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?

 

[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).

 

[uzver]

I have because .com is taken, .me makes more sense for a personal page anyways.

That’s exactly how I feel about .me — good for a personal page, not for a personal brand.

 

[uzver]

Don’t mean to argue, Bob.

A family member sent me his about.me page. And despite your comment I found no cat videos or Instagram pics .

What did you find then?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

What did you find then?

Resume, causes, interests (e.g. works with a local music group, not as musician, also environmental links), sometimes new events but those are pretty ending now, etc. It is what a personal brand should do (see my quote above from a branding expert). "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."

Anyway, as I said, I can understand that different people have different views. Don't plan to extend this more from my end. When a question is posed, my style is to look at data sources, rather than to over depend on my personal viewpoint. I have shared most of the data I collected re use of the extension and what a personal brand is.

I understand some prefer to always use and promote only one, or a very few TLDs, no matter what the use is. I don't think that way myself. I look at the best combination across both sides of the dot, looking at both aspects of the name on the left and the TLD on the right.

Have a good day.

Bob

 

[uzver]

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

And let’s be honest, we all want to be a part of that club, don’t we?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

How can I check the same stats for .co, .io and .dev in Dofo?

@Macit will probably provide you a complete answer, but some of it you can get easily from the extension setting at Dofo. e.g.
https://dofo.com/extensions/io

tells you there are 483k registrations in .io, of which 36k are for sale currently on marketplaces. It has a Global Rank of 52.

It also will show you the most popular sites in the extension, as well as registrar and country breakdown.

If you click on More Filters, you can limit sites with websites to get that data.

I too would like to know how you access the Alexa data from the various classes e.g. top 100k for an extension. I don't think I know how to do that.

Of course whether it is a good extension for a personal brand is a different one, although I agree related, to how many registrations, websites and popular corporate sites there are.

Bob

PS When Dofo give the Global Rank, @Macit, is that simply based on number of registrations, as opposed to the Cisco Global Rank? It seems so, I see .co is Global Rank 19, .me is 38 and .io is 52, but I think that is simply registration based.

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

No, I wouldn't. I like .COM too much.

 

[Samer]

Different views. no worries...
Cheers..

i dont get it.

i admire your class response answer value .me and prefer to use over .com but why??

Ritesh Chauhan would be available in .com
would look more credible than .me.. get both!

Cheers

 

[Ritesh Chauhan]

i dont get it.

i admire your class response answer value .me and prefer to use over .com but why??

Ritesh Chauhan would be available in .com
would look more credible than .me.. get both!

Cheers

because, you are thinking as a domainer.
If i want to develop something, then my first choice will be gtld or ngtls only.
for example, I will prefer cityname.city for development instead of cityname.com.
They looks decent to me.
Some times .live , .me, .im sounds better to me.

Thats why I said, different choices, different views. No specific reason.

 

[uzver]

because, you are thinking as a domainer.
If i want to develop something, then my first choice will be gtld or ngtls only.
for example, I will prefer cityname.city for development instead of cityname.com.
They looks decent to me.
Some times .live , .me, .im sounds better to me.

Thats why I said, different choices, different views. No specific reason.

I develop websites too. And .com is only 30% of my domain portfolio.

“Sounds better to me” is not an argument unless you build a website for your personal use.

 

[Ritesh Chauhan]

I develop websites too. And .com is only 30% of my domain portfolio.

“Sounds better to me” is not an argument unless you build a website for your personal use.

Ha ha..
I want to clarify that i am talking for just personal website development. Or for personal projects.

I never mentioned that i am developer. I'm just domainer...

 

[Reddstagg]

I'm a big fan of .Me....I have

Mememememememememememememememememememememememememememememememe.Me

Me-Me.Me

Lean-on.Me

 

[killuahxh]

No. Always use .COM for any Branding type.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

It is perhaps me, but I think there is confusion re what personal branding means in this thread.

Some are interpreting it as the brand for a small business that you own personally, but that is not how I interpret the term. I interpret that it is your brand as a person, that is shares the story of your personal accomplishments, goals, plans, interests and causes. On your personal branding site might be your resume (perhaps), interests such as hobbies, causes or volunteer activities, etc.

Now in a few cases of celebrities, entertainers, influencers, etc., the same site might be both their personal branding site and their business website, but for most they are something entirely different.

As I (possibly incorrectly) interpret it, the site where I promote, sell and talk about domain names is not my personal branding site. For the domain promotion site I would probably not use .me, unless I was selling mainly .me domain names, or domain names primarily for personal branding, perhaps.

My personal branding site, which I don't have one, would include things like my resume if I was looking for work, a statement about things that are of interest to me, a link to my LinkedIn and Twitter, possibly some photos or artwork I wanted to share widely, links to organizations I volunteer with or feel strongly about, perhaps links to a few things that I wrote, especially opinion pieces. Some people use their LinkedIn profile as essentially their personal branding site.

To me for that sort of use, a strictly personal branding site, .me makes a lot of sense. Odds are you can hand reg some variant of your name, and the extension tells people it is probably a personal site. Descriptively accurate.

Bob

 

[Jv1999]

i would use a .me if it was flashy enough. Like if i had a shop... i would def use shop.me

or a tv show review site would be great for tv.me.

and without saying anything, Music.Me is far better than Music.com in some instances.

 

[frostify]

I personally have my first name as a .xyz
If I could have gotten my first name as a .me I probably would have done that as well though.

Julian.xyz

Funny story, the guy who owned Julian.xyz before me declined a $500.00 offer by me to acquire it. I was ready to hand him $500. He said he wanted more and I declined. Not even 12 months later I got a notification that the domain expired and I picked up it for just $10.00 USD

 

[equity78]

The only one I would of considered for personal branding is.....

i am.me

which is already taken and forwards to....(I have no affiliation with this site)

https://www.juancarlos.live/

Decent use of a .me

 

[LUP]

Who uses .ME?
As the most personal domain extension on the market, .ME domain quickly became an online home for thousands of designers, developers, students, and other tech-savvy people who want to express themselves as individuals rather than to be associated with companies.

At the same time, companies that wanted to connect with their customers on a more personal level, build on their Me Selling Proposition, and create a community around their brands, started registering their own .ME domains.

Of course, actions of your customers always speak louder than words. That is why we are proud that some of the most renowned global brands have chosen .ME as their top domain name choice.

https://domain.me/about-me

 

[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...

 

[lock]

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

 

[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

 

[King]

I have because .com is taken, .me makes more sense for a personal page anyways.

Plug: I have Kylie.me is anyone is interested

 

[manpreet]

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?

Yes, if .com is not available.

 

[uzver]

Resume, causes, interests (e.g. works with a local music group, not as musician, also environmental links), sometimes new events but those are pretty ending now, etc. It is what a personal brand should do (see my quote above from a branding expert). "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."

Bob

Pretty much what I’ve mentioned above when speaking of possible use cases for .me.

I don’t want to ask what was the main reason for developing a website on .me versus .com (or .ca if he is in Canada too).

 

[uzver]

Bob, please accept this "extra" data from Dofo

There are;
3,410 .me websites in Alexa Top 1,000,000.
511 .me websites in Alexa Top 100,000.
46 .me websites in Alexa Top 10,000

According to our data, there are 960 thousand .me domains.
427,800 of them have a website.
107,500 .me domain names are parked.

57,000 .me domain names are for sale on marketplaces.

How can I check the same stats for .co, .io and .dev in Dofo?