The .Me Registry announced today that they passed the 800,000 mark in the number of registered domain names.
If .Me was a new gTLD and not a ccTLD it would be the 2nd most registered, however they have not offered to my knowledge free domain names at any point
Here is the announcement:
“”We Hit 800,000 Domains!
It’s another big day for us as the .ME has passed 800,000 domain registrations.
We are proud that from the very launch the .ME domain became a premier choice for building a personal brand online and grew steadily in response to the global trend of nurturing personal identity. This milestone is a proof of that growth and we certainly couldn’t have done it without YOUR HELP.
Thank you for being valued and supportive partners!”
I still have to note that meet.me which we sold for $450,000 is the highest reported sale of a .me domain name.
Bruce Marler is very big on .me as im sure you know. He’s developed some wonderful apps on it.
I acquired many premium .me domains in 2008, and I built or helped build apps/sites that were acquired after getting over 1 million users.
I sold several .me domains to some big companies and they launched major sites/apps. Also donated some .me domains to bootstrapping startuppers who launched some really nice sites/apps
It’s a good extension – personalized and short. Obviously, not in the league of .com.
I still have several premium .me domains purchased in the first auction of 2008
@Mike
The .Me Registry has not offered free domains, but they provided domains to parties if they liked your business plan, launch plan and team. I believe that’s how Tony Conrad, former AOL head, acquired about.me
The South Korean company, Naver (which is second to Samsung)) was one of the biggest buyers of premium .me domains.
Steve
There isn’t a domain registry on earth that would not work with a major company that wanted to launch a real site exclusively on an extension, those are Founder Program domains.
I’m saying that .Me never offered you or I or the general public the chance to register domain names for free or close to free so the 800K registrations are much stronger than lets say .science 220K registration which we largely for free or less than $.50 to all comers with no limit
Mike,
You’re absolutely correct. And .me had rigorous criteria for awarding those premium .me domains. It was like applying for an NIH grant.
The numbers with .XYZ and many others are vanity metrics (give-aways, maintained or /owned by the Registries/or subsidiaries), as no doubt you know.
I sold over .50 me premium domains — 90% were to end users like Family.me
I’m sure your group’s sale of meet.me has to be the most impressive – bravo!
Not true Mike
http://Www.nc.me for example
#free
“however they have not offered to my knowledge free domain names at any point”
Really? They are currently doing so on https://nc.me/
Mike covered this last year.
http://www.thedomains.com/2014/09/06/namecheap-gets-nc-me-giving-away-free-me-domains-email-to-college-students/
NameCheap has been offering college students free domains for personal branding with .me, as well as other extensions. Their student names must match the name they seek. It’s a promotion for NameCheap to provide a variety of services, as well as to grow a youth user base.
Also one domain per person not like the guy who registered 7,500 .Science domains all for free on one day or the 75K free .Berlin domains registered by two companies.
Hello Daniel Negari says
Daniel, How many people Globally each year will click on a .me over a (.COM Trusted & recognized /Spam Free /Global Standard .COM Platform Extension). We think you are drinking your own Kool-Aid
You will be an unrecognizable, small bit player of miniscule usage in comparison.
.me is hardly the Global Cash Cow that the other Legacy Extensions are. Just remember you have to have a decade or more of LONG TERM SUSTAINED DEMAND, of which .me will never be capable of nor even remembered in 5 years. The future holds great promise for the truly Global Market Place Legacy .COMS JAS 5/2/15