Dust Settles on .ME

The internet's latest and most personal domain extension has seen huge popularity after public launch. At 4pm (GMT) July 17 the public were given the opportunity to register the new .ME domain name extension. Over 5,500 .ME domain names were registered within the first two days of public launch by UK accredited registrars, making it the second most popular registration country, second only to the US.

"While English speaking countries led the way in registration volume, many non-English speaking countries such as Germany, China, and France made a strong showing," said Predrag Lesic, the Me registry's executive director. "We believe this bodes well for the international success of .ME as the only domain name that is all about YOU.

Within the first minute of the launch over 5,000 names were registered worldwide as both individuals and businesses alike rushed to secure their preferred .ME extension. At the end of the first two days of the launch more than 50,000 new domains were registered worldwide.

Initial blog postings highlighted that the worldwide launch didn’t go as planned for GoDaddy, the largest domain name registrar. According to a Mashable.com posting, reports of purchases on GoDaddys site either not going through, or going through but the domain name remained available for others to buy noting at least 8 or 9 people claimed to have receipts for the domain name aweso.me.

Mark Boost, Managing Director, www.LCN.com, said: “We were delighted with how smoothly our launch went. Once .ME went live to the public we saw a massive surge of registrants for this very personalised and catchy domain extension. Our team was well prepared to handle the huge initial demand. The fact that we managed to secure over 23% of the UK .ME registrations in the first two days was greatly aided by the organised structure that we had in place from the day of the launch”

Individuals who showed interest in domains during the pre-public launch, Landrush period, are currently involved in a bidding war at present at the website https://auctions.domain.me. So far, the most interest had been shown for the domain name insure.me which has reached US$23,025 with less than 1 day before the auction closes.

However, if you wish to see if your desired .ME domain is still available and avoid the bidding war, then you can always secure it for £15/year at http://www.lcn.com/me_domain_registration