There’s a new wave in top level domains, thanks in part to a few governments taking advantage of their unique country code designations. In fact, ccTLDs are growing in popularity with businesses, thanks to countries like Montenegro, who recently provided their .me extension for individual use.

 The .me ccTLD popularity is growing with domainers, due to the fact that the extension provides unique branding opportunities. In fact, .me surpassed 250,000 registrations in the past year. Websites like insure.me, date.me, and love.me are a few of the domains that went for thousands of dollars at auction.

 Bruce Marler, president and founder of LocalTek L.L.C., took notice of this exclusive business venture and websites such as Missouri.me. Websites like Missouri.me provide community portals to rural communities and allow businesses to penetrate hyper local markets.

Some popular ccTLDs that are gaining new insights are .tv (islands of Tuvalu), .fm (Federated States of Micronesia), .am (Armenia), .cd (Democratic Republic of the Congo) all of which display enormous potential to be mega-hit for those wanting to create media content for the masses.

Some countries such as Armenia can be a bit restrictive on the content that is utilized (i.e. no obscene material), but most are quite open in their views.

 Top level domains like .co.uk and .ca remain to be well-liked among British and Canadian users. Recent studies indicate these users are more likely to choose these domains rather than the universal .com TLD.

Large countries such as China and India have the ability to amass great fortune for those who invest in their domains. The shear population of both countries is enough to propel growth. China’s .cn registry is managed by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) and recently partnered with Neulevel to market the .cn domain internationally. India’s .in registry shot up after registry rules were eased up in 2005. The .in domain is especially popular in the internet industry.

Germany’s .de domain is also a classic example of the growth in ccTLD.  Over 12,000,000 domains are registered with the .de domain. While .de registration is permitted to non-citizens and no business presence is required, an administrative contact resident in Germany is necessary. Other than that there are no restrictions on domain names.

 Columbia’s .co ccTLD was expected to be a great deal for domainers hoping to cash in a shorter version on the .com enterprise. However, Columbia’s .co registry is reserved for Columbia residents only. There are also further restrictions on second-level subdomains.

I was doing some research on what the popular extensions were when I came across an article that listed the top 10 domain extensions.  This information comes from Register.be and they are a domain registration company in the UK.  It turns out for the first 6 months of 2009, .com still is the most popular.  .cn is second.  Here are the rest of the top ten:

1) .com, 2) .cn, 3) .de, 4) .net, 5) .org, 6) .uk, 7) .info .nl, 9) .eu, 10) .ru

There you have it.  When I get the numbers from the rest of 2009 I will share them with you.

Till next time,

Brian

ICANN, (Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers) created a group: Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery Working Group and they are seeking your input.  You can find all the details at the ICANN site.  You have until September 10, 2009 to submit your comments

I was looking over the domain names I own and wondering if I should keep them, try to sell some or if I should take a serious look at developing them.  I have always considered a domain name to be just like a piece of land without a building.  It might be worth something but how much more would it be worth if a building (a developed web site) was sitting on it.

I have decided to go the route of building some sites with the domain names I own.  I enjoy designing sites so I’ll get some content and see what happens.

I don’t have a firm timetable but I figure I should be able to develop one new site per month so look for Scores247.net to make its debut in within 30 days.

I found this link on Name Pros

It’s got good information so here’s the link:

10 US Laws Link

Brian

Since I launched this site about a week ago I have had many ideas for posts and this one just came to me as a result of the post earlier in the week about how much it would cost to have all of the extensions. www.GoDaddy.com has 58 extensions available depending on where you live so what to choose after the .com is gone.

I could kick myself (but not too hard) because I never registered my name as a .com.  I do own brianfreed.net, brianfreed.me and brianfreed.tel and I think that will be it for now.  I have designed a few web sites in the past few years for square dance callers and in all but one instance I was able to get the .com for them.  The one I could not was registered as a .ws.  I wasn’t too sure if people would remember this web site but if you do a search for Mike Driscoll on Google it comes up in the top 5.  I have CallerBrian.com tucked away for when I want to launch my Square Dance Caller site.

If you can’t get the .com in your name then let’s look at what’s available.  I am beginning to see some value in the .me extension.  It’s personal.  Bruce Marler believes in this extension so much he launched a company that revolves around it.  Chef Patrick has written on his blog about the .us extension.  I say if you have a site that deals in the media then look for the .fm or .tv extension.  If you try to match your sites content with the right extension I think people will find your site.  Now if I can only get ICANN to let me register a .sd extension for square dancing but that’s for another time.

Good luck with your search and if all else fails, find the person or company that owns the domain you want and make them an offer or keep looking at those drop lists.  You never know what you’ll find on those.  That’s how I got Industry News Journal.

Brian

In my last post I promised to find you some GoDaddy promo codes.  These were posted today and should be good until the end of August.

emma9=$7.49 .coms, emma8=20% off any order over $50.00, emma7=10% off any order

 www.GoDaddy.com

enjoy,

Brian

I got curious about how much would a person spend to register one name in all of the available extensions.  I went to GoDaddy to see how much would a person spend.  I was surprised that GoDaddy had 58 extensions available.

Over the last several years GoDaddyhas garnered a substantial amount of success in the domaining business. Originally, GoDaddystarted back in 1997 as Jomax Technologies.  Two years later in 1999, Bob Parsons, the owner, changed the company’s name to GoDaddy and then in 2000, GoDaddy became an ICANN accredited domain name registrar.

 I am here to let everyone know that GoDaddyis not just about expensive parties, Super Bowl ads and hot girls. They are much more. GoDaddyis the #1 registrar in the world with nearly one registration or renewal every second which equates to over 31 million domain names per year. Their closest competitor eNom, is 22 million registrations shy of them. With web development, hosting, 2,000+ employees and ALL of their customer service done in-house within the United States, you’re looking at a company that is a powerhouse.

 Currently GoDaddy has 58 domain extensions in which to register domain names with. Below is a complete list of these extensions along with their origin and price. Sales prices are as of August 2^nd, 2009 and are subject to change at any time.

Now don’t be alarmed by the published pricing. Quite honestly, their average customer owns less than a handful of domain names. Because we are not the norm, but still an important customer, they have established a discount club for $89.99 per year. Being a part of their discount club http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/club/landing.asp)gives us .com domain names for $7.29, which is one of the lowest prices of all registrars. Don’t feel like paying the annual membership fee for the discount club? No worries, there are a ton of GoDaddy coupons on the net.  I’ll keep you updated with the codes on the site.

 Take note that if you’re looking to register any country extensions there are a lot to choose from at GoDaddy. Make sure to research what the requirements are first for the particular country extension you’re trying to register. Some of the countries have requirements such as them only being open to businesses that reside in that particular country. Others are open to anyone registering. Do your homework first!

For my first post I wanted to go back in time, about 20 years in fact.  I started in the domain name industry in 1998 when I registered my first name, tcmbmodels.com.  I had owned a company that sold diecast scale model vehicles and I wanted to put my inventory up on the internet.  As I recall, there was only one registar around and the cost was $35.00 per year.  And they did limit you as to what type of domain you could get.  As I recall, if you had a company you registered a .com, if you were a non profit you would register a .org, for a school .edu and so on.

I did some research on the internet and found this list of the first 100 domain names registered.  I hope you enjoy the look back.

1. symbolics.com: March 15, 1985
2. bbn.com: April 24, 1985
3. think.com: May 24, 1985
4. mcc.com: July 11, 1985
5. dec.com: Sept. 30, 1985
6. northrop.com: Nov. 7, 1985
7. xerox.com: Jan. 9, 1986
8. sri.com: Jan. 17, 1986
9. hp.com: March 3, 1986
10. bellcore.com: March 5, 1986
11. ibm.com: March 19, 1986
12. sun.com: March 19, 1986
13. intel.com: March 25, 1986
14. ti.com: March 25, 1986
15. att.com: April 25, 1986
16. gmr.com: May 8, 1986
17. tek.com: May 8, 1986
18. fmc.com: July 10, 1986
19. ub.com: July 10, 1986
20. bell-atl.com: Aug. 5, 1986
21. ge.com: Aug. 5, 1986
22. grebyn.com: Aug. 5, 1986
23. isc.com: Aug. 5, 1986
24. nsc.com: Aug. 5, 1986
25. stargate.com: Aug. 5, 1986
26. boeing.com: Sept. 2, 1986
27. itcorp.com: Sept. 18, 1986
28. siemens.com: Sept. 29, 1986
29. pyramid.com: Oct. 18, 1986
30. alphacdc.com: Oct. 27, 1986
31. bdm.com: Oct. 27, 1986
32. fluke.com: Oct. 27, 1986
33. inmet.com: Oct. 27, 1986
34. kesmai.com: Oct. 27, 1986
35. mentor.com: Oct. 27, 1986
36. nec.com: Oct. 27, 1986
37. ray.com: Oct. 27, 1986
38. rosemount.com: Oct. 27, 1986
39. vortex.com: Oct. 27, 1986
40. alcoa.com: Nov. 5, 1986
41. gte.com: Nov. 5, 1986
42. adobe.com: Nov. 17, 1986
43. amd.com: Nov. 17, 1986
44. das.com: Nov. 17, 1986
45. data-io.com: Nov. 17, 1986
46. octopus.com: Nov. 17, 1986
47. portal.com: Nov. 17, 1986
48. teltone.com: Nov. 17, 1986
49. 3com.com: Dec. 11, 1986
50. amdahl.com: Dec. 11, 1986
51. ccur.com: Dec. 11, 1986
52. ci.com: Dec. 11, 1986
53. convergent.com: Dec. 11, 1986
54. dg.com: Dec. 11, 1986
55. peregrine.com: Dec. 11, 1986
56. quad.com: Dec. 11, 1986
57. sq.com: Dec. 11, 1986
58. tandy.com: Dec. 11, 1986
59. tti.com: Dec. 11, 1986
60. unisys.com: Dec. 11, 1986
61. cgi.com: Jan. 19, 1987
62. cts.com: Jan. 19, 1987
63. spdcc.com: Jan. 19, 1987
64. apple.com: Feb. 19, 1987
65. nma.com: March 4, 1987
66. prime.com: March 4, 1987
67. philips.com: April 4, 1987
68. datacube.com: April 23, 1987
69. kai.com: April 23, 1987
70. tic.com: April 23, 1987
71. vine.com: April 23, 1987
72. ncr.com: April 30, 1987
73. cisco.com: May 14, 1987
74. rdl.com: May 14, 1987
75. slb.com: May 20, 1987
76. parcplace.com: May 27, 1987
77. utc.com: May 27, 1987
78. ide.com: June 26, 1987
79. trw.com: July 9, 1987
80. unipress.com: July 13, 1987
81. dupont.com: July 27, 1987
82. lockheed.com: July 27, 1987
83. rosetta.com: July 28, 1987
84. toad.com: Aug. 18, 1987
85. quick.com: Aug. 31, 1987
86. allied.com: Sept. 3, 1987
87. dsc.com: Sept. 3, 1987
88. sco.com: Sept. 3, 1987
89. gene.com: Sept. 22, 1987
90. kccs.com: Sept. 22, 1987
91. spectra.com: Sept. 22, 1987
92. wlk.com: Sept. 22, 1987
93. mentat.com: Sept. 30, 1987
94. wyse.com: Oct. 14, 1987
95. cfg.com: Nov. 2, 1987
96. marble.com: Nov. 9, 1987
97. cayman.com: Nov. 16, 1987
98. entity.com: Nov. 16, 1987
99. ksr.com: Nov. 24, 1987
100. nynexst.com: Nov. 30, 1987