For those keeping score, .ME has been having one heck of a 2012 with strong support from major startups and big sales happening every single week. One of the areas where .ME has really shined is mobile where app developers are seeing .ME as a great extension to build their brands on. Given that mobile is probably the fastest-growing industry on the planet, this is a very good sign for .ME and .ME domain owners.

Starting on May 24th .ME will be holding a premium auction on Sedo with some absolutely incredibly domains. There really is no limit to what a one-word .ME can sell for which was very clearly illustrated with the $450,000 sale of Meet.me, a domain purchased for under $6,000. I will definitely be bidding in the auction this month and while I don’t want to give-away all my favorites I would like to share some of my top picks.

Boats.me – boats are expensive and there are plenty of people that are fanatical about boats. This has great development and end-user potential and would be perfect for an boating-related app.

Cruise.me – while we’re on the topic of boats, let’s not forget the cruise industry. I can already see a daily deals site for cruises or a slick app to find a great cruise near you.

Debt.me – nobody likes to be in debt, everyone who is in debt wants to get out of debt. I think this could be one of the names to go for the highest price, and I’ll definitely be one of the bidders.

Graduate.me – the education space is big money, this is one of the top category-killers in the entire niche.

LosAngeles.me – I live in LA and love this city as do millions of other people, this would be a great domain for an “Around Me” like app specific to LA.

Rap.me – turn the videos you shot on your smartphone into a rap video with Rap.me, I can already see it now!

VentureCapital.me – what VC wouldn’t want this for their blog?

Traffic.me – we all deal with it, some of us more than others, traffic apps are huge and this would be the perfect name for the next big traffic app.

There are many more great names in this auction. I am writing about this because I think it does truly represent a great opportunity for investors. Think about it, three very savvy Domain Investors bought a .ME domain with each spending less than $2,000, and each walking away with over $100,000. Mobile is hot, .ME is hot, put the two together and there could be some future six-figure sales on this list, and you have a chance to get one for much less in a few weeks!

Hello from Australia! This has been a very exciting week starting-out in Auckland, New Zealand, then making my way to Melbourne, and then back to New Zealand tonight! Whenever I’m in another country I always pay careful attention to the domain names I see on billboards, in magazines and on the side of cars. It only takes a few minutes of being in another country for me to notice how my perceptions of .COM domination, while true, are very US-centric.

In New Zealand I would say that about 90% of the domains I saw ended in .CO.NZ and the same has been true in Australia for .COM.AU. While I have been to Australia and New Zealand many times before, it is always a nice reminder of how going global often means going local.

Now does this mean you should dump all your .COMs and replace them with .COM.AU? No. The liquidity is still the strongest in .COM, but for anyone that thinks .COM owns the world, think again. Every country has their own ccTLD and in many cases this TLD completely trumps .COM in the given country. Go to Germany and you’ll see .DE everywhere, Italy and .IT, Spain and .ES.

There are Domainers in all of these markets, placing their bets just like the rest of us, on domains that might catch the eye of an end-user or generate passive income. While the market for a .COM.AU or .CO.NZ is significantly smaller than .COM, there is a market and if you’re building a business that targets this part of the world, owning a domain in this TLD makes a lot of sense. A great example was talking to a few people here about Kayaking.org. They said that if they were looking to go kayaking in New Zealand they would trust kayaking.co.nz above kayaking.org, and it makes perfect sense.

What I think is so exciting about coming to this side of the world is that the Domain market is still in its infancy. While I don’t think these TLDs will ever reach the scale of .COM (not enough people here!) there are some great opportunities and for investors building global brands, ccTLDs offer a great way to really connect with people around the world. It may sound counter-intuitive but sometimes you do have to go local in order to go global. So don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that anyone reading this should go-out and buy all the .COM.AU and .CO.NZ domains they can find, what I am saying is that if you really want to connect with people here, having a brand on the TLD they see every single day can give you a nice advantage and connection with the market.

Okay, it’s 30 degrees today (celsius) and it’s time to begin the day’s adventure. I hope you’re all having a great week and hello from down under!

(Photo Credit)

Sedo’s Premium .ME auction begins tomorrow with some absolutely stellar names. NameTalent is running an exciting contest to see who can pick the name that sells for the highest dollar amount, gets the most bids, and has the most individual bidders. As a big fan of .ME myself I’m personally looking forward to this auction and thought I’d share my top picks.

• Job.me – great name for a web 2.0 job brand
• Deals.me – perfect domain for a deals site
• LosAngeles.me – I live in Los Angeles so of course I like this one!
• OnlineDating.me – huge, lucrative niche online – category defining name
• Taxi.me – I can already see a Taxi app on my iPhone with this one
• Washington.me – get in on the occupy movement
• 888.me – probably the best 3N .me out there
• Scores.me – perfect name for a sports scores brand/app

Feel free to share your favorite picks and don’t forget to enter in NameTalent’s contest!

This has been a hot topic that I get asked quite a bit so I thought I’d do a quick post about it. With all the buzz around .CO many people are coming to me and asking the golden question, “Can I rank as well with a .CO domain name as I can with a .COM domain name?” The answer to this question is – yes!

Since .CO is not branding itself specifically as the ccTLD for Colombia but instead as a TLD that can be used all over the world Google has allowed you to Geo-Target it using Google Webmaster Tools. For the record this is not new news, I first reported this last year shortly after it was announced by Google yet this is still a common question.

If you haven’t used Google Webmaster Tools before it’s pretty easy to get started with. Simply visit Google.com/WebMasterTools and you can easily setup an account. Once you’re setup you’ll add a small snipped of code to your website and Google Webmaster Tools will begin tracking your site. You can then login to Webmaster Tools and select Site Configuration -> Settings. At the top of the screen you’ll see geographic target. This is where you can tell Google that your .CO site should be targeting the United States.

Of course you don’t have to take my word for it, below is a video by Matt Cutts from Google explaining how Google treats .CO domains:

Tomorrow I will be launching my brand-new Monthly Newsletter with a whole new look-and-feel, a different focus, and of course a few surprises that you’ll just have to see when it hits your inbox. One of the most notable changes to the newsletter is a new focus on the brokerage-side, the only domains brokered on my newsletter will be .US. That’s right, there are plenty of excellent newsletters that focus on .COM/.NET/.ORG like Toby Clements and Media Options, in the .TV space I’ve bought some great names from DomainStore.tv.

So I thought it was time to give .US a voice and hopefully a boost in sales as well. How better to start-off the newsletter than with Debt.us, one of the best .US names on the planet. In each issue I will be featuring a maximum of 10 .US names and I’m focusing on offering great names at very competitive pricing. I am also working hard at getting end-users signed-up to my newsletter, businesses, investors, people outside of the industry that want to learn more and invest more money in our space.

Of course for those who have subscribed to my newsletter in the past you know I like to include exclusive content not found on my blog, and I’ll be featuring two solid articles tomorrow. However there’s a change this time around, one of my articles will be about Domaining and the other will be about Startups. The articles in my newsletter are never published on my blog and usually feature some truly premium content so you won’t want to miss it.

I’ve learned that I don’t have enough time to publish my newsletter daily, and my crazy travel schedule makes it difficult to do it weekly, so I’m doing my newsletter monthly. If you aren’t already subscribed just click on the “Newsletter” icon in the header of my blog. If you’d like to sell a .US name through my blog please only send-over truly premium .US names and get damn competitive with your pricing! Get ready folks, the MorganLinton.com Newsletter is back and I can’t wait for you to read my first issue!

Today, Ron Jackson’s DNJournal Newsletter for March-April came-out with some interesting data about Q1 2011. I highly recommend reading the newsletter as he has a lot of great data to better understand where the industry is right now. One of the most shocking things to me was to see that ccTLD sales have actually declined in 2011 by 22% with 4.3 million dollars in sales down from 5.5 million for Q1 2010. After hearing this data and getting some very positive feedback on MorganLinton.tv today I’ve decided to throw my hat in the ring, that’s right, I’m going to be brokering ccTLDs through my newsletter.

Now don’t get too excited. For those who know me you know that I don’t have a proven track-record selling domains so I’m no champion that can guarantee liquidity. However I am one persistent dude and as a lover of ccTLDs I just can’t see this decline and not do anything about it. So I’ve decided to add a ccTLD sales section to my bi-monthly newsletter.

If you aren’t already a subscriber you can join by clicking on the “Newsletter” icon at the top of the screen. With ccTLDs it really has to be a premium domain in order to have liquidity and it has to be priced to sell. I know I’m opening the flood gates when I make an announcement like this so I’m going to add some criteria here. Please only submit domains if they meet the following criteria and I’ll apologize in advance to those who don’t make the cut:

• Maximum of two-word domains (although I’ll mostly be looking at premium one-word names to start with)
• .CO, .DE, .CO.UK, .IN, .MX, .CA, and .US are the only TLDs I’m interested in to start with
• Please only send me your top-tier names, long lists of junk will be ignored
• If it’s a .DE let’s stick with German and for .MX spanish-only please
• I will not broker .TV names, please sign-up for DomainStore.tv if you want to buy/sell .TV domains

I’m not going to be putting a lot of time into this but instead listing 5-10 truly premium ccTLDs in my newsletter twice a month. If you want a domain broker that will really give your names attention and some good TLC I highly recommend Domain Advisors, Toby, or Andrew – these are all experienced brokers with a proven track-record selling domains.

So there you have it – time to turn things around and while I can’t do it alone I’m happy to help the cause. I’ll be looking for a 10% commission on sales and a $10 fee to list the name in my newsletter. If you’re interested you can submit domains below or through my contact form.

The day has finally come, after over a year of work I am excited to announce the release of my new book, the Domain Investing Handbook. When I set-out to write this book I had no idea what a big project I was taking on. My goal was simple – create the book that I wish I had when I started Domaining back in 2007. What I thought would only take a few months to complete in 2010 continued into 2011 with hundreds of hours of work and over six different full-scale revisions.

Now, on my 30th Birthday, I am proud to release what I can honestly say is the best piece of writing I have ever released in my life. The book covers everything from the basics of Domain Investing through Developing, Monetizing, and selling revenue domains. I have put extra care into outlining every single success and failure I’ve had along the way, what I learned from them, and how you can build a consistent monthly income stream with domain names.

This week is the soft-launch of the book, I am announcing it on my blog and sending-out review copies to bloggers in the Domaining, Affiliate Marketing, and Web Design community. In two weeks the full-scale launch will begin which includes targeted press releases, social media campaigns, and much much more.

Now for a fun story that I think all of you will enjoy. Up until this week my plan was to call this book, Domain Monetization – The Definitive Guide. I own the domain name DNMonetize.com and since my previous book, Domain Flipping is on DNFlipping.com I thought this would make the most sense. However something bugged me about this, the book is about a whole lot more than monetization, it’s about investing. Also by the time I finished the book it really felt like much more than a book, it was a Handbook, something I could see people printing out and having on their desk, a trusty guide to use for their first year in the industry and beyond.

Then it hit me, I don’t own the killer domain for the book. I immediately went over to Go Daddy, entered DomainInvestingHandbook.com in to the search box, closed my eyes, and when I opened them I saw the .com, .net, and .org were all available. That’s right, I registered this domain name two days ago, and if someone else owned it I would have gladly paid four-figures for the name – it describes exactly what this book is, and of course it’s a .com!

So there you have it. I still can’t believe it’s done. Daina has compared me writing this book to the dissertation process that her and her fellow PhD-mates go through. It really has felt a bit like a dissertation and after hundreds and hundreds of hours I couldn’t be more proud of the results. I have worked hard to make this book have a little something for everyone.

I would like to thank all of the incredible people who helped me edit this book and make it what it is today. I am going to be adding a page to the book and a section to the website once I hear back from everyone on exactly how they want their name to appear and what website (if any) they want to promote. While I had planned to publish this book while I was in my 20′s I missed the deadline, but I’m excited to have this as my first major achievement in my 30′s, and not a day too soon!

I hope that all the time and energy I put-into this book helps each and every one of you either start or grow your Domain Investing business. As I say in my book, these are the good old days, enjoy them!

The Russian .рф Extension launches tomorrow and could create some incredible opportunities in the IDN space. .рф stands for “Russian Federation” and ASCII characters will not be supported with this TLD. You must be a Russian citizen or legal Russian entity in order to buy .рф domains.

When I first heard about this launch I thought, this is going to be big! The reason I think it’s going to be big is because Russia has a whopping 59.7 million Internet users. To put that in perspective that’s more Internet users than all of Canada and Mexico combined and is just shy of Germany’s 64 million Internet users.

An extension like .рф has two avenues of potential – the first is search. .US domains rank well in Google US and Bing, .DE Domains rank well in Google Germany and Bing, .рф should rank well in Google.рф and Google .ru along with Bing. With 59.7 million people online having an advantage in search could mean strong traffic and revenue, all for the cost of a registration fee!

The next potential win with this extension could be type-in traffic. If Russia decides to make .рф the default extension for the country this could mean type-in traffic, and lots of it. Right now there are people making money off of type-in traffic on .DE, .CA, .CO.IN, .CO.UK and many more, if the IDN version of this TLD becomes the standard there could be some incredible opportunities ahead.

If you’d like to invest in this new TLD you might think that you have to be in Russia to do it. That’s what I thought initially and I was happy to find-out that 101Domain will be offering the required local presence (they are the only US-based registrar to do this). It’s great to see a US-based registrar step-up to the plate here and provide a really valuable service and opportunity to Domainers. I’m a big fan of 101Domain, it’s a very reliable company and they are ccTLD and IDN experts which means you’ll be in good hands!

Tomorrow, November 11th is the first chance the world will have to register the .рф Extension, this could be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for!

Now let me know what you think about this new extension. Comment and let your voice be heard!

Sales.mx and Snapnames have teamed-up for a Premium .MX auction and it’s over this coming Tuesday! There are some great deals in this auction and many strong domains that make sense with the .MX extension.

Take a look at the video below from Sales.mx talking about the auction and head-over to Snapnames at take a look at the inventory. If you’ve wanted to get-into .MX now is definitely a great time to snag a good deal!

A couple of weeks ago news spread that Google would be opening-up Geo-Targeting for .CO. For those who don’t know what that means, let me quickly explain.

Geo-Targeting is a feature in Google Webmaster Tools that allows you to specify which country you’d like to target with Google. This option is only available for domains that Google considers to have a neutral TLD – TLDs like .com, .net, .org, etc.

ccTLDs on the other hand cannot be Geo-Targeted in most cases. Suppose you own a .ie domain and you build a site on it. While the site might rank well in Google.ie it’s going to take a LOT more work to rank well in Google US – which is where the real traffic is.

Now that Google has opened-up Geo-Targeting for .CO it evens the playing field and makes .CO a great extension for development…hopefully! The thing is that no real testing has been done, I’ve just started my testing and have already found Bimmer.co getting some search traffic for long-tails like “2012 BMW 1 series coupe” and “2011 bmw 740i.”

The interesting thing here is that I haven’t updated my Geo-Targeting, it’s still giving preference to Google in Colombia, but I’m getting traffic from Google US (albeit just a few searches but I thought it would take weeks or months before I started getting search traffic). This weekend once I’m back in the US I’ll be changing my Geo-Targeting and I’ll be interested to see if my search rankings/traffic changes.

This is only my first .CO development project and I still have several more .CO sites I’ll be doing SEO testing on. Remember, I’m not saying anything about .CO search rankings yet, it’s too early for me to know and I don’t have enough data. Once I have 3-4 sites up then I’ll really be able to dive-in and give some better analysis.

My first long-tail search came-in just two days after I launched the site so I’m hoping this is just a taste of what’s to come. Stay-tuned and remember, stay positive – no reason to think .CO won’t rank well, but until I can prove it – I can’t make any conclusions – like a scientist all I can do is experiment and report my findings