.Me at 250,000: What’s Next?
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
250,000 .me domain names have been registered. Here’s what it means.
250,000 .me domain names have been registered since its relaunch earlier this year. I draw two conclusions from this.
First, it shows the power a registrar has in pushing a domain. .Me is run by a partnership between Afilias and GoDaddy. GoDaddy has aggressively pushed the domain and dissed others at the same time. (Bob Parsons stopped using BobParsons.tv and switched to BobParsons.me). This is particularly relevant in light of a current discussion of reducing registry/registrar separation.
Second, it shows there are many people who still hope for instant riches from domain names and see new releases as their shot at the glory. A number of .me domains sold for high prices at auctions during and after the launch. Some of these were purchased by “experienced” domainers. But many others were web site owners with a handful of domains. I read many blog posts by people who wrote that GoDaddy account reps contacted them to see which domains they wanted to get in the landrush. These people bought a number of domains, even though they don’t have much experience in domain selling. I suspect they’ll be disappointed with the results.
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Tags: .me, afilias, bob parsons, GoDaddy
Well, it looks like .tel will be surpassing it pretty soon with over 200,000 registered to date according their newest press release.
I have to tip my hat to Bob Parsons for publicizing that he’s using BobParson.me. Clever marketing move and one should expect no less from an engaged CEO. It probably got some newbie speculators all hot and bothered though it won’t mean squat to the masses.
250K? Impressive numbers for a TLD that few people will actually develop. On the other hand, GoDaddy is the most marketed/popular registrar in the world and that equals a yearly gross of only $2,500,000 (at $9.99 a year each). Those who think the new TLDs are a roadmap to riches should take heed.
…so a quarter of a million (minus people who bought multiples) are all mistaken?
Come on now. This is the web’s best domain site but you couldn’t be more off the mark on this one.
@ Jeff – .eu got well over a million registrations and very few people would call that a success. So far this has been a marketing success, but that’s only half the battle.
Is it really that impressive? The next post shows .tel hit 200k, and that has only been out a short while. Compared to that .tel seem way stronger.
@ JP – I agree, it seems like .tel has “taken off” faster. But I suppose it depends on what makes a success or not. I’ve written before that for .tel to be successful it has to hit critical mass — well over a million users — fairly quickly.
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