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| Nov 2008: Internet Opportunity... |
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1... Introduction. |
www.The1.me |
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2... Find, Assess, Register, Sell. |
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3... Offers. |
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4... Auction List. |
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| Introduction. |
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| Hi, my name is
Andrew Macnamara... if you're reading
this there's a very good chance you clicked on this page because of an Advertisement
in a Newspaper. The Advert says
that this is "a Great Internet Opportunity... for a limited time...
and that full details are absolutely FREE... and I stand by those
statements. This
is not "My Opportunity"... [and nothing to do with this
website... I'm just being a bit lazy by tacking on a spare page here
rather than creating a whole new website.] It is "an Opportunity" that
I know about... which exists out there in Cyberspace at the moment... and
if you read these few pages you will find out exactly what is going on...
and how to benefit from it. |
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| For the Sceptics among
you who are already thinking... "What's the Catch"...
"Why bother telling anyone else about it". The answer
is simple... at the end there are three different "Offers" for anyone that might
be interested in trying this on a larger scale and/or quickly... but don't have the necessary Time and/or
Skills. This might be of interest to a few people... but for many
people there will be enough Information here to get online and give it a
try. The minimum requirements for you would be... semi-literate on a Computer
and the Internet... an email address... a PayPal
account... and an Investment of about £25... [which you don't send
me!] How much you decide to "Invest" is entirely up to
you. I'll give you the information... point you in the right direction... then it's up to you. |
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| Whatever I write
here you will be able to verify by clicking on a Link... or doing a Google
Search. I'm not going to ask you to just 'Take my Word' for
anything... I'll give you my assessment of this opportunity... but then
you have to make up your own mind. I'll tell you a bit of a Story to
give you some background information about this opportunity, but
basically, what we're looking at here is finding/creating "Brand New"
Premium Domain Names which became available to the General Public in July
2008. Registering them... which costs about £25.00 each... and then putting them up for Sale
on "The Domain Name AfterMarket" [TDNAM] in the US... for a few
Hundred... or, if you find/create a good one... a few Thousand. How
successful you are will be totally down to your own skills, judgement and
imagination. This has nothing to do with me personally... I'm
doing it... I think it's a great opportunity... but you will need to draw your own conclusions. |
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| The1.me
I "Created"... then Registered this Domain Name on Saturday 13/09/08 through
GoDaddy.com which cost me about £22.60. For anyone interested in
simply "Buying"...
"The1.info"... you'll find it up for Sale at Sedo.com
with an asking price of US$5,000... [and ".info" is
probably the weakest of all the TLD endings. You can easily verify
these facts using the Links below.] This is the basic
difference... the first person to come up with the Name
"Creates it" and only pays the Registration Fee... anyone
after that is Buying a Domain Name... and pay a price based on its
commercial value... or its potential. [Though in many cases
there is so little "Creativity" gone into the process it
feels a lot more like a "Find". Oct 2008, and 1
year registration is now available on .ME [at the present rate of
exchange about £12-13] |
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| The
Story so far... On the 17th of July a brand New TLD extension became available: [Top Level Domain.] The existing TLDs are the
endings like .COM .ORG .NET .BIZ .INFO
.EU but not things like .CO.UK. or country codes like .US
.DE .FR All these extensions have
various restriction on their use [though this is rarely enforced.]
The new extension is the very first to be issued with absolutely no
restrictions on use and has the ending ".ME" and was issued to the
new Government of Montenegro... [so they get the annual registration fees.]
Basically, it is a Country Code that has been elevated up to the Top
Level.
This is also an ending that has great marketing potential... with
companies like Google buying the new ending... as well as using addresses
like Google.com
and Google.co.uk... they will be able to use "Google.me". |
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| Many Premium
Names were put aside and have been Auctioned off [about 4-5,000] with "Insure.me"
going for about US$68,000... and Toyota.me for US$90,000. On the
25th September they start auctioning about 2,000 of their best Names like...
Fly.me Drive.me Watch.me Sue.me Host.me
Hire.me etc. etc. etc. Now obviously you don't want to buy
those for thousands of dollars unless you really know what you're doing... but, anything that isn't on the Premium List and is still
available can be Registered for about £25 for a 2 year registration. |
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| August
auction... someone Bought "Insure.me" for US$68,000... someone is
advertising "eInsure.me" on Sedo.com for US$10,000... so I
Registered "uInsure.me" for £22.60. Now I know it's not as good as
"Insure.me"... and the other guy might never get his 10 Grand...
but
if you can pick up even half-decent Names for the basic Registration Fee
of £25... your chances of selling on for a Profit must be
pretty good. A good place to look now would be high-value Names which have 2
or 3 "Keywords"... for instance, I recently Registered a few more, like... Buy2Let.me CityBreakes.me and
FlyDrive.me... again for about £25 each... and there are many such Names
still available... which have the potential to be sold on for a really good
price. |
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| Auctions.Domain.me
These Auctions appear to have been run very badly. They had very little publicity about
them... and the Site design is so bad it is almost impossible to
find out how to Register if you do want to bid... [it may even have
been some kind of... "By Invitation Only" kind of
Auction.] Some did get
reasonable bids... the next batch is being Auctioned Live in New
York... and is expected to do very well. |
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| The bottom line
is... a lot of people bought new Domain Names in July for about £25 and are now
listing them on [mainly] US Domain Broker sites for 10, 20, 50,000US$ or
more. Now I'm not saying they will get that sort of money... the
".ME Market" is so new, nobody really knows what they will go
for. The .ME Registrar say they have registered about 100,000 new
Names: [I've bought about 120 so far] and at a wild guess I'd say there
must still be at least 10 or 20,000 more good or very good Names waiting
to be Tracked down... or created. |
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| I
have been doing a lot of Searches over the last couple of months... and compiled
a List of over 1,000 Good Names: [now, many of these might have been
Registered since I last checked] but I can categorically say that there are
still plenty of Good Names available in every Sector. I don't personally have the Time, Expertise or
Imagination to search out every possibility... and even if I did, I don't
have the spare cash to Register them. |
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| Business Model.
This is probably one of the oldest and simplest Business Models...
you Buy... you Sell. Looking to Buy something... anything... at a low
price... and Sell it on in a different place or time for a
profit. People will pay a lot of money for a good Domain
Name... so if you can find... or come up with a good one... and
only have to pay the basic Registration Fee... then your chances of
making a profit must be very good. In addition... you have no
real Overheads... no Leases... no Premises... no Staff... no Plant
or Equipment... no Rates... no Utilities... no Travelling
required... no Storage... nothing
to Deliver... and don't have to give up your day job. All you
need is £25 and access to a Computer... and you're in Business! |
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| About 70% of all
these new Names are being bought up... or "thought up" by the Americans... and within the
next few weeks? months? who knows?? virtually everything good/obvious will have
been Registered... and unless you are very "Creative"... the opportunity will be
over. If you want to read on... I will explain how to Find/Create these Names...
how to assess their Potential... where to Register them... and where to Sell
them. |
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| Why not start by
having a look at a few Sites so you get some idea of what is going on out
there in "The Domain Name AfterMarket"... [TDNAM] There
are a few Domain Trading Sites and a few .ME News Stories... or sign up
for Google to send you any News Stories about "Premium Domain
Names" Just click the Links... or
try
Googling... ".ME Domain Names"... "Premium Domain
Names"... "GoDaddy"... something like that... and find your own source of
Information on this subject. |
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| .ME
Auction in New York Power
of .ME – Get Ready For 1st-Ever Public Auction. |
| ITWIRE
Meet.Me Ask.Me Date.Me Buy.Me Love.Me |
| About
.ME
An open letter to the Marketing community... |
| Press
Release... about the prospects for .ME |
| Press
Release... about the prospects for .ME |
| Auctions.Domain.me
See what's been sold... click 'Recent Sales'. |
| TDNAM.com
Sale of .ME sites on The Domain Name AfterMarket. |
| GoDaddy.com
[The biggest Registrar in North America.] |
| Afternic.com
[2nd biggest Registrar in North America.] |
| Sedo.com
Part of the Afternic Group.
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| GreatDomains.com
Part of the Afternic Group. |
| BuyDomains.com
May buy a few direct or
a whole portfolio. |
| ImpressiveDomains.com Sells
one word only .ME Names. |
| Moniker.com
Sells a lot of addresses for the "Adult Industry" [be Warned!] |
| DomainNews.com
Might find interesting for some background information. |
| Whois.sc
Find out who owns a website or Domain Name. |
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| You may need to
click on "Advanced Search" or similar to find newly listed Names
with the .ME extension... it is well worth having a look just to see the
sort of money that Sellers are asking for their Names. |
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| Below is just a
brief Storyline about this opportunity... where I am with it... and my
general assessment. [Or just click on to Page
2 if you want to find
out more about finding/creating these Premium Names.] When first starting any
new scheme there is always a steep learning curve... so Tip No 1
from me would be... have a good Google around... see what you can find...
click on any Links to other stories and get a feel for it... don't just
rush in and buy a load of crap you won't be able to get rid of. |
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| The .ME
Story... |
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| On the morning of
Thursday 17th of July I got an e-mail
[NewsLetter] which is generally about Marketing, SEO, [Search Engine Optimisation]
Keyword Research, Affiliate Programmes and the like. "Is everybody
ready for the big launch of the new .ME Top Level Domain [TLD] which goes on
offer at 4:00pm today." It was talking about this
launch which a lot of people obviously knew about... and had been eagerly waiting for... but
this was the first I'd heard about it. [Only a certain
number of Registrars were authorised to sell these new Names... about 60
or so... Worldwide.] |
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| There had been something
called the "Sun Rise" period where Companies could claim their Names... followed by the "Land Rush" period where
individuals could pay $100 or so just to register their interest in a
specific Word/Name... but that would only secure them a place in an Auction between all the bidders...
[if there was more
that one after the same Name.] At 4:00pm on the 17 July
2008... the system became an "Open Registry"... and the Stampede began! 65million Domain Names
have already been registered Worldwide... with any "Premium"
Names long since been Registered... but now a few
thousand more Good "Premium" Names were up for grabs... [or the
chance to get creative.] Even after
they had put aside about 6 or 7,000 obvious "Premium" Names
for Auction... there was
still expected to be some pretty rich pickings. |
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| Basically, I just
dropped everything and started working on a List so I would be all ready
to go at 4.00pm. In order to Buy/Register... you just go on to somewhere like
"GoDaddy.com"... type in the Name you are interested in... it goes
and checks out if the name is Available at the central "Whois"
directory. Comes back and says "This-Domain.me" is
Available... [or Taken] and you add it to your shopping cart. When
you're
finished applying for all your Names... you go to Check Out... fill in all
your personal details... pay your money... and a couple of minutes later
they send you a 'Confirmation' email to Congratulate you on your purchase.
To my great
surprise I managed to check out with a load of really great Names and went
to bed... very, very happy
with my days Registrations. |
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| Your personal
details... will appear on the Whois Register unless you pay £10
on each Name to keep it Private. Also, if you do come to
buy... and you have a look at some of the Technical info... you may
see references to things being "Locked" or "Not
Transferable". Don't panic... these are just
"default" settings... if you do sell it on then someone
like GoDaddy will do all the Technical stuff involved in changing
ownership. |
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| Next day... checked my email...
and had a load of emails from GoDaddy. "Unfortunately this
Registration Failed... we will try again later... or we will refund your
money".... aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!! As it turned out this was not
just me... but nearly everyone... as many people tried to check out the same
Names through different Registrars at the same Time... the whole System fell apart.
People charged... but no Name... and in
many cases... no credit left on their cards to try again. At which point... it would
appear that the vast majority gave up... with all the "Geeks"
heading off
to their local 'Forums' to bitch about... the System... GoDaddy... Rip-offs... well
everything really! |
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| You can probably
Google this story under "Godaddy registration fiasco" or
something similar. It was a total shambles which they tried to brush
off as a "Superbowl response... with a few teething
problems... but overall a great success... having Registered 20,000 new .ME Names on the first day
of Open Registration". |
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| Personally...
I just started searching around to see if there were any crumbs left... and
started grabbing the first things I came across... registered about 7
Names. Then I registered about 10 more... and kept looking. My
biggest mistake here was that I assumed anything decent would be
registered within hours... or a few days at best... and so snapped up just about
anything I could find.
However, everything has not disappeared and if I was Registering a Hundred
Names today... 2 months after the initial frenzy... none of my original
purchases would make the list... I could buy much better Names today with
a bit of research. |
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| The
possibilities are still there... so if you want to find out how to Find,
Assess, Register and Sell on these Premium .ME Domain Names... Click onto Page 2.
My Tip No 2 here would be... don't do as I did and just register the first
things you come across... because you think it will be gone within the
next few hours if you don't act. [By all means register it if you're
absolutely certain you've found a great one!?!] Otherwise... as an
example... if you decided you were going to?!? Risk... Gamble... Invest...
£250 in 10 Names... I would say, do your searches... write down your
finds/creations... when you've got 20 or 30... go over them, Assess them... think
about them... then when you're certain... pick your Top Ten. |
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