On July 17th 2008, the .ME domain extension was unleashed unto the domaining world. There is a great deal of hype and demand when any new domain extension is released and, with the domaining industry continuing to grow, it wasn’t a huge surprise when .ME started to break records set by previously released extensions. GoDaddy, arguably the biggest domain registrar in the world, had been heavily marketing .ME in the build-up to its release. But even they failed to predict the enormity of the demand as their website buckled under the pressure, with buyers - myself included - rushing to snap up .ME domains in record-breaking numbers.

Not only did .ME prove to be record-breaking in terms of public sales, it also generated over $2million from the landrush auction period alone. It achieved the fastest growth of sites on a particular extension being indexed by Google - .ME domains now account for almost ten million of Google’s indexed pages - and Alexa reported that the number of .ME domains in its top 1million websites was soaring past the corresponding numbers for .MOBI and .ASIA domains, both of which extensions had been released some time before .ME. It was the fastest growing new domain extension on record.

So what’s so special about .ME?

Whenever a new extension is released, domain buyers flock to snap up domains regardless of what the extension is – be it .ME, .YOU, .CHEESE or .LIPSTICK – because some domains are of a certain value irrespective of their extension. The type of domains I’m referring to are keyword domains. For example, carinsurance.biz, tailoredsuits.info, or cheapflights.com. The value of these domains is in the volume of searches for the respective keywords via search engines; your potential customers are already searching for your website. It’s a bit like hiring premises for a shop on a busy high street – your potential customers are already on the high street, waiting to buy your products. Since there are a limited number of domain extensions, there are subsequently a limited number of domains that can be registered with any particular keyword. So the supply of a keyword domain is very small, but demand is huge – hence domainers flocking to snap up these types of domain whenever a new extension is released.

But .ME is not just any extension. While it has the same value as other extensions for keyword domains, it also has meaning. “Me” is, of course, a word – not just in English, the most spoken language across the globe, but also in Spanish and Italian. So you can juxtapose a verb with “me” to create catchy phrases – particularly call-to-action phrases – with a .ME domain. The possibilities are almost endless – this method of creating a phrase with a .ME domain can be applied to any industry. Some examples of this are “insure.me”, “date.me” and “entertain.me”. This type of domain is catchy, unique and, most importantly, easier to remember than other types of domain. This is firstly because they stand out, since most other domains are not catchy phrases. But secondly – and here is where I dip into my HCI knowledge – there is a science behind the memorability of these types of domain. This science is called ‘chunking’. Chunking, in a nutshell, is the way in which information is split into chunks that are manageable by the human mind. In other words, it is the way in which things are made easy to remember. Most websites use the more common extensions such as .COM, .NET and .INFO. In most cases, the domain does not comprise a phrase. When a user sees one of these domains, they have two chunks of information to remember – the domain name and the domain extension, e.g. “google” and “dot com”. Let’s look at a brandable .ME domain, however. The example we will use is “insure.me”. When the user sees this domain, they see a phrase - “insure me”. The user will, of course, have to remember both the domain and the extension. But the second word IS the extension and the two words collocate to form one phrase, meaning that the user effectively has just one chunk of information – the phrase “insure me” - to remember. This acts to constrict the amount of information processed by the user’s brain, thus making the domain significantly easier to remember. Some examples of websites already using this technique with other domain extensions are fly.be, buy.at and del.icio.us.

Right, now that I’ve had my HCI fix, it’s time for my entrepreneurial fix - let’s talk about brands. Every business needs a brand – it’s what its customers remember and refer to it by. If a business is web-based, its domain is of huge importance – it goes hand in hand with its brand and is paramount to its marketing. If I ask you to think of the first three successful websites that come into your head, which ones do you think of? My answer would be Google, Ebay and Amazon. Now think of their domain names – how many are keyword domains? In this case, none of them. Keyword domains have their value but, if you have big ambitions for your website, you need a real, strong brand. Google’s domain is not “searchengine.com”, Ebay’s domain is not “onlineauctions.net” and Amazon’s domain is not “bookshop.biz”. They did not choose to pick up a keyword domain and just sit and wait for some search engine traffic. They made names for themselves by creating their own memorable brands and standing out from the crowd. This is what .ME is all about. But why not create a catchy, memorable .COM domain instead? You could argue that most successful websites, like these examples, use .COM domains, so the web address is usually obvious. In which case, if you are able to come up with a catchy and memorable brand name, would a .COM not be better than a .ME? This can sometimes be the case, but not always. What’s more, all the good names are taken! Think SourceForge (.net), Craigslist (.org) or ImageShack (.us) - other domain extensions are coming into play more and more, so it is becoming increasingly important that your domain extension is obvious. Enter .ME – the perfect solution. Not only does it ooze potential for creating catchy, memorable domain names – it is also the most effective extension for allowing your website name to double up as your web address. No other domain extension can truly rival the marketing potential of .ME.

So, to answer the question - “what’s so special about .ME?” - it is a domain extension that gives you more potential than any other to create a unique, memorable domain name that stands out from the crowd. Dot com may always be king, as they say. But, in an industry that is becoming increasingly competitive for getting your website seen and found, no other domain extension manages to encapsulate the needs of the modern day website owner quite like .ME does. Don’t get me wrong – having a good, brandable .ME domain does not guarantee that your website will be successful, no matter how catchy or memorable it is. But it will give you a head start. If you have big ambitions for your website - and you really want to make a name for yourself - then .ME is for you.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 28th, 2009 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Business, Domains, HCI. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.