I Own Almost 50 Percent of the United States
OK, so funny title I know. As many of you know I am a big believer in the Geo domain space and have been continuing to make investments there, this week I have increased the square mileage owned signficantly. I now am owner of 23 US States in the .ME extension with several being picked up this week in the .ME auction. There is a plan behind this that I will be releasing some information on soon, here is the list of states I currently own:
Ohio.me
Illinois.me
Arizona.me
Michigan.me
Arkansas.me
Louisiana.me
Mississippi.me
Alabama.me
Kentucky.me
Tennessee.me
Virginia.me
Delaware.me
Connecticut.me
Pennsylvania.me
Utah.me
Idaho.me
Wyoming.me
Kansas.me
Nebraska.me
Iowa.me
Wisconsin.me
With the fall of old school newspapers I believe Geo domain owners are sitting on the opportunity of a lifetime. Its time to develop and turn Geo properties into real thriving online businesses. I look forward to sharing my plan for this in detail (with examples) in the very near future.
Congratulations! Those are some really great names, let me know if you need help with the sites. I’m working on a few myself!
Dan, Thanks! I look forward to sharing info on our first launch soon.
Great sites I can’t wait to see what you do with them, but your missing the best state Florida!
Have a good one
“I Own Almost 50 Percent of the United States”
Bruce,
If things keep going the way they are here in the USA,
you’ll probably be able to own the other 50%.
If not you, then China.
I’m still reserving judgment on the .ME extension, but as far as names go, those are some great names, and you’d definitely be able to find some buyers if you wanted to do a quick flip.
Excellent these are my favorite portfolio style: GEO
I also have 97% of the U.S GEO real estate dot tel like ohiorealestate.tel…….
But like you wrote, the best Geo like newyork, florida… were taken way before landrush.
I hope you can buy from current owners remaining GEO .me
Patrick,
You are correct:) With adversity comes opportunity.
DomainerResource,
Thanks much. This is one group of names I have that are not for sale.
TelShowCase,
I think i want World.Me next:)
Bruce
Sorry to be a downer but it sounds like wasted money to me. I seriously doubt .me will ever take off and you’re making a big $$$ gamble. It’s also going to be a lot harder to acquire additional states now that you revealed your strategy. Best of luck!
Spike,
Thanks, I was actually waiting for a comment like that:)
The real money is not in the flip. Its in a business plan and development.
If I wanted to buy names for a quick transaction I would of bought something else.
Your comment was not a downer at all.
Bruce
Spike,
If you read what Bruce wrote he didn’t register these .ME domains just to Park them
which probably would be a waste of $.
He said he has a plan.
Think of it this way.
.ME domains at GoDaddy are $9.99 a year.
So for a few hundred dollars plus whatever development costs will be he’ s
investing in a business idea.
If the idea works, great.
If it doesn’t , it’s not a fortune lost.
And I’ll bet he’ll learn something from it either way.
He couldn’t do the same thing in the “real” world where
the risk is in the 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars.
I feel sorry for you throwing money out like this. You are only going to send your hard work to the dotcom owner.
.ME is worthless!~
Domain Bell,
No need to feel sorry at all. The validation for the business does not come from the domainer community, it comes from users, and all the validation needed on the plan has already occurred. Its not about PPC, its not about parking, its not about flipping, building a real business is all that matters.
I love .COM as well, but I do feel with the right plan there is value elsewhere.
Bruce
Agree with Spike, sounds like a waste of money to me. Let’s see how this is going in 12 months time.
I look forward to reporting how things are going in 12 months:)
I really do not mean to sound flippant when I say things like that, but I think that a bigger picture view is needed. Its not about the extension , its about a gap that needs to be filled. There is an opportunity presenting itself that I don’t think many people see (I know some do though) , the trick is to act on that opportunity, the stars aligned in away. Don’t really want to say more than that right now.
“The real money is not in the flip. Its in a business plan and development. ”
Exactly! Keep it up, Bruce.
I look forward to hearing what the business plan is?
Good Luck!
Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained!
Grats! It’s funny – I own 23 states too.. just in a different extension. Many of the same states here. I guess that makes us competitors
I never quite got the appeal of .me for geo domains, but they seem to do well enough. I’ve not paid anywhere near $1k a name for example 
I’m curious – are you also building out your city portfolio as well? It makes sense to own the state so it can also act as a “directory” of your city sites – at least that’s what I’ve been working on. My business plan is not really designed around making a ton of money from the state sites themselves as I think people tend to look more local. Compare nashville.com to tennessee.com for example and numerous, numerous other examples, where the cities get significantly more traffic than the state.
Anyway, good luck. Don’t mind the naysayers. Development and execution is critical but we knew that going in, right?
To capitalize on the fall of the newspaper industry you must provide “local news”. Once you provide news, you must then find a way to monetize the news/site. If you are thinking a business directory you are competing against YellowPages.com, if you are thinking classifieds you are competing against eBay or CraigsList.org, if you are thinking real estate you are competing against Realtor.com. All the revenue sources used to monetize a news publication (online or off) have been shredded.
My point is that newspapers are failing for a reason and a domain name is a very, very small part of the solution.
I wish you luck!
I don’t think it’s a “gamble” at all. If it doesn’t work out and he wants to sell them all in two years, I’m positive he’d be able to at least recoup his investment and sell to someone else who might have plans for them.
Think about it, there’s definitely a business in CT that would pay $200 for Connecticut.me, even if .ME never takes off.
I am really surprised to see so much doubt in the .ME extension. Just the other day I was driving by Tempe Town Lake and saw an advertisement using the .ME extension. Furthermore, Bruce’s point about development is key. By creating something of value for users the value of the domain will compound dramatically into something that’s equitable
Hey Bruce…
All i can say is ‘have a go’. I own a fair chunk of Australian Cities and states in .coms and a few .nets. I have also dabbled in the marketing of business directories within a certain demographic of domains and simple answer is – it works.
JS commented about competition for Yellow Pages, well YP just cant compete on local business directory rates and has major trouble getting pole position in Google search results. Pure geo domains dont. They just take a little time like creme rising to the top. So dont mind YP being around, most businesses are looking for an alternative. As for classifieds, its local so it will appeal to local advertisers for local pickup and inspections. And finally property. Hell if you own the state or city and think about what a person uses in their normal search criteria its hard to imagine they wont use the state or city in their search (Unless they want results in other states as well – NOT). If they add the location as well you win by default on the name and with a well constructed property page for local advertisers you will be competitive with larger RE websites. You dont want all the money anyway.
As far as values go, flipping a name for the first time produces little revenue until its flipped for the third or fourth time. It has to create a value for itself. So go get em Bruce, develop the domains, create your network. The network is the power and I will leave you with this thought.
‘The only people that never fail …. are those that never try’ – Cheers Mick.
Great comments, when i made this post I completely expected the response to be much like it has been. Localization is key, development is key, creating value is key. There is a difference between domaining and developing a business on a domain. The value at that point is larger than the domain itself.
Thanks much all!
It’ll be interesting to see the weight that Google and other search engines will place on sites developed on .ME.
Granted, it’s cheap to invest in new .me registrations, but don’t forget the cost of your time to build out and then advertise the network. Too much! You may want to look at what Elliot Silver is doing with his geos to get a reality check. He’s already put a lot of time and money into his few, but he hasn’t really mentioned much about the revenue. aside from a few small streams. It’s takes a lot of time, energy and initial money to get each geo area going. Are you prepared to do that? At a minimum, each area will require a “ground and pound” team, unless you have the “mother-of-all-strategies” to automate the generation and delivery of content for all your sites. It’s tough to comment because I haven’t seen a business plan. But for what its worth, I hope I can at least offer some advice from another perspective. I’ve only bought and sold .com and .info geos and made some decent money flipping. I got tired of developing them.
I think that’s exactly the point Spike. It’s very expense to acquire a large portfolio of .com exact match geos. It’s very expense and time consuming to build out your one or two geo domains. So what’s the solution?
Building out a network of sites that are all based on the same engine, tools and teams is much more cost effective, makes branding and marketing easier, advertisers are easier to get because you control a large part of the market instead of being some fly by night domainer. In terms of revenue generation, you can get national brands to advertise with you that are looking for local exposure, so you don’t have to sell advertising to every single mom and pop in order to get decent revenue. Each individual site doesn’t have to earn as much in order for you to be profitable. Etc. etc.
But in order to get a large network of sites like that and still have money to afford development costs you essentially have look at alternative extensions. I wasn’t hating on .me earlier, but it’s not the extension I chose for my investments. To each his own.
Oh, and content creation costs don’t necessarily have to be linear either.
Hi Bruce,
I love this quote from you in one of the above comments:
“No need to feel sorry at all. The validation for the business does not come from the domainer community, it comes from users, and all the validation needed on the plan has already occurred. Its not about PPC, its not about parking, its not about flipping, building a real business is all that matters.
I love .COM as well, but I do feel with the right plan there is value elsewhere. ”
I agree and thanks for actually sharing some specific domain names. I look forward to seeing more posts in the future on your progress! – Joel
Bruce,
Congratulations on your most recent purchases,
Look forward to seeing you plan come alive.
Best of Luck
Simon
Found out what you paid for Ohio.me and Arizona.me
http://domainnamewire.com/2009/05/25/tweetme-sells-for-11505/
I think it’s great. I like the dot me and like what your doing with them. Keep up the good work!
Chef Patrick,
Thanks for the link, Tweet.me for $11,505 seems a little high, but if you have a business model to support it, then $11k is easy to recoup.
I would like to thank everyone here. You have taught me something that will undoubtedly make me a lot more money in the future!
All,
Thanks for the great comments, I appreciate the opinions from both sides. Bit of an interesting day so couldnt respond to all the posts one by one.
@ChefPatrick Ohio and Arizona are golden in my book. I had a number in mind for a few of those I let slide by in the auction. I almost got greedy and went for 25 states just to make it half:)
@domain superstar No problem on sharing actual domains. I have enjoyed the discussion that ensued. Now is the time to build a business. If you can start a business and thrive when the economy is down it gets easier when things are better:)
@theoretical Meant to respond to you as well, funny we both have 23:) Yes I am building out cities. I own a couple .com city names (30K size) and some larger .nets. I also have StLouis.me and Indianapolis.me
More details to come when the time is right.
If you find a need, and fill that need, you’ll do just fine.
PERIOD.
Congrats so far and best of luck.
I know you have a good plan.
Aron
Aron,
Thanks, you got it right.
Its all about having a plan and filling a need, you put that together and good things happen.
Bruce
The title of your post reminded me of a domainer joke I wrote in an old blog entry in October of last year:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.COM
For kicks, I wanted to register the alphabet (TLD). To my surprise, this domain was taken in .com, .net and .org! I definitely had to laugh, when I found this out. Not only are the domains registered, but they are also being monetized with landing pages!!! Heck, this could be a great pick up line at a bar.
Lady at Bar: “So what do you do for a living?”
Domainer: “I own the alphabet.”
Lady at Bar: “Oh, Wow! That’s quite funny!”
Domainer: “Yah, it sounds funny but I sell more soup then campbells!”
To the owners of those fine alphabet domains, cheers! Here’s to you kiddos!
Best Regards,
Jason Thompson
If you are into Georgia.Me – you know what doors to knock.
Brands-and-Jingles Of-Cour.se
I own Florida.me and California.me and will develop it soon.!