any kind of network can be super, and well I personally feel organizations should normally be on .org, I don't think any of those is a particularly good fit for something which indeed is a personal branding sort of site.

Does .me make sense for personal brands? Sure, it can, a meaningful match across the dot. Do you need to use a .me? No, of course not.

For those with a country specific approach in their personal branding, a country code may make sense.

If your personal branding is very much linked to what interests you or what your career is, then I agree that numerous new extensions, and a few general purpose country ones, may make sense. For example if your brand is as a YouTube social media influencer, .tv is a reasonable option. If your brand is basically in code development, .dev might make sense and I see a number of young developers using it for personal sites.

I have a half-finished article on the topic of personal brand domain name choices, which hopefully some month will see the light of day.

Thanks for starting the topic, @abstractdomainer, and to all who have contributed their own views.

Stay safe and have a good day everyone.

Bob

 

[7363824]

If not .com the .if or .co are better options imo.

But I already own my lastname .com not doing anything with it so far but keep wanting to launch something like a private Facebook clone for family members only. Maybe add email and if I wanted to do a personal site I'd probably just make it firstname.lastname.com

 

[uzver]

Does .me make sense for personal brands? Sure, it can, a meaningful match across the dot. Do you need to use a .me? No, of course not.

If you personal branding is very much linked to what interests you or what your career is, then I agree that numerous new extensions, and a few general purpose country ones, may make sense. For example if your brand is as a YouTube social media influencer, .tv is a reasonable option. If your brand is basically in code development, .dev might make sense and I see a number of young developers using it for personal sites.

I think .me is NOT a good fit for personal branding, unless your brand is who you are rather than what you are.

If all you want is to share your Instagram pictures, your family and pets — .me will do just fine. For a resume website is okay too. For everything else there are better alternatives.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

It seems in the thread there is, not surprising, some difference in opinion about what a personal brand is. I found this explanation helpful. Perhaps others will too.

"What is Your Personal Brand?
Your personal brand is how you promote yourself. It is the unique combination of skills, experience, and personality that you want the world to see you. It is the telling of your story, and how it reflects your conduct, behavior, spoken and unspoken words, and attitudes. You use your personal branding to differentiate yourself from other people."​

I was wondering if you wanted to expand your thinking on the following a bit? It doesn't seem dead to me, in 2010 it had 320,000 regs, now about 1,150,000, a decent growth in 10 years, more than domains in general over same period.

I personally think .me is dead. You’d be better of going for .io or .co if .com is not available.

It currently has about 2960 sites in Alexa 1M, yes, less than .io and .co by about a factor of 2, but not bad for a TLD that first and foremost promotes itself for personal sites. I also checked abuse using Spamhaus stats, and at 4% 'bad' and a badness score of 0.27 it is very good, substantially better than any of the big three legacy TLDs or .info.

The TLD is used by probably the biggest name in personal branding services about.me. I think this is significant if you are moving your personal brand from a free about.me listing to your own personal brand site.

Of course the TLD has also found some use in the corporate world, such as the Li.me rebranding from their .com, or the use for of guard.me by a large international insurance company.

Why is the extension dead if people keep using it in increasing numbers for what it is meant to be used for?

I disagree with those who see a certain ordering of TLD priority, independent of use, but recognize the right of those who do view the domain world that way. For example, I totally see why .io is popular among domain investors, despite the highish renewal costs. The sell-through rate is excellent in the TLD, making it a great domain investment in many cases. But .io does not strike me as a natural choice as a personal brand TLD, unless you are a tech developer or tech startup owner, possibly. I have a bunch of .co domains in my portfolio, but the extension does not strike me as a good match for personal branding.

Just to be clear, I have no association with .me nor am I promoting it, or not, as a domain investment. This thread is about use as a personal brand site. I am just have trouble seeing in numbers the argument that it is not a TLD worth considering, along with others, for a personal brand.

Bob

 

[uzver]

It seems in the thread there is, not surprising, some difference in opinion about what a personal brand is. I found this explanation helpful. Perhaps others will too.

"What is Your Personal Brand?
Your personal brand is how you promote yourself. It is the unique combination of skills, experience, and personality that you want the world to see you. It is the telling of your story, and how it reflects your conduct, behavior, spoken and unspoken words, and attitudes. You use your personal branding to differentiate yourself from other people."​

I was wondering if you wanted to expand your thinking on the following a bit? It doesn't seem dead to me, in 2010 it had 320,000 regs, now about 1,150,000, a decent growth in 10 years, more than domains in general over same period.

It currently has about 2960 sites in Alexa 1M, yes, less than .io and .co by about a factor of 2, but not bad for a TLD that first and foremost promotes itself for personal sites. I also checked abuse using Spamhaus stats, and at 4% 'bad' and a badness score of .27 it is very good, substantially better than any of the big three legacy TLDs or .info.

The TLD is used by probably the biggest name in personal branding services about.me. I think this is significant if you are moving your personal brand from a free about.me listing to your own personal brand site.

Of course the TLD has also found use in the corporate world, such as the Li.me rebranding from their .com.

Why is the extension dead if people keep using it in increasing numbers for what it is meant to be used for?

I disagree with those who see a certain ordering of TLD priority, independent of use, but recognize the right of those who do view the domain world that way. For example, I totally see why .io is popular among domain investors, despite the highish renewal costs. The sell-through rate is excellent in the TLD, making it a great domain investment in many cases. But .io does not strike me as a natural choice as a personal brand TLD, unless you are a tech developer or tech startup owner, possibly. I have a bunch of .co domains in my portfolio, but the extension does not strike me as a good match for personal branding.

Just to be clear, I have no association with .me nor promoting it, or not, regarding domain investment. This thread is about for use as a personal brand site. From time to time I register a few .me, but it is a very small part of my portfolio. I amjust have trouble seeing in numbers the argument that it is not a TLD worth considering, along with others, for a personal brand.

Bob

Bob, when I said .me is dead, I wasn't talking about the investment potential. It's just my perception of this extension. When we discuss .me I can picture videos of cats on Facebook and private blogs with similar content.

Regarding the stats that you've shown.
Have you just googled it? Or perhaps pulled from dofo.com? If we remove the domainer's hat, when was the last time you came across a developed .me website? I can only remember maps.me app on my iPhone.

Off the top of my head, I can't even remember any other websites that use .me extension (without you helping me with about.me website ). Yet I can visualize various blogs and sites that use .co and .io that I see regularly. Even when I research domains that I want to purchase, I don't see many developed (not just registered) .me extensions. There are some, but not that many.

It's just my opinion, and I may as well be wrong. Sure enough, it's based on my interests and the websites I use (as well as domains I research).

 

[dirk]

In my personal experience developers (personal brand) just go for whatever is available at reg fee and is somewhat known to the public, or the ccTLD.

I wouldn't use .me these days. co/io/dev is what you need if you want to be part of the cool kids club