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On Third Anniversary, .ME Has Over Half a Million Registrations

Elliot Silver
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In celebration of its third anniversary, the .ME Registry sent out a press release to share some insight about the number of .ME domain names registered, its rate of growth, and usage around the world.

At the present time, there are over 530,000 .ME domain names registered, and the owners of these domain names reside in more than 200 countries. Over 50% of the .ME registrations are owned by people in the US, which I also find to be interesting. From July 2010 to July 2011, the Registry saw a 27% growth rate, which is three times the average, according to Verisign.

I didn’t realize how strong the growth rate for .ME was, but these numbers are impressive. I don’t believe I currently own .ME domain names, but I am going to see how they’re doing on the aftermarket to  gauge  whether it would be a worthwhile investment. Happy anniversary to the Registry..

If you own .ME domain names (and want to share some of your insight), how have you been doing with them in terms of ROI?

Press Release::

Podgorica, Montenegro – July 20, 2011 – It’s been three years since the .ME Registry first launched open registrations of the Montenegrin country code Top Level Domain on July 17, 2008. “In that time, the dot-ME domain has transitioned from one country’s Web identity to the most effective personal domain name extension in the world,” says Predrag Lesic, Executive Director of the .ME Registry. “Dot-ME has truly ‘gone global,’ having registered more than 530,000 domains in 200 countries.”

Given the popular use of the word “me” in America, it may not be much of surprise to learn more than half (52.92%) of .ME registrations are based the United States; another 7.68% were originated by users in the United Kingdom. 3.82% were registered in Germany, 3.81% in Canada, and 3.63% in Japan.

But, it is the percentage of .ME growth quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year that proves the domain is a consistent top choice among persons and companies looking to be sure their web address stands out from the crowd. During the Registry’s last fiscal year (July 2010-June 2011), the registration of .ME domains grew by 27%; which, according to VeriSign’s May 2011 Domain Name Industry Brief (pdf), is more than three times the average industry increase during the report’s measured 12-month period (7.9%).

“While every Internet entrepreneur knows it takes time to build quality content behind any domain name, after only three years, there are many innovative online destinations and services with dot-ME extensions,” adds Lesic.

One of those truly innovative online destinations is Internet celebrity and Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons’ popular video blog, BobParsons.Me. “My blog discusses topics I find interesting, so dot-Me makes sense,” says Parsons. “The great thing about dot-Me is it gives individuals, many of which are business people, a place to register domain names for websites that communicate their personal ideas and interests.”

Some of the most catchy and popular .ME domains include Formspring.Me, a site which allows anyone on the Web to ask you questions and provides a platform to answer them; About.Me, an easy-to-build customized personal webpage considered so innovative the start-up site was acquired by AOL from the founding venture capitalists just a week after its launch; and Blog.Me, the South Korean blogging platform with more than 27 million users.

.ME has also become extraordinarily popular recently for its value in the world of mobile apps and as a URL shortener for some of the world’s biggest companies, such as WordPress (WP.Me), Facebook (FB.Me), Yahoo (ME.Me), VKontakte (VK.Me) and Time Magazine (TI.Me).

“Some might argue that dot-ME has put the young country of Montenegro in a worldwide spotlight,” notes Lesic. “We certainly are proud of dot-ME’s international presence and of the Registry’s accomplishments in successfully marketing the domain for its value, simplicity and brand presence online.”

For additional examples and articles about the many clever uses of .ME, visit http://www.domain.me/blog and to learn more about the .ME Registry, visit www.Domain.Me.

Development Will Result in Fewer Offers

Elliot Silver
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Based on my own experiences, I believe that developing your domain names will likely result in fewer unsolicited offers to purchase them. You may want to consider this before embarking on a domain name you’d ultimately like to sell.

When I first bought DogWalker.com, I received somewhere around 10 offers in the first few weeks of owning it. Since building a website on the domain name, I received no subsequent offers to purchase the domain name. The same can be said about my geodomain names I’ve developed. In thinking about this further, I rarely receive offers for my developed domain names, even those with mini sites. It may not be the sites (perhaps it’s the names), but it is something to think about.

On the other hand, I do still receive offers for my undeveloped domain names. In fact, I sold BikeTours.com and a small town RealEstate.com name last week to buyers who contacted me using the Parked.com contact form I have on most of my parked domain names. I receive quite a few offers on my parked domain names, although most aren’t from Whois lookups.

I am of the opinion that many people want to buy domain names but they do not know about the Whois database. They visit their desired domain names to see if someone else has a business or website on them. Unless they have very deep pockets, I don’t think many of these entrepreneurs and wanna be business owners are going to contact a relatively good looking website owner asking to sell the domain name.

I believe having a clear “for sale” message does help drive offers. In fact, I’ve heard that the bright orange stripe on the top of many Internet Traffic and Name  Administration  domain names is helping to increase offers. It should also be noted that Domain Market and SmartName use a similar call to action message on the top of most parked domain names.

If you have domain names that you want to sell, you might reconsider whether to develop them for short term revenue opportunities since they could cause a decrease in unsolicited offers. If you do develop them, be sure to have a clear “for sale” notice on them.

I would really like to hear your feedback and experiences on this.

Bill Karamouzis of HallPass Media to Keynote at TRAFFIC

Elliot Silver
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Rick Schwartz just announced that the keynote speaker for October’s TRAFFIC conference in Ft. Lauderdale will be Bill Karamouzis, CEO of HallPass Media, The topic of the keynote speech will be “the challenge of developing our domains into businesses.”

Bill’s company has been written up in TechCrunch several times in the last couple of years, most notably to domain investors for its purchase of CookingGames.com for $350,000. While some criticized this purchase as being overpriced, the advantage for a development company like HallPass Media is that it knows conversion metrics and can base it’s acquisition price on actual experiential data. HallPass Media operated hundreds of unique games on it’s websites.

Previously, Bill successfully built and sold another gaming business, Addicting Games, to Atom Games, for an undisclosed sales price. At the time of the sale, it was one of the most trafficked websites in existence.

In April of this year, HallPass Media (which had independently raised $2 million) was acquired by MindJolt for an undisclosed price. The acquiring company is led by the founder of MySpace.

I think this is a wise choice for a keynote speaker at TRAFFIC. Bill clearly knows how to develop a business using strong domain names as the foundation, and I believe he’ll be able to give some practical advice to those of us building our own businesses.  

Great Timing for G.CO Acquisition News

Elliot Silver
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Today’s news that G.CO was sold to Google must be exciting to those with .CO investments. The price Google paid wasn’t disclosed, but the key word is “sold” and .CO Registry CEO Juan Diego Calle did tell Reuters that “the price of one character (.CO domain names) is already north of $1.5 million.” I am sure Google will publicize this in a way that money can’t buy, similar to Twitter using T.CO.

The timing is very good for the .CO Registry in light of the pending renewals that are scheduled for the next several days. As one person pointed out on Mike Berkens’ blog, the Registry has great timing when it comes to important dates. The O.CO announcement came just before .CO names were available to the public a year ago.

While some people seem to be calling the .CO Registry out for dropping important news before big dates, I think it’s smart marketing, and owners of good .CO domain names will certainly benefit. Someone like Lonnie Borck of B52 Media (a good friend) who took a very big risk buying E.CO for close to 6 figures must be very happy right about now. I know he has turned down 6 figure offers for the name, and I would bet if he doesn’t sell it for over a million dollars, it will be close. News like this will help him and others.

This news should certainly not influence people who bought .CO domain names that aren’t worth anything to renew their worthless names. I posted an article offering people the space to list their .CO domain names for sale, and there were certainly a whole bunch of names I wouldn’t want to own at no cost. In my opinion, this happens with every single extension and will happen forever. There are always people making dumb investments (DMD @ $27 anyone?).

When .mobi was having problems, people who owned .mobi names seemed to chide and criticize the .mobi Registry for not doing enough to promote the fledgling extension. I don’t think anyone can accuse the .CO Registry of the same thing.

Kudos to the .CO Registry for their marketing efforts. The more people that see .CO domain names in action, the better investment good .CO domain names will make. Whether you have or will invest in .CO domain names or not, you have to respect the fact that .CO isn’t resting on its laurels.

Domainsville Launches

Elliot Silver
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9

I received an email from Abdu Tarabichi this morning announcing the launch of Domainsville.com, a new website aimed at helping domain investors. Tarabichi is also the founder of DNKB.org (Domain Name Knowledge Base), and he has frequently sent me helpful suggestions for my blog.

According to a post on the Domainsville blog this morning,

“Domainsville.com is a portal that combines all the resources you need to navigate the domain industry.   Read more useful articles, and locate fresh and functional promo codes to save on your next domain order.   Plan way ahead of time for the next event with our comprehensive listing of domain conferences, meet-ups, webinars, and live auctions directly from your Domainsville dashboard.   Signed-in users can customize, edit, or remove information widgets as they desire.   For example, if you do business with select domain registrars, eliminate the clutter by hiding promo codes from all other companies.”

There are a number of websites catering to the needs of domain investors, so it will be interesting to see how Tarabichi differentiates this from other websites. I wish him luck with his new venture.

Two Domain Industry Job Listings

Elliot Silver
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I saw a couple of job listings on Facebook and Twitter in the last couple of days and want to share them with you in the event that you are looking for employment or know someone else looking for a job.  I don’t believe that domain industry experience is required or even requested, but I would imagine it can’t hurt.

Sedo is currently hiring a few sales positions in its Boston office. According to its careers page, Sedo is hiring a Senior Sales Consultant, Sales Executive, Business Development Director, and an Accounting Associate. I would imagine having a domain or Internet background would be helpful for the sales positions, but a good candidate would probably be a successful sales person who can learn about domain names.

According to a post on Go Daddy’s Facebook page, the company is “currently looking for Engineers, Developers, Business Analysts and more!” Most of the job openings at Godaddy are for positions in Arizona, but there are a number of openings in Colorado and Iowa as well. I’ve heard the company is very generous to its employees, and hopefully the new deal will not alter this reputation.

It’s good to see companies in the domain space hiring aggressively.  If you know of other openings, please feel free to post links to the listings and/or any other information that might benefit readers.

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