NEWS Investing in Domains When the Markets Fall Could be a Good Alternative

[moneydomains]

Here is a great forbes.com article

.NEW YORK, BUSINESS WIRE -- The upstart domain extension DotMe (www.domain.me) has launched with a bang. Intermarketing's Peter Nilson reports, "Due to the success and potential of the ME domain, our company is preparing to use the extension for several of our clients' upcoming marketing campaigns."

http://www.forbes.com/businesswire/f...5005456r1.html

Well with already over 1,3 million .Me webpages in google
after just 2-3 months since the launch.
Hard to say it is not a succes already

[Cashcows]

I think the .me names I just bought will give me a far greater return than any .com I could buy now. I have over 4000 .com's I think I went overboard on .com Most are good names some for my own use that I decided not to use and I may let a few expire, others that will come into their own in the future. But I picked up around 400 .me names that if they were .coms would be worth millions right now.

If I was going to start a new business online today. I would use a prime .me rather than a longer less prime .com I have no doubt in my mind that I will get 10 to 20 times my money back at least on all of the .me's that I bought and really I think closer to 100 times. .me is not a .mobi I own about 20 of those and might just let them expire.

There is no way a prime .me will not be as valuable as a .net which have had some very nice sales. Traffic people may not buy them but end users will. I would rather have a .me over a .net any day for a website. it's much more commercial and better for marketing.

[dominator]

But I picked up around 400 .me names that if they were .coms would be worth millions right now.

then good luck

unfortunately GoDaddy's ipo was canceled
so i cannot buy their stocks

[Stian]

LLL.coms and dictionary .COMs are definitely the best and safest investment you can make in today's market. The .nets have dropped in value significantly over the last few months I believe, but the .com is on a steady rise (as always).

[moneydomains]

I think the .me names I just bought will give me a far greater return than any .com I could buy now. I have over 4000 .com's I think I went overboard on .com Most are good names some for my own use that I decided not to use and I may let a few expire, others that will come into their own in the future. But I picked up around 400 .me names that if they were .coms would be worth millions right now.

If I was going to start a new business online today. I would use a prime .me rather than a longer less prime .com I have no doubt in my mind that I will get 10 to 20 times my money back at least on all of the .me's that I bought and really I think closer to 100 times. .me is not a .mobi I own about 20 of those and might just let them expire.

There is no way a prime .me will not be as valuable as a .net which have had some very nice sales. Traffic people may not buy them but end users will. I would rather have a .me over a .net any day for a website. it's much more commercial and better for marketing.

I total ageee very good post!
Dot .Me are Cool in so many ways.

Date.me
Insure.me
Lasvegas.me
Loan.me
Kiss.me
Secure.me
Fly.me
Rock.Me
Youand.Me
Bill.me
..............etc

You simply dont find a other more easy domain name extension out there, that is more easy to remember and brand then .Me and .com.

You just need to hear Date.Me one time in a TV commercial and you will remember that name - dot ME are SIMPLY PERFECT for branding.

[MainesDomains]

I parked 60 .me domains on sedo (some I think pretty good like atv.me, etc.) and in months they have gotten like less than five bucks. I have put some for sale on ebay, sedo, craigslist and sold exactly zero.

There has been some interest here in Maine for the town.me domains - but that is still pretty anemic.

I think if google, mac, pepsi or someone dumps millions into promoting a .me it could help, but so far .me is a fat turkey. Yeah insure.me got lots in auction, I'll bet they are regretting it now.

willie

[moneydomains]

The total economi is in crisis nobody is buying anything right now wait a few month to it turn.
Plus .Me is total new like only 3-4 month old.
It takes litle time to get known.

Give it a litle time .Me has everything on its side
1.Great name.
2.Super easy to brand names like date.me rock.me youand.me, hire.me loan.me.... etc
3.Me means same in Spainish, English and Italy.
4.World record start up sales(tells me allot peaple can see the huge potential in .Me)
5.Already nearly 1,5 million me pages in google THATs SUPER amazing.
Great auction prices before money crisis.

Its has everything to become a huge succes.

[dominator]

The total economi is in crisis nobody is buying anything right now wait a few month to it turn.
Plus .Me is total new like only 3-4 month old.
It takes litle time to get known.

Give it a litle time .Me has everything on its side
1.Great name.

i dont think so

2.Super easy to brand names like date.me rock.me youand.me, hire.me loan.me.... etc

i would rather date.her than date.myself

loan.me sounds like the website owners need a loan


3.Me means same in Spainish, English and Italy.

useless
because the first word is different

verb in spanish -r
verb in italian -re
verb in english, usually different ending

4.World record start up sales(tells me allot peaple can see the huge potential in .Me)

negative potential?
= already lost money

5.Already nearly 1,5 million me pages in google THATs SUPER amazing.

nobody needs them
nobody uses them

Great auction prices before money crisis.

people make mistakes

Its has everything to become a huge succes.

except the right extension

[nameadvertising.com]

Okay .me panderers...

I bought these 2 to test the waters.

cotedivoire.me - a country with 20 million plus in Africa
confectionaery.me

$100 Each. No takers. Why?

Talk and pumping the extension is cheap. .ME is a fad and except for the LLL like a collectors item or for a few memorable phrases, it will go down as a loss leader in domain extensions.

If only a select few keywords are desired, then there is a serious flaw with the extension.

Get.me

[moneydomains]

You are trying to turn everything negative with your post and i am sorry say with very poor comments.

I am sorry you missed out on buying some of the good me domains.
I can also see you only like the domains you are selling yourself.

4.World record start up sales(tells me allot peaple can see the huge potential in .Me)
5.Already nearly 1,5 million me pages in google THATs SUPER amazing.

and you say: nobody needs them
nobody uses them.


Ya right what about the 1,5 Million ME pages aleady in google
after ONLY 3-4 month.

[nameadvertising.com]

I don't think Dominator is being negative. Some folks just know where the trend is headed.

.me will go the .biz and .ws way.

I am still offering my 2 (1word) domains for just $100 each. No one cares.

I can tell. This .me extension is a dud.

[moneydomains]

I don't think Dominator is being negative. Some folks just know where the trend is headed.
.

And how they hell can they do that after only 3-4 month.

CONFECTIONERY.NET was fist sold after years!

You simply can't espect all .me domains get sold after just 3-4 month thats simply rediculase.

There was so many good .com names and it did also take years before some of them where sold fist time.

It will take some time with .Me
but it is going right way.

But the poor economy is also setting a break on all domain extensions.

If you look at facts dot ME has all the right things to become a huge succes.

But ofcause it will take more than just 3 months.

[akcampbell]

People's views about .me are too extreme. .me is more brandable than people think but it doesn't work with that many keyword types. Whenever a new extension gets launched you get some clever speculation and some dumb speculation.

Porsche.me getting clawed back through the UDRP is a good example of dumb speculation, Only.me selling for $33,405 and Lawyers.me selling for $16,905 was dumb speculation. Only.me is an uncommercial phrase that few people will covet, Lawyers.me doesn't work with the extension as somebody pointed out.

Date.me at $70,000 is overpriced but it is a great name and will always be sought after, whoever said it is a hack is wrong. Awso.me is a hack, Date.me is a brilliant use of .me. I thought Play.me, Survey.me, Escort.me, Recruit.me, and Coach.me which all sold for $8k-$10k offered the best value in the .me auctions.

The problem with launch auctions is whoever has the most outlandish view on valuation and deepest pockets during a period of maximim hype wins, so it's not a smart way to go about acquiring speculative domains. I avoided .me completely on those grounds alone. Date.me, as nice as it is, won't be selling for significantly more than $70,000 for years even if the buyer is proved right so any return is a bad one if you factor in risk.

I agree with the poster who said the owner of Lawyers.info might have accepted a bid of $16,905. Lawyers.me is a terrible fit between keyword and extension. Lawyers is formal and businesslike, .me is light, fun, new, and on the downside, babyish. I'm always surprised when people who are otherwise excellent domainers, don't get the deal with fit and alternative extensions or value it correctly.

I think there are two reasons for this, firstly fit was never a big deal with .com, domain value derived solely from the keyword. Secondly, the amount of money people made from .com was so vast their perception of what alternatives should sell for got distorted. The best example of this is Flowers.mobi selling for $200,000.

Fit is mission critical for alternative extensions, the big ticket sales are alway going to be for commercial, popular, keywords that fit the extension. Fit is buyer compensation for a keyword not having .com on the end.

Chris is being unrealistic by saying he is offering Confectionery.me for $100 and nobody cares. Firstly, confectionery is an ugly 13 letter keyword with no bids in any extension on sedo, secondly "Confectionery me" (in quotes) has 35 uniques on Google, compare that to 1.21m for "Date me". However, I agree with the underlying argument, just because somebody is willing to pay $70,000 for Date.me, it doesn't mean Confectionery.me is worth a dime.

To make money from alternative extensions, there has to be a cheap "in". The best example was the launch of .info. It was lottery based so the smart money ordered 500 premium .infos from 20-30 registrars and scored big. My advice is avoid launch auctions. Buyers who pay silly money for nice fits but shame about the keyword domains like Only.me or nice keyword shame about the fit domains like Lawyers.me are throwing money down the drain.

The cheapest "in" I have found to date is .pro. Until September, only accountants, lawyers, doctors and lawyers in Germany, Canada, the US and UK could register but now anybody with a professional license number of some kind can register.

.pro has some very unusual characteristics that no other alternative extension can come close to in combination.

1) Naturally Brandable. There are 15,000 US trademark registry mentions for pro versus 10,000 for .me. If you compare that to other gTLD's like .biz and .mobi, .pro wins by a landslide.

2) Fits Virtually Every Keyword. For example, all the commercial keyword-extension .me combinations questioned in this thread work great with .pro, e.g. Lawyers.pro, Loan.pro.

3) Business Oriented. .pro fits every business keyword and that's where the money is either from a domaining or development angle. Registrants have to agree to a terms of use policy which if policed correctly, keeps out porn and spam.

4) Lightly Regged. Although the numbers of .pros regged tripled in September, there were still only 21,000 regged. That's how many .coms were registered at the start of 1993. The upshot is you can still get great keywords.

[nameadvertising.com]

I was not being UNrealistic. My argument pointedly was that if all this hoopla with the .me extension is for just 100 or so keywords, then the extension is not worthy of a registry because lack of mass adoption alone will make the so called premium keywords ineffective in being recognized on a day to day basis.

And you cannot make an argument in the number of dot coms registered at the start of 1993 for .me and .pro simply because the web was in its infancy back then.

The Internet today has matured. The businesses relying on it has matured and so has the marketplace.

My posts decrying the .me extension has little to do with its effectiveness, (or getting my puny 2 names getting sold) but more to do with the investment aspect of it and how domainers will or already have gotten caught with a sizable amount of stake in it.

If .me does not offer broad based value in the marketplace, then it will not last upon the hype it was built over.

No matter what my gut instincts, TIME alone is the deciding factor. And we won't have to wait too long to find out.