.ME of course

Jingling .me domains are impossible to forget

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An Open Letter to the Advertising and Marketing Community

You probably haven't heard, but a fairly quiet event occurred on July 17th - the new domain extension .ME hit the internet. Previously reserved for Montenegro, .ME has the power to change the way you advertise on-line. Yet it seems that almost no one in marketing knows about it!

Dot ME presents companies with a new channel for marketing their products and services. Opportunity lies in easy-to-remember, action-oriented, personalized domain phrases ending with "me", anything from "insure.me" or "stylish.me" to even something like "BringSalesTo.me".

Beyond slogans and action-oriented phrases, the power of .ME comes with reaching all people on a personal level. Anything a person can do is magnified and personalized when coupled with ME. Many domain names like athlete.me, healthy.me, beautiful.me and family.me are probably more powerful than their dot.com counterparts.

It's a well-known fact that all the great dot COM names have been taken, but dot ME is so new that many personal slogans are yet to be made available. 2,500 pre-reserved dot me names will be auctioned off starting in September with another 100,000+ premium domains being obtainable directly through their registrants. Innovative companies will have unique marketing opportunities to exploit these domains in personal campaigns that strongly promote both the brand and the domain.

Think about it. ME is a perfect marketing package. Any domain ending in ".ME" will maximize the sales message at a personal level with an empowering effect on advertising. Imagine how powerful and competitive a message like "champion.me" could be for a sports company, or "successful.me" for an educator.

The message is clear. A dot me domain is a unique marketing vehicle that is awaiting exploitation. The challenge will be to distinguish dot ME from dot COM. No one wants to confuse the public, so it's up to your industry to develop a new marketing paradigm to take dot ME domains beyond dot COM.

Mark Kolb
www.dotmewebsites.com

.MOBI vs .ME

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There are many hot discussions going on related to .me vs .mobi etc. Referring to one of them on Rick Schwartz's blog:

Guys who thought .mobi was a good idea should have been investing in .me. Something.mobi is not a jingle. Verb.me is. Noun4.me is.

Try to forget these ones: free4.me, hotels4.me, jobs4.me, mobiles4.me, phones4.me, pizza4.me or tickets4.me and there is 99.9% that you will not. Tell your friends about fancy.me, remortgage.me, replay.me or unlock.me and they will remember it too.

Before buying: always study the markets.

Model.Me

On 15th of August 2008, model.me was won on a land rush auction for $7,354.98 after 110 bids by William Erickson of Next Wave, LLC in Wisconsin, US. Now it is for sale, already packed as a trademark registered in the US in October 2008:

Prior to this in December 2007, Susan Green from California also tried to file for a US trademark "MODEL.ME" on the individual level, but failed for some unknown reasons.

There are also ModelMe.com, registered by British firm Model Me Ltd, currently down. ModelMe.net (US owned) and ModelMe.org (Brazilian owned) both parked, and ModelMe.biz (US owned, currently down).

To complicate the matter, Toni & Guy, a UK and US-based hairdressing company, has a claim on Model.Me™ - as they put it, the first ever haircare range collection created and developed by leading fashion and music personalities - Erin O'Conno, Helena Chrisensen and Jamelia in partnership with TONI&GUY™.

Toni & Guy's jingle "Haircare by Us for You":

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

Their launch with Vogue TV Fashion Footage:

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Toni & Guy's Model.Me products are available at Boots, a leading British retailer:

With many trademarks registered and claims, it promises to be a mess, once the parties start fighting for the first claim. At least the girls had some fun and good treatment too.

Woo.Me

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Today, Sherry Humphreys registered Woo.Me. Well, darling, I am just wondering how would you go about WooMe.com, an established trademark? So far the site is just parked at GoDaddy. Sure.ly it will be an interesting case in the future.

So many men… so few who can afford me…

A picture taken in one of Kyiv's PR agencies:

{click on the image to zoom in}

Sunrise auctions (results)

Today, the last of the five sunrise auction domain names were registered by the registry. At this moment it is not clear how many organisations have applied for domestic and international sunrise .me names, however it is clear that five of them had more than one international applicants and hence ended up in the auctions.

More »

Crunch.Me by Nestle

It appears that Nestle has reseved Crunch.Me. Expect new .me cookies soon?

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Publish.me etc

While publish.me awaits its date to be release on a premium auction, Swedish guys don't sit and wait.

On 25th of March 2008 they registered publishme.se and built a blogging portal based on blogg.se domain, very popular among Swedish girls, and boys too, but I have only seen girls there. Don't ask me why, as I don't speak a word of Swedish.

Well done! Shame domains such as publishme.com etc are all taken.

Then for Dutch guys there is publiceer.me. Anyone?

Inspire.me

A good domain, wasted. Inspire.me was acquired by the owners of trademark "Inspire Me Today", which they registered in 2006. For the moment, they only redirect the site to their original inspiremetoday.com.

From the branding prospective, it should be other way around: week domains should forward to the the stronger ones. Inspire.me is just 100 better than inspiremetoday.com. Well, you can always go for hacks like Inspire.Me/Today instead of InspireMeToday.com but short "inspire.me" is pure, elegant and stylish.

Yet, again, with all inspireme.*** taken, inspireme.net and inspireme.org being decent blogs, it will be a shame if such a potentially great brand will be buried in the depth of the Internet.

One can always go for inspiremethursday.com or something, but nothing beats inspire.me.

Czech me out!

A tea cup bought a while ago in Prague: "Czech Me Out!"


Yes, "ME" labelled products are popular all over the world, even in Czechia.

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