iEstates.com

The .ME Registry announced today that it assigned a premium domain name to Google for a web project called Ro.Me calling it a “Revolutionary Web Project”

The site, was launched worldwide on May 12,

Ro.Me is the destination of a new music experience called “3 Dreams of Black,” by writer/director Chris Milk. The site, featuring the revolutionary and open-source 3D WebGL browser technology, was developed in partnership with Google and takes visitors on a visual voyage through three dream worlds. The song, “Black,” comes off the album, ROME, presented by Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi and featuring Jack White and Norah Jones on vocals. ROME is soon to be released by Parlophone/EMI.

“Being identified as the domain extension of choice by innovative companies like Google shows exactly how valuable the dot-ME extension has become in the virtual world of brand messaging,” notes Predrag Lesic, executive director of the .ME Registry. “It creates a natural call-to-action and sends the most direct marketing message on the Web. You can’t forget domain names such as ‘Text.Me,’ ‘Find.Me’ or ‘Help.Me.’ Web users continue to recognize that a dot-ME domain is not only the most personal choice on the Web, it is also one of the most memorable. RO-dot-ME is a perfect example of that.”

Désirée Zeljka Miloshevic, chairwoman of the .ME Registry, adds, “I am delighted that half a million dot-ME registrants, bloggers, small businesses, tech start-ups and other social media and technology giants continue to find great value in the dot-ME name space, and use it creatively to best serve, promote and share their ideas and projects online.”

Well I don’t know if I would exactly describe this a revolutionary but its good to see some of the biggest Tech companies going with .Me domains.

.Me domain names are increasing being used for Apps and I would say are probably becoming the word of choice in naming Apps similar to how “i” has been used by Apple and other companies in the computer/Tech sector.

Blip.Me, Play.Me, Caddy.Me, Flirt.Me, Tango.Me are just a few of the Apps in which the developer also owns the matching domain.

We wrote about bit.ly new App News.me which just launched a couple of weeks ago.

The maker of Blackberry last week recently purchased the App Tungle.Me

Of course there are also a lot of Apps also named something …..me without the publisher owning the matching domains.

There are several “date me” apps,  “marry me” and “text me”apps,  for example, but I know the domain owner pretty well and the developer of the App doesn’t own the matching domain.

Likewise there are other Me Apps not owned by the App developer like “puzzle me”, “Trade me”, “Prank me” and “Strip Me” and “Talk To Me”

“Around Me” maybe the best known App ending in Me, but the domain Around.Me  is reserved by the registry as is Follow.me another popular App “follow me”

There is even Apps.me which “rates” the best smartphone apps.

There are App developers that use .Me domain names for there corporate site like Moop.Me and builditwith.me

 

 

 

Bit.ly’s social news iPad app, Just launched today and is live for free download at the iTunes store.

The name of the app and matching site is News.me

The app and the site are already getting press as yesterday,  All Things Digital, covered the App pointing out that:

News.me will cost $0.99 a week, or $34.99 a year.

It will be available as an iPad app, using Apple’s subscription service, or as an e-mail newsletter.

“News.me will provide users with curated Twitter streams that highlight “the most popular or interesting news stories” that appear in their own Twitter feeds, and from the feeds of other Twitter users they select. ”

“The notion is that users can “read over the shoulder” of people they find interesting. ”

Allthingsdigital  goes on to report some of the big boys have already lined up to have their content displayed by News.Me including the New York Times, the Associated Press, Forbes, AOL Business Insider, Gigaom, Mashable, VentureBeat.

Nice to see yet another .Me in the news.

 

Today following a similar announcement by the .Org registry a few days ago, the .ME registry also announced its was going to help domain holders located in Japan by giving them automatic renewals of their domains.

Here is the  press release by the .Me registry

“The recent devastating disasters in Japan have left many registrants without the ability to renew their domain names. The .ME Registry would like to alleviate concerns amongst Japanese .ME domain name holders by waiving renewal fees for one full year for all names that expire or will expire between March 11 and April 30, 2011.

“This is a small gesture we can make to help show support for our friends in Japan,” said Predrag Lesic, executive director of the .ME Registry, based in Montenegro. “In the weeks following this tragic crisis, truly heroic stories of survival and commitment have surfaced in Japan. We wish to honor all those facing tremendously difficult circumstances there, by making sure we will do what we can to alleviate any unnecessary concerns.”

To protect these registrants from losing their names, the Registry plans to waive the one year renewal fee for all names that expire(d) in the March 11 – April 30 period. This will affect only domain names where the registrant country address is Japan. For domains that had renewal dates between March 11 and March 31, the Registry will void the renewal fee. For domains up for renewal between April 1 and April 30, the fee will be waived at the point of sale.

The .ME Registry has notified partner registrars of its intentions and details on implementation of this plan. In addition, .ME is encouraging registrars to exercise extra attention to the deletion process to avoid deleting names where the registrant has not yet paid due to the disasters. Although the registry cannot itself renew or extend these domain names, it can waive the registry renewal fees charged to registrars and request the cooperation of partner registrars in helping to keep additional calamity from befalling Japanese customers.”

Nice move.

We are still waiting to see if the granddaddy of all registries, Verisign will make the same offer on .com’s and .net’s

In what is turning into be one of the strangest domains stories it appears that Sony Launched a new product yesterday called Move.me

Here is the post from Sony blog:

You can check out the nice new logo right here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/playstationblog/5490006732/

“It lets folks develop Move applications for noncommercial use: academia and research and the like. It’ll be available in some time this spring.”

“Sony says the development of Move.Me represents a chance for “PlayStation to inspire new, revolutionary applications in other fields beyond gaming.”

“To use Move.Me you’ll need a PS3, Move + Camera, and PC. The Move.Me software sits on the PS3, then sends the Move data over to the PC.”

Sounds great but Sony doesn’t own Move.me

I do.

Know I didn’t sell it nor have I even been approached about the domain.

Moveme.com is owned and operated as a moving site.

So did Sony really not understanding that there is a domain extension of .Me just name its product Move.Me?

I’m at a loss here, and overloaded on Bahamian nightlife so does any one have any thoughts on this one?

The .me registry auctioned off its owned domain names today on Sedo.com generating some $400,000 in sales.

Now its time for you to weigh in on how which domains you thought were the best buy.

You get to chose 2 this time out of our list of 20 domains.

If you think a different .me that sold was better than one’s we selected you can pick “something else” and if you don’t like any you can selected “none were best buys”

In any event you can vote on the right (you can pick 2 but at the same time) and put any comments below.

The auction for the registry owned .me domains ended on Sedo.com today with the auction ringing up $400K in sales.

The auction was lead by Like.me a killer domain.

The 2nd highest priced domain, I simply don’t get which was contacts.me at $15,600.

Contact.me I get

Contacts.me I don’t get at all.

We wound up picking up 4 domains.

Congrats to all winners.

Here is the UNOFFICIAL list of the 110 .me domains that sold for $2K or more (there were others that sold under $2K):

Like.me    26,500

contacts.me    15,600

game.me    13,100

poker.me    12,099

friend.me    10,099

art.me    10,000

note.me    10,000

keep.me    8,600

shop.me    8,200

movie.me    7,600

send.me    7,350

try.me    7,100

health.me    6,700

identify.me    6,250

hotels.me    6,206

refer.me    6,105

employ.me    6,099

look.me    5,600

finance.me    5,500

fund.me    5,350

browse.me    5,300

smile.me    5,300

shopping.me    5,100

track.me    5,100

list.me    5,005

law.me    5,000

money.me    4,900

green.me    4,700

sell.me    4,600

advertise.me    4,500

win.me    4,350

insurance.me    4,300

dating.me    4,200

move.me    4,200

bio.me    4,100

collect.me    4,100

got.me    4,100

business.me    4,010

offer.me    4,000

bank.me    3,600

draw.me    3,600

bid.me    3,500

hear.me    3,300

cash.me    3,202

text.me    3,105

affiliate.me    3,103

feed.me    3,100

event.me    3,050

virtual.me    2,875

eat.me    2,750

create.me    2,700

develop.me    2,550

dial.me    2,550

recycle.me    2,350

bill.me    2,250

mark.me    2,200

mp3.me    2,160

fashion.me    2,150

write.me    2,105

hotel.me    2,101

login.me    2,060

home.me    2,050

one.me    2,050

car.me    2,000

The premium .me registry owned domain auction is winding down on Sedo.com, but the domain name Like.Me just sold for $26,500.

With the “like” button all across the Internet thanks to Facebook it isn’t surprising that this domain wound up being the highest priced domain.

There are 2 trademarks registered on the term “like me” including one by likeme, Inc.

We will be back with the full results once the last auction closes.

A story published by BBCNews.com today, talks about the growing popularity of .Co domain names as .Co now approaches 600,000 registrations.

The story quotes Juan Calle the CEO of .CO Internet S.A.S., the company which is operating the registry for the ccTLD.

How big are .Co’s plans:

“”We are going for a global audience and in three to five years we hope to have three to five million registrations.”

The article also states that:

“38% of firms registering for a .co domain are in the US, with 20% in Europe, the majority of these from the UK.”

The post finally also cites the .TV and .Me ccTLD’s:

“The .TV web address has proved a hit with the broadcast industry, while Montenegro’s me has appeal to the social networking generation”

You should of course check out the article in full

Blacknight Solutions, has launched a site that features available first name .me domains that are available for registration and priced at only €4.99 for a year of registration.

The site, GetPersonalwith.Me, list thousands of available first names all available at time of publication.

You can search for your first name and last name and the site will check to see if they’re available or and if it is not the system will suggest a few alternatives.

I still think .Me domains are valuable especially as a first name.

I own Michael.me and as services like about.me gain in popularity I think owning your firstname.me or even your lastname.me will be a good asset to have.

You can read more about the product on Blacknight’s blog.