.ME of course

Logo of 23andMe.com

This will be sure.ly an interesting case.

Firm 23andMe.com founded by Anne Wojcicki (the wife of Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google) and Linda Avey offers people services of analysing and comparing their genomes (made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, hence the name). Google is an investor in this venture, although Mr Brin has rescued himself from the decisions about it. Both Mr Brin and Ms Wojcicki are quite the technical and marketing pair, indeed.

However on the legal ground neither of the companies played it hard. Last summer, Google has lost its case in Germany, where it cannot use Gmail (owned by gmail.de) and is forced to go under name "Google Mail". In Ukraine, it has to host on google.com.ua, while google.ua (owned by Gou Ogle Ltd - ТзОВ ГОУ ОГЛЕ) is forwared to kohaymos.com (let's-make-love.com in Ukrainian).

Logo used by 23and.Me

Now another German entity, this time Kemper Media, registered 23and.Me and is promoting similar services to those of 23andMe.com. On one of its pages, it even refers to the latter [ http://23and.me/dna-googles23-and-me.html ] completely confusing the user whether or not he or she is on the right site to submit his or her DNA.

Domain wise, this case is not a complete mess. Ms Wojcicki managed to secure most TLDs. However, 23-and.Me is still available and 23andMe.mobi was registered by Andrew Ayton (currently parked at GoDaddy).

Interestingly, Google's Page Rank for 23andMe.com is undefined, while for 23and.Me it is already 2.

Certain.ly, we will hear more on this case in 2009.

Sources:

• Domain.Me (23and.Me)
  
• Dominik Mueller (on Gmail)
• Google (Sergey Brin)
• The Economist (on Sergey Brin)
  

Posted on January 6th, 2009 • Tags: 23andMe, Google, trademark • Category: .COM, .ME, .MOBI, Branding, Examples, Legal • Comments (12)

Another great initiative in blogging, this time based on Serbia ccTLD: blogge.rs. However, as they have decided to host on BlueHost, they ran into problem of setting up WordPress for sub-domains and can only do directory based blogs for the moment.

And yet, making blogs based on sub-domains would read so much better. Just compare:

serbian.blogge.rs vs blogge.rs/serbian

Which one do you prefer? Certain.ly the former sounds more natural.ly.

Posted on January 5th, 2009 • Tags: jingling, Serbia, Serbian • Category: .RS • Comments (2)

Serious company - serious approach, Amazon acquired Amazon.Me already back in June 2008 and now the web sites serves as its European portal.

Let's zoom in for the moment and see what "me" branded products are for sale on the world's famous online retailer.

A search for Trust.Me Amazon provides 50+ hits, then Love.Me again 50+ hits. Help.Me - the same story. And so on, for every Verb.Me.

But Amazon doesn't limit its "me" spread to the verbs. Untold number of product is available for purchase:

Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog

Apple - Mobile.Me Family Pack

A book Alex and Me was featured by the Economist earlier in October:

Mercy Me, albums; album: All That Is Within Me.

You Found Me by The Fray (MP3).

Free to Be You and Me by Marlo Thomas (CD).

Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together by Ron Hall, Denver Moore, and Lynn Vincent (Book).

Then She Found Me by Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler, and Matthew Broderick (Movie).

JJ Cole Original Infant Bundle Me - Khaki by JJ Cole.

My Horse and Me by Atari Inc. (Feb 5, 2008) (Nintendo Wii).

Disney & Me by Redan, Inc. (April 26, 2002) - Magazine Subscription.

philosophy - help me - retinol treatment by philosophy.

A Different Me by Keyshia Cole (Audio CD - Dec 16, 2008).

Poopy Pants Productions Presents PRAY FOR ME: THE JASON JESSEE FILM - Skateboarding DVD by Pray For Me.

Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together by Ron Hall, Denver Moore, and Lynn Vincent (Kindle Edition - Mar 11, 2008) - Kindle Book.

Just Me Paris Hilton By Paris Hilton For Women. Eau De Parfum Spray 3.4 Ounces by Paris Hilton.

Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler (Hardcover - April 22, 2008).

Free to Be You and Me ~ Marlo Thomas, Alan Alda, Harry Belafonte, and Mel Brooks (DVD - Nov 20, 2001).

Your Heart Belongs to Me by Dean Koontz (Hardcover - Nov 25, 2008).

Smashbox Try Me Set by Smashbox.

She Never Cried In Front Of Me by Toby Keith (MP3 Download).

Rescue Me - The Complete Fourth Season ~ Denis Leary, Mike Lombardi, Steven Pasquale, and Andrea Roth (DVD - Jun 3, 2008).

You and Me Design Protective Skin Decal Cover for Samsung SGH-A737 Cell Phone by MyGift.

And many, many more.

Posted on January 4th, 2009 • Tags: Amazon • Category: .ME, Branding, Examples, Marketing • Comments Off on Amazon.Me

Brands-and-Jingles has shared the data they gathered in 2008 since the inception of .ME on number of web pages indexed by Google.

Among all top level domains, in 2008, .ME sites have enjoyed the fastest growth with more than 50% a month:

Number of .me pages indexed by Google

.ME tops other industry risers and leaders, beating .ASIA and .MOBI with the growth of 40% and 30% per month respectively.

According to OCO, by the end of 2008, Alexa's top one million websites contained:

• 341 .ME sites
• 233 .MOBI sites
• 86 .ASIA sites

Considering that .MOBI was launched two years before .ME and .ASIA four months before .ME - .ME is, without any doubt, the unrivalled leader of 2008.

Posted on January 3rd, 2009 • Tags: 2008, statistics • Category: .ASIA, .ME, .MOBI, Analysis, Discussions • Comments (12)

Toyota has launched a new advertising campaign for its new iQ model. In the UK, it is accompanied by the jingle "i_am_unique".

Toyota iQ

"i_am_unique" is catchy, no doubts. However, they should have turned to "unique.me". The same message, stylish.ly, and with a web teaser too.

Posted on January 2nd, 2009 • Tags: car, cars, Toyota, unique • Category: .ME, Discussions • Comments (1)

Who.is of Domain.Me, the official .ME registry, says:

Domain info
wikipedia.me is available according to WHOIS. If you are interested in purchasing this domain kindly choose your registrar from registrar list

However, it is not. GoDaddy lists it as taken:

WIKIPEDIA.ME is already taken.
"wikipedia.me" not found in the Registry Whois.
WHOIS Underlying Registry Data: NOT FOUND

Neither was Wikipedia.Me auctioned during the land rush. It must be hidden somewhere in the Montenegrin matrix. Any idea where?

For true wiki lovers, there is, however, wiki.me (auctioned in August 2008 for $1,337.00 after 62 bids), curently parked at GoDaddy.

Posted on January 2nd, 2009 • Tags: wiki, wikipedia • Category: .ME, Discussions, Examples • Comments (1)

insure.me

insure.me

The legend of prime dot me land rush auctions, insure.me, won by Timothy Warbington from Arizona after nearly a month of bidding (278 bids were placed in July-August) and lump sum payment of $68,104.98 cash, is final.ly online, as a teaser, promising to launch a service with free access to health, life, auto and home insurance quotes from the network of agents and brokers across the country.

So far, the site is repeating the jingle of insureme.com - "Free Insurance Quotes | Auto, Homeowners, Life and Health Insurance | InsureMe".

The latter is still the number one in Google search for "insure+me", but with a bit of search engine optimisation (SEO) it may easily change, of course.

Then, branding wise, insure.me looks simpler and hence easy to remember. Insurance marketeers will love it for its higher recall rate.

loan.me

In September 2008, this domain was purchased at the first dot me Moniker auction by Nikolas Gough from Denmark for $15k. Loans.me is still reserved as a premium one by the dot me registry. Prior to this, number of "loans" were grabbed at the land rush:

• studentloans.me ($620) + studentloan.me ($305)
• personalloan.me ($100) + personalloans.me ($705)
• paydayloan.me ($605) + paydayloans.me ($175)
• autoloan.me (reserved as premium) + autoloans.me ($505)
• carloan.me (reserved as premium) + carloans.me ($205)
• loan2.me ($100) + loanto.me ($305)
• loan4.me ($175) + loanfor.me ($100)
• ...

Probably, the best of all is loan4.me as in English, word "loan" is mostly used as a noun and less of a verb. On the ".me" ground, an English noun sounds more natural.ly with "...4.me" and a verb without "4".

Apparent.ly, the winner of the "loan4.me" auction had failed to pay within 72 hours and the registry has reserved the domain for a later premium auction. Today, this leaves "loanfor.me" registered by Caroline Jenson from California, currently parked at GoDaddy, as the best loan jingle on the market. N.B., there is also loan-for.me acquired for $39.98 by Sergey Baykin from Moscow (currently parked at Dynadot).

As one can see, there is no need to pay a fortune, for a good domain name.

There are also loanme.com and loan4me.com, but as they have been parked for years, expect little progress, especially now with the new ".me" kids on the market.

remortgage.me

Acquired just for $2K, remortgage.me can grab another huge market, as a typical mortgage lives for less than five years. Consumer banking fact: although people mortgage their homes for decades, they usually shop now-and-then at different banks in search of lower rates. At least, in British and Irish markets, obvious.ly, remortgage.me represents a greater brand value than that of mortgage.me (not yet released by the Montenegrin registry anyway).

On iluvdotme.com discussion forum they also mention unmortgage.me and demortgage.me (the last one is still available on the primary market, so hurry up if you are interested).

However, they have a major flaw: these are not genuine English terms. For both of them Google provides us with less then 5000 hits (source: unmortgage@google and demortgage@google) some being typos and some are just invented jingles, meaningless from the marketing and branding prospective. This concept hardly existed before.The only way to "demortgage" is either to repay the loan or to default. Both require practically no financial assistance but a legal advice.

With remortgage.com and demortgage.com parked and demortgage.us, demortgage.info, and demortgage.biz untouched, these two stand little chances.

Google Insight

Below is the list of popular keywords, according to Google Insight tool:

• mortgage = (71%)
• loan = (49%)
• debt = (16%)
• insure = (1%)

These numbers represent consumers' interest in various financial products they search for online.

Looks like .me buyers got this trend completely wrong. The price they paid for the corresponding domains is negatively correlated with the keywords' popularity. Shouldn't it be other way around?

Posted on December 29th, 2008 • Tags: branding, finance, insure, loan, Marketing, mortgage, remortgage • Category: .BIZ, .COM, .INFO, .ME, Discussions, Examples • Comments (4)

The Economist : Business : Managing the Facebookers : The balance of power between old-school managers and young talent is changing—a bit

Illustration by David Simonds

Their defenders say they are motivated, versatile workers who are just what companies need in these difficult times. To others, however, the members of “Generation Y”—those born in the 1980s and 1990s, otherwise known as Millennials or the Net Generation—are spoiled, narcissistic layabouts who cannot spell and waste too much time on instant messaging and Facebook. Ah, reply the Net Geners, but all that messing around online proves that we are computer-literate multitaskers who are adept users of online collaborative tools, and natural team players. And, while you are on the subject of me, I need a month’s sabbatical to recalibrate my personal goals.

This culture clash has been going on in many organisations and has lately seeped into management books. The Net Geners have grown up with computers; they are brimming with self-confidence; and they have been encouraged to challenge received wisdom, to find their own solutions to problems and to treat work as a route to personal fulfilment rather than merely a way of putting food on the table. Not all of this makes them easy to manage. Bosses complain that after a childhood of being coddled and praised, Net Geners demand far more frequent feedback and an over-precise set of objectives on the path to promotion (rather like the missions that must be completed in a video game). In a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy, 61% of chief executives say they have trouble recruiting and integrating younger employees.

For the more curmudgeonly sort of older manager, the current recession is the joyful equivalent of hiding an alarm clock in a sleeping teenager’s bedroom (see article). Once again, the touchy-feely management fads that always spring up in years of plenty (remember the guff about “the search for meaning” and “the importance of brand me”) are being ditched in favour of more brutal command-and-control methods. Having grown up in good times, Net Geners have laboured under the illusion that the world owed them a living. But hopping between jobs to find one that meets your inner spiritual needs is not so easy when there are no jobs to hop to. And as for that sabbatical: here’s a permanent one, sunshine.

Today’s narcissistic layabout is tomorrow’s talent

In fact, compromise will be necessary on both sides. Net Geners will certainly have to temper some of their expectations and take the world as it is, not as they would like it to be. But their older bosses should also be prepared to make concessions. The economy will eventually recover—and demographic trends in most rich countries will make clever young workers even more valuable. Besides, many of the things that keep Net Geners happy—such as providing more coaching to young employees or embracing cheaper online ways to communicate—are worth doing anyway. But for the moment at least, the Facebookers are under the cosh.

Source: The Economist

Posted on December 29th, 2008 • Tags: brand, Facebook, The Economist • Category: .ME, Branding, Discussions, Marketing • Comments (1)

The flashy movie featuring premium domains

• about.me
• email.me
• enjoy.me
• fly.me
• learn.me
• search.me
• shop.me

can be found here: http://domain.me/slideshow.swf

Posted on December 28th, 2008 • Tags: domain.me • Category: .ME, Examples, Marketing, Registry (.ME) • Comments (3)