According to an article on TechCrunch, a startup called Fight Me “has raised $500,000 in seed funding from an undisclosed London investor.” Fight Me (or possibly FightMe) considers itself to be “the first and only competitive social video network.”
Smartly, it appears Fight Me was able to acquire the FightMe.com domain name sometime around August of 2010. The startup launched in July of 2013, so it was smart for them to go out and acquire the domain name in advance of the launch. The Whois information appears to be private, so I am not sure who sold the domain name. I didn’t see any record of the sale, so the purchase price is private.
Fight.ME is currently owned by the .ME Registry and is considered a premium domain name. As such, it is available to acquire via the Dot Me Development Program. As of right now, the Fight.ME domain name sits unused.
The question I have is do you think the startup should speak with the .ME Registry and try to acquire the domain name? Perhaps they could get a deal on it because it would be tough for another start up to use Fight.ME without causing confusion, and I doubt a domain investor would want to buy and monetize the domain name. Not only could it potentially cause TM issues, but I doubt the PPC revenue would make it a worthwhile investment.
In my opinion, this is the type of brand that would fit well with a .ME domain name, and since the company already owns the brand .com domain name, they wouldn’t be risking traffic leakage.
What are your thoughts about it?
It would be a good move for the .me registry. FightMe could use it as a domain shortener while keeping the .com domain in active use for their website, similar to Twitter,Facebook etc.
If I operated the .ME Registry, I would give it to them for free under the condition that it needs to be used and marketed in a visible way.
I like the hidden meaning in the logo. It’s shooting a bird right at us. Hilarious!
I think there are lot of domain names having ‘ME’ as a last word then followed by a dot com. Do they hold the dot me version too of their similar dot com (I think not all.) Just checked Friendme.com and Friend.me and found both leading to a different destinations. But there are sites like meetme.com and meet.me capitalizing on both. Fortunately Fight.me is available with registry and it will be a good move if Fightme.com gets it.
How much do you have to pay to get premium .me domain name from .ME registry?
Never inquired, so I have no idea.
No way, they own the top tier .com, if it was other way around, possibly, no chance of brand confusion, TM your term, and purpose, and save your cash for development…
I think Eliot’s idea of the registry giving them the name, in exchange for them using it as their primary domain name is an excellent one. I’d hope .me are smart enough to see the value in something like this.
(I have absolutely no association with any entity in this conversation!).
The question otherwise would be – even with a $500k investment, spending anything more on another domain would probably be a stretch for the startup given they’ve already got the greatest authority in fightme.com anyway. I’d dare bet that .me really would want low $xx,xxx for the name in reality.
Doesn’t this mean as well, that for every .gTLD out there registered, they need to ensure they’ve got the .com or vice versa?!