.ME of course

A lot has been said about .ME domains, but why is it Montenegrin country-code Top Level Domain (ccTLD)?

Wouldn't it be more logical to assign .CG to the country, as it's original name is Crna Gora (Black Mountain)?

A bit of history: former Yugoslavia used .YU domain, which is now being phased out. Within Yugoslavia, Montenegro has its second level domain .CG.YU.

After the breakup of Yugoslavia in 2003, there was an attempt to assign .CS ccTLD to Serbia and Montenegro (Srbija i Crna Gora in Serbian). .CS was former.ly the ccTLD for Czechoslovakia until 1995, when it broke into Czech Republic and Slovakia and the new countries were assigned .CZ and .SK respective.ly.

However, neither Serbia nor Montenegro did use .CS as its ccTLD, but instead continued to use .YU.

Unfortunate.ly, or fortunate.ly for many of us who do like .ME domains very much, already in 1997 .CG was assigned to the Republic of the Congo.

As of today, Google has indexed only 83,500 pages in .CG zone. Hypothetical.ly, Montenegrin citizens could have been possibly use the ccTLD.

Although Congolese are entitled to one free domain registration directly at the second level of .CG, additional registrations and registrations by the foreigners cost about 225 euro a year as of 2008.

That probably left no option to the Montenegrin government, who wanted to control its domain anyway. Note, gov.cg is not taken yet, however, the government of Montenegro is hosted now at gov.me.

No wonder, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers took the English name of the country as the basis and went through all possible two-letter combinations starting with letter "M": .MO, .MN, .MT, .ME, .MN, .ME, .MG, .MR, and again .MO.

.MO was taken by Macau in 1996, .MN by Mongolia in 1995, .MT by Malta in 1992, .MG by Madagascar in 1995, and .MR by Mauritania in 1997.

Believe it or not, .ME was the only option left. Some may say, it was GoDaddy and alike who lobbied and promoted the .ME domain to make few bucks, but in fact, the ccTLD space just got a bit too tight.

Yet again, we marketeers just love .ME for its jingliness.

Posted on March 24th, 2009 • Category: .ME, .RS, .YU, Analysis, Discussions, Registry (.ME) • Comments (5)

Among those ccTLD and gTLD launched after 1999, .ME has the highest Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) with unbeatable 210,138% when measuring pages indexed by Google:

Old generic domains launched back in 1985 are stagnating now with lower but yet impressive numbers:

True, it is a matter of time for .ME to reach its peak and the CAGR to fall but until then it will certain.ly break few more records. Never a TLD took that fast.

Posted on March 22nd, 2009 • Category: .ME, Analysis • Comments (2)

As seen in West London, Harper & Tweedie, Property Portfolio Management, is featuring its properties under "buy me" slogan:

They wish they registered buy.me domain, which was already bought by Italian Register.it S.p.A. These days, good names are scarce indeed.

While buy.me is still parked, buy.it is already a well developed portal in Italian. The prices for these domains are certain.ly in the five-six digits range.

If your budget is tight, you may be interested in buy.its.me jingle.

Posted on March 22nd, 2009 • Category: .ME, Examples, Marketing, UK • Comments (1)

London is full of "ME" advertisement, a great place indeed. With big sales coming soon, BAY trading company hanged out big "PICK ME" posters:

This all give a good pole position to pick.me domain. Another one to consider is try.me - also a premium one. Both names are reserved by the registry and not released yet.

Some hackers have registered p-i-c-k.me and t-r-y.me. The former is forwarded to farm.tv. But who would type it in anyway?

Then, other two fine jingles to consider:

• try.its.me
• pick.its.me

The latter is still available for registration. Though, as usual in the domain world: the shorter and the jinglier - the better.

Posted on March 17th, 2009 • Category: .ME, Examples, Marketing, UK • Comments (1)

GENEVA (Reuters) - Companies and celebrities ranging from Arsenal football club to actress Scarlett Johansson filed a record number of "cybersquatting" cases in 2008 to stop others from profiting from their famous names, brands and events, a United Nations agency said on Sunday.

Web sites in dispute in 2008 included references to Madrid's 2016 Olympics bid, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), Yale University, Research in Motion's Blackberry as well as Arsenal and Johansson, and company names such as eBay, Google and Nestle.

The most common business sector in which complaints arose was pharmaceuticals, due to websites offering sales of medicines with protected names. Other top sectors for complaints were banking and finance, Internet and telecommunications, retail, and food, beverages and restaurants.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) handled 2,329 cases under its dispute procedure for Internet page names.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages the system of Web addresses with endings like .com and .gov, is preparing to launch many new series of suffixes.

These new generic top-level domain names (gTLDs) will allow a vast increase in the number of Web addresses, providing new scope for trademarked names to be abused -- or at least making it harder for the trademark owners to monitor them.

"The creation of an unknowable and potentially vast number of new gTLDs raises significant issues for rights holders, as well as Internet users generally," WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry said in a statement.

The founder of the World Wide Web said on Friday the names system had become mired in politics and commercial games.

"It would have been interesting to look at systems that didn't involve domains," Tim Berners-Lee, who drafted a proposal 20 years ago that led to the Web, told an anniversary celebration.

Gurry said his U.N. agency was working with ICANN, a not-for-profit corporation based in California, on "pre- and post-delegation procedures" to check the proposed new suffixes and help avoid future litigation.

For instance a new suffix ".apple" could well upset the computer, phone and entertainment company Apple.

How such suffixes are used and by whom would be important -- a fruit-growing company using the .apple suffix would not have the same effect as a company registering a Website "ipod.apple."

Gurry told a news conference that trademarks that had no other meaning, such as Sony and Kodak, were stronger and easier to defend than those based on general words or names, which could be ambiguous.

(Reporting by Jonathan Lynn; Editing by Laura MacInnis)

Posted on March 15th, 2009 • Tags: WIPO • Category: Legal • Comments (2)

Web site for baby clothes branded as "Little me" is hosted at Littleme.com of course. But wouldn't it look more prettier as Little.me? Now they have to joint-venture with Adam Eisner. Or maybe it is Adam who should leverage his domain into something bigger than a parked one:

At Little Me®, a division of Mamiye Brothers, we create unique clothing that celebrates those fleeting years when newborns transform into young toddlers. At the heart of Little Me is this time of exploring and delight — the magical years of discoverhood. Our products let little ones be little — whether they’re napping, throwing cereal on the floor or crawling through deliciously muddy grass.

We are constantly developing innovative apparel, accessories and products that nurture discoverhood. We never use tweed, leather or any other “grown-up” material. We use fabrics like soft cotton, terrycloth and velour. We believe babies should always be comfortable, snuggly and safe, free to do what they do best: play, sleep and thrive. Everything we design allows babies to discover the world at their own pace. They’ll have plenty of time to dress like adults. After all, even the tiniest newborn will grow up soon. Let them — and yourself — enjoy the wonder while it lasts.

Posted on March 14th, 2009 • Category: .COM, .ME, Branding, Discussions, Examples, Marketing • Comments Off on Little me

Domain.Me, the registry, has announced new series of premium auctions. This time they offer 29 English verb+me combinations, all from top 3000+ words:

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

Plus six Serbian premium domains:

• dodaj.me (add.me)
• izaberi.me (choose.me / elect.me)
• kupi.me (buy.me)
• uporedi.me (remind.me / warn.me)
• zapamti.me (remember.me)
• zaposli.me (send.me)

Dutch variations of the above verbs are, alas, all taken. Few more bucks to rescue poor Montenegrin economy.

The auctions site can be found on Sedo.

Posted on March 2nd, 2009 • Tags: auction, premium • Category: .ME, Examples, Registry (.ME) • Comments (1)

Thanks to Mark Kolb of Rewarding.me, the rumour has it here in Europe too, that a website MyEducation.Me is being heavy.ly promoted in Canada: on MSN Messanger, daily tele ads...