Online Marketing Performance » Domain Rush

TooBadFor.Me

Scott McAndrew — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:26:31 +0000

Prior to writing my last post regarding purchasing .me domains, I didn’t realize that I also had actually not purchased the domains I thought I had. I received emails later in the day letting me know that (in essence) Open.me, Remote.me and PleaseHelp.me went to someone else somewhere else.

I’m sure there’s plenty of these floating around, but if you’re curious, this is the email response that myself and others received after the transaction went through:

Dear Scott McAndrew,

The following domain name has failed to be registered:

REMOTE.ME

Error: REMOTE.ME: cannot register – already registered

We will evaluate this error and retry the registration
if appropriate.

If we are unable to successfully register the domain
name, your account will be credited accordingly. Please
allow one business day for the refund to be processed.

Please contact GoDaddy.com, Inc. if you need any further
assistance:

http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/support.asp?prog_id=GoDaddy&isc=gdbb14

Sincerely,
GoDaddy.com, Inc.

Once the dust settles, it will be nice to hear what exactly happened. The response that GoDaddy issued once the problem had been identified (around noon Pacific) is as follows:

We knew the .ME Open Registration response would be tremendous, but it went beyond even what we had expected. As a result, we experienced some system issues in our communication with the registry.

As soon as we became aware of the issue we began taking steps to correct it. It is now resolved.

For our customers, if we did not successfully register the domain name requested they will receive a full refund.

Got .me domains?

Scott McAndrew — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:09:59 +0000

Montenegro (.me) domains went on sale at 8am Pacific this morning. A frenzied domain land rush is likely being tempered by domain pricing – $19.95/year with a two-year minimum.

At 10 am I was still able to find a few I wanted to register for future use:

pleasehelp.me
remote.me
open.me

UPDATE: Well, it turns out that no, I did not get any domains. While the process I went through told me that I did, the domains did not register. The email address that I had on file with GoDaddy isn’t one I check on a regular basis, so it wasn’t until this afternoon that I realized that I did not get any .me domains either.

Anyone out there pick up any interesting .me domains?

It’s been a busy week, and I probably would have missed out on the opportunity had it not been for Jason Baer’s digital marketing blog. Thanks Jason!

ICANN: have any top-level domain your want

Scott McAndrew — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:08:16 +0000

The board of ICANN unanimously approved sweeping changes to the rules governing domain extensions today. The broad based changes allow top-level domains (.com, .org, .edu, etc.) to be created without restrictions previously in place.

The new posture opens the door for almost any domain suffix imaginable, likely with .sex and .xxx leading the way. With most memorable names consumed under “.com,” that this ruling will pave the way for more descriptive suffixes, such as “.resort” or “.books”.

The AP reports that new TLDs won’t surface for several months. Regulation? Domains will need to be proposed to ICANN at which time they will go through a review phase allowing anyone to raise an objection.

Welcome to the next domain rush. Or maybe not. Citing ICANN, Ars Technica reports that “if approved, registering the TLD will cost anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000.” Maybe it’ll be the domain rush for everyone but the little guy.