500 Free Domains At Dotster’s Happy Hour

Here’s a cool freebie that I’ll definitely be watching at dotster. I’ve never registered a domain outside Godaddy.com but this opportunity to snap a free .com .net or .org domain is just too tempting to resist. Dotster will be giving away a total of 500 free domains in exactly 3 days as of this writing. Count it! At exactly 3 days those who are logged on to dotster will have a sort of landrush for domain names.
I guess I’ll be on it but being my cynical self I can’t help but wonder what’s the catch? Is it totally free… taxes, ICANN fee at all? There’s a great marketing pitch down at dotster but really no visible fine print so I guess the only way to find out is sign-up at Dotster.com and get one. Mark the countdown be on it!

Interesting, Maybe Funny But Not-So-Useful .me domains

Ok here’s a lame excuse at making a post about dot me domains and also for trying to be a little funny. Ha! I’m not much of a funny person myself but I’ve thought a lot about what would make a funny useful or maybe not-so useful dot me domains that may interest some prospecting domainers out there. Thanks for one suggested by webwatch in a previous commented made. Like what my friend Aaron mentioned, the possibilities are endless so bear with me for a moment and lets try to mention some maybe not-so-cool .me domains.

Bite.me – interestingly enough there’s an online mag aptly named bitememagazine.com apparently dedicated to vampire freaks. Not too sure if they’ve got a trademark on the word bite me but Beyond their brand name, I don’t think there’s really a worthy use for bite.me. Not in a money-making sense at least.

Windows.me – Apart from Microsoft having a trademark on Windows Me, I don’t think there would be any interest in getting a domain hack for a legacy operating system. Let’s move on.

Sue.me – This one is from webwatch. Hmmm… Nobody wants to get sued but think about an insurance company that offers protection from negligent liability. Great tag line for confidence. I’d say it could be useful. Or maybe not.

Crotchet.me – I don’t know about you but for me this one is as boring as watching grass grow. While I was doing a little research for this post, there seems to be a website called crochetme.com. Guess what they’re all about…?

Top 10 Great .me domains!

So much have been written and press-released about these Montenegro domains yet nobody really realizes the great marketing possibilities of these .me domains. Since the Montenegrins have decided that they would allow anybody to register these dot me domains, this could be a world of possibilities for those who can actually register good domain hacks. The significance is great recall marketability and personalization.

In this light, lets run down some few .me domains people would be dying to get because of a presumed intrinsic value. Take note that I’m going to base my presumption on the biggest business industries in the world and assuming they would be interested in landing some of these .me domains for marketing purposes. Lets start with the good ones first.

Buy.me – this is a gimme for almost anybody. There’s no other word in the retail industry that could be more blunt, more generic and more useful than this one. It has the universal appeal to almost every business. Don’t get your hopes up high for this one. Godaddy’s definitely auctioning this!

Trade.me – this is the second word I can think of when it comes to the retail industry. It may not have the “oomph” as buy.me but it’ll be nice for a stock trading business and some other places applicable.

Fuck.me – Ok I was afraid I was going to have to mention this one but I just can’t resist the temptation. According to Forbes.com, the *pron industry is a 10 to 14 Billion dollar industry. This is based on a legit Forrester Research. There’s a lot of *pron bosses out there who’d love to get their hands on this. Like a New York Times Magazine headlined once, “There’s No Business like *Pron Business!”

Fly.me – No need to explain too much on this. I’ve mentioned this in my previous post and it will definitely be auctioned off by Godaddy. The airline business has experienced heavy losses in this decade and have just recently been on the upside again. What a perfect marketing tool this domain would be for anybody who could land this domain. This one I expect to auction for millions.

Call.me – I don’t know about this. It may have an appeal to those in the telecommunications industry but I’m not sure how they are going to react on this one. Still, this one’s a good buy even just for it’s marketing worth. Making a brief search on Google, nobody seems to have a trademark on it.

Blog.me – Blogs have been one of the biggest marketing tool in recent times. a lot of advertisers have used pay-per-post campaign’s to get their word out. For its good appeal, I think this is a good buy as well.

Hire.me – This one also has a universal appeal. Good for people or businesses in the services industry. Using the U.S. Trademark Electronic Search System, it doesn’t seem that anybody has a trademark on the word hire yet.

Drink.me – The beverage industry has been one of the most resilient of recent times. This domain can cover a lot of ground from sodas, coffee, alcohol and health drinks.

Deliver.me – Shipping and Transportation are also big businesses. If somebody buys this one for decent money, I think it will definitely turn into big profit eventually.

Eat.me – I almost forgot this one. The food industry is also a huge one. One of the biggest if I’m not mistaken. Imagine a food package delivered to you with a logo that says Eat.me… Pretty useful marketing again.

Some pretty funny .me domains you may wanna think about:
do.me
blow.me
iknowyouknowyouwannado.me ( honestly, somebody actually suggested this one to me)

Enough of the sex stuff… I just ran out of ideas. Feel free to leave a comment if you think of anything good, funny or interesting .me domains. Dot me domains’ open registration is scheduled July 17, 2008.

Godaddy won’t let Fly.me fly that easy

The upcoming landrush for the latest domain extension will both be an exciting and frustrating time for domainers this summer. Exciting for those who have enough dough to shell out for expected premium dot me domains. Frustrating for those expecting to land premium domains because most will be held for auction.

With less than 2 months to go before the tentative landrush for Montenegro’s .me domains, I received streams of emailed alerts about it which is nothing new really. The same old news about dot me domain registration has been around for months now.

With the supposed universal appeal of these .me domains, Godaddy.com the registrar who won the rights to sell these domains will be holding “premium” verb-oriented dot me domains for auction after the landrush period. So expect domains like fly.me, buy.me, find.me, watch.me, rent.me, ride.me, sell.me and many more that may imply some form of commerce, to sell for at least hundreds of thousands of dollars. Marketers will have a feast day with this new development!

So how many English verbs are there that could potentially be verb-oriented dot me domain up for grabs next June? In one forum I read, they say there’s about 9,117 verbs but not counting the other tenses of verbs. So a safe bet would be 30,000 verbs could form a meaningful dot me domain name. That’s a ton of possibilities to get rich quick! For others at least…
But then again, that’s only in the English language. The word me also pertains to self or something of personal in other languages for example in Spanish. I’m not too familiar with Spanish so I don’t have a clue as to how much meaningful dot me domains can be formed.

I will definitely be snatching up at least a couple of them .me domains when they become available. But with all these domain idea pinching, snatching and tasting, let me just say I’m keeping my domain ideas in my head for now.

How To Get Started As A Domainer

In my quest to be a knowledgeable domainer, I rummaged through a gamut of references, blogs and search engines to find the very best in domaining blogs, websites and tools… Not really…

I used the good old Google blog search to find my next read on my latest internet obsession of domaining. And today I find the Avivadirectory.com’s article about “How to Get Started as a Domainer: 28 Tips, Techniques and Resources“. A very long (almost boring) but informative article about the realities of domaining for beginners in these times of late. The article starts out as interesting with bits and pieces of information about people who’ve already made it big in this domaining industry. The first couple of paragraphs about earning potentials will definitely make a domaining newbie carry on and read. With me being cynical, I thought I’d move along and read the piece for what its worth. My mantra in this domaining venture is “to keep learning and learn a thing or two a day.”
It turns out that this piece is worth my time after all. I learned what domain tasting was ( which was something I’ve been reading about a lot since I started blogging ). Domain tasting was also something I’ve been a victim of for one of the domains I initially wanted to get. There’s a few points in here that would be interesting to note especially for somebody like me who is just starting out in the business.

There’s also a whole list of domaining tools to visit and test. I made a few visits to those online domaining tools but I only found a handful of useful ones. But then again I might just be a newbie too naive to realize their worth.

Overall, it’s quite a good read. I picked up a few things and I’d recommend newbies like me to give it a go as well. But its just something worth one read and I wouldn’t say there’s a point in visiting it again.

Predictive Domaining – A great read

In my quest to be a better more knowledgeable domainer, I have made it a point to scurry through the web in search for good reads, great domaining tools and sensible domainer bloggers. Yesterday, I found one in predictivedomaining.com. The domain name speaks for itself and finding the domain name in another article alone made me go click on it right away. Predictive domaining as a strategy, exactly what I’m all about about. I guess finding predictivedomaining.com is just destiny. I guess.

Reading through the current pages opened my newbie eyes to a lot of insights into domaining and how it works. The current article “How much is my domain worth” was something I was actually needing to read about given that I’m developing domains myself. The author’s words are simple and concise. That made me feel comfortable in reading further unlike the other domaining blogs I’ve read (or tried to read). So much technicalities in terms and definitions in those blogs were too much for me as somebody who’s just starting out.

Here’s a brief introduction to predictivedomaining.com and what it is all about (copied from its homepage):

Predicting domain names that will be successful in the future is as much an art as a science. This website is dedicated to techniques for finding good domain names that will become valuable in the future as well as discussing opportunities as you see them.

Spotting domain names that may be valuable in the future is both frustrating and addictive. You are speculating that something will become popular and draw attention. You can then choose to sell off the name or develop a website to turn your investment into profit. You can in fact develop a website before the topic becomes well known and therefore be seen as an authority by the time the topic becomes hot.

It’s a good read to say the least and I’m definitely coming back.

Quick Fixes For Blogger Template Known Issue

I’ve recently been plagued with 2 problems in editing the layout of my blogger template. First is I can seem to add more page elements because the “add page element” is missing as described at the Known Template Issues at Blogger Help. The second and more annoying one is that I can’t scroll all the way down because for some reason the lower part of the layout is missing. This is also described at Blogger Help. Check out the screen shot below.

If this happens to you, may I suggest you check out blogger Help first. If you’ve tried their solution and can’t resolve this issue, try my solutions below:

1. The simplest way: On the page elements page, click on edit html then without editing or doing anything click on the save template button. Click on Page elements again and voila the “add page elements” is back and now you can also scroll down the bottom. Very easy!

2. If the problem persists, go back to edit html, tick the expand widgets radio button and check for java scripts. Delete them. Also delete those that start with .

DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING THAT RESEMBLES as this may mess up your template. Save it. Then look at the front end of your website. If there’s been a significant change on the front that you don’t like, put the code back. I’d suggest that if you’re going to delete a few things, start at the bottom of the HTML codes. This lessens the possibility of committing a huge mistake that may severely affect the overall appearance of the front end.

4. If these don’t work, go back to number 1! It always works for me. Although it is not a permanent fix, I rather do this every time than not doing anything at all. There’s actually quiet a few issues with blogger and these are the fixes I found to work for me.

I hope this helps. Cheers!

Domaining and Blogging – The Perfect Match

Let me be upfront in saying that I got into blogging as a means to earn income in my extra time. I wasn’t all that good in writing before I started blogging. For years, I haven’t even wrote a whole story. I never wrote a poem, an essay or a story my whole life. Needless to say, people who know me would tell you I’m the last person they expect to be a blogger.

In any case, here I am… 1 year into blogging. It felt like an addiction after a couple of months. Good things kept happening which only encouraged me to get better at it. Right now, I have 2 main blogs I maintain regularly and also I have 3 other blogs in development. This blog included.

Why do I think blogging and domaining can complement each other? Well for one thing, I think a blogger and a domainer are both doing the same thing which is building a brand. When you’re blogging, you’re trying to create a name for yourself in your chosen niche. Building a reputation and good content is a primary goal if you’re blogging. An authoritative blog gets more traffic and gets more readership. In my mind, this is the same goal a domainer is reaching for. To get the most out of selling a domain, a domainer needs to develop his domain so that it gets more traffic, gets indexed by search engines better and gets more visibility on the web. A domainer’s blog/domain that gets more subscribers and search engine traffic is definitely more attractive than a domain that is parked. A developed domain/blog will fulfill a domainer’s goal of selling the domain for a heftier price.

Not all domainers are bloggers and vice-versa. Knowing both and doing good at both, however, will definitely be a plus in the long run.

Finally Resolved Domain Forwarding Puzzle

Transferring my blogspot blogs to their own domains name hase always been a goal I wanted since I started blogging. When I finally was able to buy their domain name, I successfully made the custom domain name forwarding to their own with little trouble. Of course, I was a little cautious going around the procedures of the whole deal because I was afraid of messing up things especially because I can’t just call godaddy for help. I’m overseas and calling their tech support may cost me a lot more than buying the the domains themselves.

So i thought everything was cool. Until I found that all of them were not working as I thought they would be. For example, this blog buymedomains.com is not forwarding to www.buymedomains.com. What’s the problem with that? Well… most people nowadays don’t type in WWW when they go to a website. All they do is type the root domain buymedomains.com. In this blog’s case, when I type buymedomains.com, I arrive at a Godaddy parking page.

At first it was frustrating and since I didn’t have the patience of rifling through the so called solutions database of Google, I just let it go at that time. Well, today I had a little time to kill and found the interest to resolve it for my own domains’ sake. I found the solution at The Real Blogger Status blog. I can’t believe the solution itself wasn’t in the Blogger Help Center! I had to follow several links to get to the actual solution.

It was really simple BTW. I can’t believe the answer was “just under my nose”. All I had to do was delete the one liner under A Host and viola! Problem solved in a matter of 2 minutes. I did the same thing for all my blogs that have custom domains and they all work fine now!

If you’re having the same exact problem of using your own custom domain name with Godaddy, check out The Real Blogger Status blog. Follow the screen shots is what I recommend. There’s a chance you’ll get lost in all the tech talk the blogger has there. It worked for me.

Dot Me Roll Out Schedule

Here’s the real deal in the dot me domain registration. It’s funny I found this bit of information. I was checking my traffic to see where the traffic for this young blog is coming from. I was surprised to find other blogs actually publishing it’s contents already. Thanks to conceptualist.com who published my post. His blog led me to a comment providing more specific information about the .me rollout. There’s actually a few domains out there already for .me. One is domain.me where this info is published.

Here’s the deal:

March 24:
• Registration of Government second level domains
Migration from cg.yu to co.me/org.me/net.me/its.me – Montenegro only

March 25 to April 16:
•accepting requests for migration from cg.yu to co.me/org.me/net.me/its.me

April 18 to 21:
•requests processed and domains go live
May 1-May 6: Montenegrin Sunrise
• Only applications from Montenegrin entities are allowed and will be submitted directly.
• Applications from Montenegrin Sunrise will be evaluated in the Quiet Period, along with applications from the General Sunrise. If there were multiple applications for a domain, a Montenegrin Sunrise applicant will compete in auction with General Sunrise applicants.

May 6-May 20: General Sunrise
• All accredited registrars allowed into registry.
• Application info available to registrars (via EPP and Web Admin Tool) but not via WHOIS
• Ongoing registrar accreditations.

May 20-June 6: Quiet Period
• Registry closed to registrars; domain queries may be possible.
• 5-day or 7-day Sunrise auctions held for names that received multiple applications. Names for which there was only one application are allocated via batch job. Application info will not be available to registrars; names show up in WHOIS only after they are allocated.
• Domains are billed for at the time of allocation.
• Compliance checking will continue through the Quiet Period
• Newly accredited registrars can be set up in this period in preparation for Landrush.
June 6-June 26: Landrush
• Landrush application info available to registrars (via EPP and Web Admin Tool) but not via WHOIS
• Newly accredited registrars can be set up in this period.
• Sunrise Challenges begin

June 26-July 15: Quiet Period
• Registry closed to registrars; domain queries may be possible.
• 5-day or 7-day Landrush auctions held for names that received multiple applications. Names for which there was only one application are allocated. Application info may be available to registrars; names show up in WHOIS after they are allocated.
• Domains are billed for at the time of allocation.

July 17: Open Registration
• dot me domains names are registered on a first-come, first-served basis

“Premium Names” auctions
• Expected to begin in September 2008.

Thanks to domain.me