This domain has a major flaw, and it’s not the top level domain.
The other day I was walking down 4th street in San Francisco and did a double take.
Is that a .me web site being advertised on a bus stop advertisement?
Why yes, it is. And that would certainly make Michael Berkens proud.
The advertisement is for Cater2.me, a service that makes it easy for workplaces to cater in lunch.
If you’re a .com purist, you hate this domain. But the truth is, most of Cater2.me’s tech savvy customers have probably heard of .me, and .me can pass the radio test for domain names.
Yet it’s the radio test where this domain truly fails, and it’s why this was a bad domain name decision regardless of the top level domain.
If you see the ad, you know how it’s spelled. But if someone tells you to check out Cater To dot Me, what URL will you go to?
Most likely CaterTo.me, not Cater2.me.
And if you type in CaterTo.me, you’ll end up on a web site belonging to caterer Christian Schneider in Hawaii. His company owns the domain name CaterToMe.com.
It’s not clear to me if Cater To Me (the Hawaiian company) actually owns CaterTo.me. The domain was registered to someone in San Francisco before its whois record was placed under privacy last year.
Will the company in Hawaii pick up business meant for Cater2.me? No, at least not until Cater2.me launches its service in Hawaii. But Cater2.me may lose business from people who hear about the company, type the name in, and then can’t find it.
I would think buying CaterTo.me would be well worth it as Cater2.me expands.
wilner says
From a domainers pov you’re absolutely correct but from a brick and mortar marketer’s pov you’re probably overthinking.
The ultimate goal was mind share or branding, and the url burned into your mind.
Otherwise you are right, lousy hack domain.
DonnyM says
I don’t buy names that have 2 or 4 in them.
I agree 100% with you here.
Siri will have a tough time figuring out how to tell the difference. In fact all voice searches will.
The number 2 could be too,to, or two.
The number 4 could be four, for, fore
Take it further words with to, for, one,to are just not the best. Could on about other words and letter combinations for ever.
Also the number 4 is not the best number for luck in certain cultures have to very careful.
I personally would never buy another extension again unless you have the .com.
A .me will not win over a .com in udrp even if they are used in bad faith.
jason says
if i saw this in the wild my eye wouldn’t even catch it as a domain name…
.com is king
owen frager says
and what about the SIRI test where she types Hater Two Knee
carlos says
Most non-domainers/techs will surely try to look for cater2me.com instead.
salman says
True that .com has the biggest market share in the domain market but they are way expensive to acquire versus .me way cheaper to get and one character shorter, easy to remember, and can be personalize it to anything.