.me domain found in the wild — Analyzing a
This domain has a major flaw, and it’s not the top level domain.
The other day I was walking down 4th street in San Francisco and did a double take.
Is that a .me web site being advertised on a bus stop advertisement?
Why yes, it is. And that would certainly make Michael Berkens proud.
The advertisement is for Cater2.me, a service that makes it easy for workplaces to cater in lunch.
If you’re a .com purist, you hate this domain. But the truth is, most of Cater2.me’s tech savvy clients have probably heard of .me, and .me can pass the radio test for domain names.
Yet it’s the radio test where this domain truly fails, and it’s why this was a bad domain name decision regardless of the top level domain.
If you see the ad, you know how it’s spelled. But if someone tells you to check out Cater To dot Me, what URL will you go to?
Most likely CaterTo.me, not Cater2.me.
And if you type in CaterTo.me, you’ll end up on a web site belonging to caterer Christian Schneider in Hawaii. His firm owns the domain name CaterToMe.com.
It’s not clear to me if Cater To Me (the Hawaiian firm) actually owns CaterTo.me. The domain was registered to someone in San Francisco ahead of its whois record was placed under privacy last year.
Will the firm in Hawaii pick up business meant for Cater2.me? No, at least not until Cater2.me launches its service in Hawaii. But Cater2.me may lose business from people who hear regarding the firm, type the name in, and then can’t find it.
I would think buying CaterTo.me would be well worth it as Cater2.me expands.
