The .me domain name is off to a great start with over 30,000 domain name applications received to date, the domain name company has announced. The country’s extension - whose slogan is “.me is about YOU!” holds a lot of value due to the potential for personalization.

The company announced that the next round of registration, functioning on a first-come, first-serve basis, would start on July 17, during which all available domains would be awarded to the first bidders that meet required conditions. 

The General Sunrise Period began in May, when only trademark owners could have applied for their .me domain. .me domain names that receive more than one application will be awarded through an auction process. .me is expected to be utilized as a personalized Web address and as a catchy business marketing tool around the world. The .me Landrush (pre-registration) period began in early June, and Open Registration is set to begin on a first-come, first-served basis in mid-July. Two-year minimums are required on all .me domain names registered during the Landrush and initial Open Registration periods.

Open registration of the domain names, on a first-come, first-served basis will stat on 17 of his month.

More than 80 different accredited registrars from 24 countries are receiving the applications.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Internet global regulatory body, has announced that just anything, anywhere including individuals and commodities can now apply for and obtain a top level domain name. Before, securing an Internal domain name was a long and painful process. But ICANN rose from its yearly general meeting in Paris, France, with a full liberalisation of the Internet in order to make it available, accessible to many more people. Specifically, all bottlenecks associated with such registration in the past have been removed. It will be a free for all from now and there will be no language or cultural barriers. But henceforth, registration by such domain names will attract a fee of $100,000.

The decision was based on its stockholder’s worldwide, consultation. Scripts other than Latin which were not originally permitted on the Internet could now make free inroads into the information superhighway. These languages include, but are not limited to, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Cyrillic. If this sails through, the Internet will now be more accessible to people in the Middle East and Asia.

Until now top-level domain names— the .com or .uk at the end of a web address — have been restricted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the international not-for-profit body set up in 1998 to to oversee the structure of the internet and maintain its stability. Icann regulates the way web addresses are assigned to ensure that computers can communicate with each other.

The free-for-all agreed in Paris yesterday is seen as a great leap forward akin to the privatisation of telecommunications in the Thatcher era. Icann is not being forced to act because of there are not enough name options, but because it wants to open up the system to increase consumer choice.

Most web addresses in Britain have the suffix .uk. The most popular top level domain name in the world is .com and there are about another 20 possibilities such as .org or .net. Every country has a country code domain name such as .de (Germany) and .fr (France). Now the possibilities are endless and the new names could range from place names to commodities.

Paul Twomey, the chief executive of Icann, said: “It’s a massive increase in the real estate of the internet. It will allow groups, communities and businesses to express their identities online.”

A new and very promising toplevel domain is about to be launched - .me. This tld obviously allows very interesting offers - it is the first really “personal” tld on the market.

There will be no restrictions in regard of registrant’s residence or other contact policies.
The Landrush begins on June, 6th, 15:00 UTC and ends on June, 26th, 17:00 UTC. And many multinationals industries and individual has filed multiple domain name registrations for the .me domain offered by Montenegro.

The .me registry says it has received thousands of domain name registrations in the first week of availability. Applicants include tech industry leaders such as Apple -which registered apple.me, ipod.me and itunes.me - as well as Microsoft, Skype and Digg. Other multinationals that have registered .me names include MTV and BMW.

Trademark-holders have until 20 May to register their company and product names under the new .me domain, which is being marketed as a generic top-level domain by the country of Montenegro. Afilias, which handles back-end registrations for .me, predicts the domain will have widespread appeal.

“The .me extension gives every company on the planet the opportunity to personalize their brands…and make them more relevant to today’s Internet-savvy teens,” says Roland LaPlante, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Afilias. “Companies should be registering .me names not just from an intellectual property protection standpoint, but because there is so much business opportunity to personalise products.”

Predrag Lesic, CEO of the .me registry in Montenegro, says the new internet extension will appeal not only in English-speaking countries but also across the former Yugoslavia, Italy and Spanish-speaking countries, where the letters “me” have a similar meaning as in English.

“We think .me can offer a new business around domain names with verbs,” Lesic says, such as drive.me or fly.me. “This is the start of a new opportunity on the internet.”

The last time a country tried to market its country code extension as a generic domain name was the tiny island nation Tuvulu, which runs the .tv registry. Although .tv names have been available for a decade and have been marketed by VeriSign for online video content, the .tv extension is not among the 10 most popular country code top-level domains.

“I think .tv is starting to get some traction,” LaPlante says. “But .me’s appeal is more immediate and a lot more obvious to people…It should sell well into the millions. And it has corporate appeal not just for TV stations, which are limited in number.”

Companies will need to pay a sizeable sum for a .me name. The retail price for .me names range from 110 to 200 Euros per year for a minimum of five years. That equals $825 to $1,500 for the five-year registration.

In contrast, .com names cost around $10 per year, and .tv names cost around $18 per year.

Companies can reserve .me names from more than 60 domain name registrars companies. Anyone can register a .me name from 6 June through 26 June. The .me registry is scheduled to go live on July 17.

Sunrise of .Me

The current schedule for the launch of .Me is as follows:

• May, 6th 17:00 UTC - May 20th 17:00: General Sunrise (Trademark Owners)
• June, 6th 15:00 UTC - June 26th, 17:00 UTC:: Landrush
• July, 17th 15:00 UTC: Start of regular registrations

Some facts about Sunrise (from May, 6th on):

• Trademark Owners are invited to apply for domains matching their trademarks
• The application date for these trademarks has to be before 2006-06-28
• The minimum registration period is 5 years
• Domain names will be awarded at the end of Sunrise
• No first-come, first served - the order of applications is not important, there’s no advantage in “being the first”
• Domains with more than one application are automatically enrolled for an auction process, invitations will be sent by email

Some facts about Landrush (from June, 6th on):

• Anyone is eligible to apply for a domain
• The minimum registration period is 2 years
• Domain names will be awarded at the end of Landrush
• No first-come, first served - the order of applications is not important, there’s no advantage in “being the first”
• Domains with more than one application are automatically enrolled for an auction process, invitations will be sent by email

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