Me.Me Acquired By Yahoo

Great news for marketing folks that understand the value of the .ME brand, as is being reported on a few other domain blogs such as TheDomains.com and ElliotsBlog.com Yahoo has acquired me.me from the .ME registry. Sedo brokered the transaction between the two entities.

This is great news for the .ME extension as it shows continued awareness by major internet companies of the extension and its potential for branding and memorability.

Other major companies that began using .ME in various ways are Facebook with FB.me and Wordpress with WP.me.

I want to extend a big congrats to Natasa and Predrag from the .ME team, I know how hard they work to promote their brand and love to see when great things happen to good people.

FB.me Launched By Facebook And Puts A dotME In Front Of Millions

Well Tweetmeme.com used a .ME as a URL shortener (Retwt.me) and as a dotME fan I was obviously pleased since it put dotME domains in front of the millions of visitors to Tweetmeme.com.

Then shortly thereafter WP.me launched as the Wordpress shortening service, that put .ME in front of million so of more users.

Well, it just got better for dotME fans, Facebook (with over 350 million users) has now launched their URL shortener on a dotME, FB.me was announced today. One thing to note is that two letter .ME domains are only available to those that present a plan to the registry, at this point they have not been made available through landrush auctions or general registration.

Obviously a company like Facebook, with their very large user base, using .ME helps with the acceptance of the extension and helps with user awareness. So far the reports are that it is starting to show up more frequently in Twitter links and other social media services. But with the user base of Facebook once they fully launch the penetration their URL shortening service gets will be huge.

Right now it seems that Facebook is using the FB.me service extensively for mobile applications and it also works for Facebook usernames and pages as reported at Mashable.com.

Thanks to Facebook for helping along the .ME extension. I have never had any issues with customers accepting the extension but when a brand like Facebook starts using it for a service that really helps awareness along.

Second .ME Geo Domain Name Launch Moving Forward

Well our first sales meeting is behind us, we filled a room with our full time sales team and a few agents that will be working with us to bring us customers. One thing that we did a little different to make a point was we actually had 2 CUSTOMERS at our sales meeting. Thats right, normally an internal sales meeting has a bit of dirty laundry that gets aired, but we were so confident that having real customer feedback would be great we invited a couple customers. Talk about giving a sales team real feedback, real time and validating what will work and what will not.

Well we had a bit of a surprise acceleration in our launch plans for state #2, we had a couple people targeted in another state that we had previous experience with and due to various reasons we were able to bring them into our "world" a little faster than planned, they made plans at the last minute and made an 8 hour trek to come to our sales meeting to make sure all was as it seemed and then signed on to manage marketing and sales for another great Geo .ME domain name. I am not announcing the state yet but we expect the intial site to be up within a few weeks and their work to start right along with that.  My experience with these two individuals is long and their abilities are as good as anyone you are going to find from both an operations and sales perspective (I hate to admit it but I may of learned a thing or two from him.....). Exciting stuff.

I have had many requests in the last week for various partnerships, domain offers, etc. I will say that I am interested in partnerships on quality geo names but we will be very selective as the last thing we want to do is get distracted by a partership that may not have the sales and marketing legs behind it on the other side.  With our own names we control the sales and marketing efforts and have a plan in place. Many of the partnership requests are something quite different in that our platform is what is being used while the other side will be the sales and marketing leg, that only works if they truly have that experience.

Oh yeah, a reminder, StilettoSandals.com will be on Bido auction next week:)

Sedo .ME Premium Auction Ends Tomorrow

Being a believer .ME domain names I have been watching the Sedo premium .ME auction which is currently running and ends tomorrow at 1PM EST. There are some premium .ME names in the auction that fit the extension well and I think with the current economic situation can be picked up at what will end up being bargain prices.

As I have mentioned before, outside of .COM and .NET the .ME extension seems to resonate the most with people outside the domaining world. As has been mentioned many times .ME really is the most brandable "alternative" cctld. With the net being more and more about personalized and localized content there are many possibilities to play off .ME.

Now, I am a realist and am not saying .ME is taking over .COM , please do not start screaming that I am nuts and dotcom is king. I get that. But I do think that .ME is going to do better than many domainers may expect (or want....).

Take a look at the list of domains being auctioned, might be your time to get a name at a bargain price:

pay.me
bet.me
book.me
download.me
compare.me
tell.me
print.me
film.me
rock.me
add.me
employ.me
sell.me
locate.me
test.me
join.me
pick.me
support.me
order.me
reward.me
message.me
manage.me
drink.me
power.me
discount.me
remember.me
market.me
clean.me
ring.me
promote.me