Want To Own Your Name? dotME and Namejet Give You A Chance
As a believer in .ME and someone who has actually spent time with real people other than those in our industry talking about the extension I can say from first hand experience people get .ME, and more important remember .ME. And as such I was happy to see the .ME team announce an auction being run by Namejet.com for first name and last name .ME domains.
I own Bruce.me (will be rebranding my blog to this in the near future) and Marler.me and actually bought several other first name .ME domains when they were released in the past. There are many I will be grabbing from this auction as well and look forward to adding to my first name portfolio.
I personally look forward to re-branding my blog to Bruce.me because I think when it comes to personalization and branding .ME does it better than any other. Bruce.me just works.
That said, here is a sampling of the more than 300 names being released on April 5th:
Andrew.Me
Adam.Me
Brian.Me
Daniel.Me
Douglas.Me
Eric.Me
Jack.Me
James.Me
Jason.Me
John.Me
Kevin.Me
Lindsey.Me
Maria.Me
Paul.Me
Peters.Me
Scott.Me
Shawn.Me
Steve.Me
Ryan.Me
William.Me
Here is the full press release for your enjoyment:
LIKE YOUR NAME? HERE’S YOUR CHANCE TO OWN IT ONLINE
More Than 300 Names & Surnames Up for Grabs in the Next .ME Auction
Podgorica, Montenegro – March 2, 2010 – The .ME Registry and NameJet announced the Internet’s largest online auction of personal names today. If you’ve ever wanted your own name as a domain, now is your chance! More than 300 personal names and surnames with a .ME extension are up for auction, starting April 5, 2010.
“We’ve had phenomenal success working with NameJet in the past. Their online auction platform is a perfect venue for this upcoming auction of personal names -- the biggest online auction event the .ME Registry has ever held,” stated Predrag Lesic, Executive Director of the .ME Registry. “The popularity of social media makes this an opportune time to create a personal presence online and, as we’ve told the world from the start, dot-ME is as personal as it gets. Dot-ME is all about YOU!”
Here’s a glimpse at some of the many popular names available in this auction:
Andrew.Me
Adam.Me
Brian.Me
Daniel.Me
Douglas.Me
Eric.Me
Jack.Me
James.Me
Jason.Me
John.Me
Kevin.Me
Lindsey.Me
Maria.Me
Paul.Me
Peters.Me
Scott.Me
Shawn.Me
Steve.Me
Ryan.Me
William.Me
For the full list of available first names and surnames, go to www.PersonalNames.Me.
“This is the first time in the history of domains that more than 300 premium personal names have gone to auction at the same time. It’s so rare to gain control of your very own name with any domain extension. Imagine having it with a dot-ME – the ultimate personal domain,” said Steve Brown, General Manager of NameJet.
“Dot-ME is the ideal personal Web site domain,” noted Lesic. “Imagine the power of being the ONLY person in the world to own your first name or last name through dot-ME, even though millions of others have the very same name.”
.ME is proving to be extraordinarily popular for so many reasons. More than 350,000 .ME domains have been registered in the two years since the domain extension’s launch and a number are used for online call-to-action and catch phrase branding by businesses worldwide. One noteworthy example is Facebook, which is using FB.Me as its URL shortener. For other examples and articles about the many clever uses of .ME, visit ExploreTheWorldOf.Me.
To learn more about the .ME Registry, developing a .ME business idea through non-auction allocation of a .ME domain, or to find out how to register a .ME domain, go to www.Domain.Me.
About the .ME Registry:
.ME Registry (the d.b.a. of doMEn, d.o.o.) was chosen by the government of Montenegro to operate the new .ME domain name extension. .ME Registry partners include ME-net, GoDaddy.com and Afilias Limited. Me-Net is located in Montenegro and its principals have been leaders in the ICT sector in Montenegro, including the privatization of its largest ISP. GoDaddy.com is located in the USA and is the world’s largest domain name registrar and the largest paid hostname provider in the world, according to Netcraft Ltd. Afilias Limited is headquartered in Ireland and is a leading registry services provider, supporting more than 15 million domains worldwide.
About NameJet:
NameJet® is a domain name aftermarket auction company that consolidates an exclusive inventory of expired and deleted domains from top domain name registrars and makes them available to their customers. NameJet's auction services include the ability to place backorder requests on any domain name and a "last minute board" that allows customers to closely watch an ending auction.
Bruce: Thanks for the info. I may have to see if I can get Brian.me
There are several I am after, good luck on Brian.me!
For all purposes I like the .me. If you are someone doing a video blog or youtube channel. I always liked FirstNameTV.com or non premium Firstname.tv . I think with more people broadcasting themselves its a nice alternative to the out of reach first name.com.
I like your line about talking to people outside of domaining. I think when people realize its a big world and most non domainers do not know or care about domainer metrics. Good luck bidding Bruce.
Thanks much for the nice comment, and yep as much as I am a domainer I think it is very important to step back from our own world sometimes and think about the larger public. It helps put things in perspective.
I like the first name.me Roger.me would be cool. I also like the first name tv.com. That’s a good idea for all these people using You Tube and socialmedia. RogerTV.com taken of course. I see BruceTV.com is for sale.
Nice:) Thanks:)
The question is how much would they want for something like that. I see it would be cool to own, but we domainers tend to be a little proud sometimes of our names:)
I see BruceTV.com parked and for sale. I got my first name TV.com a couple months ago it dropped and available for reg fee. I have owned a bunch of FirstNameTv.com (some get traffic) as I think they make sense for a you tube world. Even if you don’t have a site forward it to your youtube channel.
Bruce do you see these .me going for high xxx ? or low x,xxx ? They are cool but mostly a vanity name. Bruce.Me is cool but not better than Bruce Marler.com IMO.
In the last auctions most went in the $XXX range, that said there are a lot more names of higher quality in this auction so i expect some will go much higher but still a good portion in the $XXX range though, many in the lo $XXX.
I am sure there will be a number of folks bidding on Jason.me, including Bruce! So do your fellow domainer buddy a favor and don’t bid too high!
On a serious note I am sure I would have to fork up a few grand to win my name! I will be watching closely!
LOL:) Would I do that!
Actually I have my eye on several, my kids and my wife all have their names in this auction!
As of today, I only own one dotME domain and fortunately it’s Brandon.me. I had been watching this domain for months ever since it was waiting for a release date and today, the auction ended.
I have to agree that dotME is more understood by people outside of the domain world. Leading up to this auction, I was also talking to people to see how they compared well known tlds to international ones and I started realizing that nobody really knows about international domains. Everyone I talk to actually believes that dotTV was created for the television industry! But that’s good in a way because people will relate dotME to people and personal sites (when using a firstname/lastname.me).
As for you Bruce, I hope you weren’t one of the other bidders on my name moving the price up!
LOL, I am in on some of the auctions:) And you are right, no one really cares that it comes from Montenegro, they care about how the brand can be used.