.ME – when, why, what and how?

you Have the idea for a brilliant Internet service and you come from for its implementation? One of the first questions that you have: what to call it and what domain (brand) to use for its promotion. If you go abroad you are not going it is best to look in the area .Russia .EN. But if the mind walks the idea that we must, sooner or later, will reach the international level, can be considered .ME.

Why not .COM you ask? It is possible and .COM but there are already registered more than 180 million domain names, and not every startup can afford the price in the first Internet zone.

.IU launched in 2008, thanks to the intensive work of the Montenegrin registry has already managed to declare itself to the whole world. To reduce long links Facebook, Wordpress, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Time, and many other global giants are using FB.ME, WP.ME, VK.ME, D. ME, TI.ME...

Among the top sites, you can find Demonoid.Me and About.Me. First, by the way, moved on .ME .COM fleeing from persecution the U.S. government.

Google refers to .ME not as a country code, and allows the global positioning of the sites. This greatly expands the horizons, as the ranking results in the search will not be tied to google.ru and from the point of view of SEO, will work more efficiently around the world.

The "Me" in English, depending on context means "I"/"me"/"I"/"me". Marketers often use such slogans as “verb+me” (combinations with verbs, for example, join.or me present.me) or "noun+for+me / noun+4+me" ("noun" + "for me"). Such tricks to make users subconsciously make the Association with him, causing egocentric thoughts and deepening the level of memorization of the advertised product.

That is why in .ME no need to take anything, and should consider the above-mentioned combinations as well as "adjective+me" ("I" + "adjective", such as the famous Hollywood film Despicable.Me) and "my+noun+me" ("my/my/my" + "noun" + "I" — double challenge at the subconscious level, an essential role is played by the fact that the prefix "my" is most popular a prefix in domain names).

In 2009 for all channels in Canada cool movie MyEducation.Me:



recent study it has been observed that if 5 years ago almost no company, in whose name was the word “me”, not used domain .ME (because those just were not available), in 2012 the number use .ME domains has grown to 25%. The figure below shows examples “.ME” companies found on LinkedIn:

This statistic is reason to think that with the release of new TLDs, this trend will only intensify.

As noted earlier, prices in the area .ME for one order or even two below the prices in other, older areas. Where and how to buy .ME? The sweetest, of course, already dismantled. But don't prematurely give up. Through registry operator's website you can easily find who owns a particular domain name. From personal experience I can say that if a phone call is a chance to get a quick response about 10 times higher than just writing by e-mail.

A lot of names booked itself the Montenegrin government. Several times a year they throw the bag a great "primium" of domains through Sedo or another broker. Current .ME sale on Sedo ends on July 12.

If you can convince the Montenegrins that will make the world service, here is how Tony Conrad, who received About.Me just free – you will have a jackpot. This can be done through developer program.
It would then be possible to bring a huge number (domestic) examples of how different startups are using .IU (RocketStart.Me, LookAt.Me, ...). But that's probably a topic for another article. The review will gladly answer all your questions and share personal experience (the company I work for already uses some great domains in the area).

Article based on information from habrahabr.ru