I'm absolutely disgusted with my experience with Godaddy.com's back-ordering and monitoring product crap! I've been registering my domains with Godaddy primarily because there's seems to be a lot of good feedback from users. So far, I have about 7 domains registered through them. Back in January 2008, while I was snooping around for a nice domain name, I found a good .com domain but unfortunately it belong to somebody already. I checked its whois and became happy to find out that it was expiring in a few days. January 27, 2008 to be exact. So I came to Godaddy and bought in to their back-ordering and monitoring program. January 29 came and I got an email from godaddy indicating the owner of that domain re-registered it and extended for one more year. I felt bad initially but then I totally forgot about it a few days after.

In maybe a week, I got another email from godaddy saying the domain I had back-ordered changed status again and now it is in the redemption period. Which means Enom (the present registrar) can only keep that domain for the next 45 days or so then will delete it. Fine...

Well... 65 days later there I was wondering whatever happened to that back-order I made and so I emailed godaddy to find out. They replied with a lot of excuses saying that they don't have control over Enom inc.'s deleting procedures and what they can only do is grab the domain as soon as it eNom deletes or releases it. I replied back with a measly retort saying Godaddy should have done more in monitoring it for me since I paid roughly $20 for it.

Days came and Godaddy emailed me again saying the domain I back-ordered is now pending deletion by eNom and once they have deleted it they'll grab it for me. NOW THE EXCITEMENT STARTS TO BUILD! It's been 3 months and can't wait for the domain!

Finally got a email. Surprise, surprise!!! Godaddy came through for me again! The email goes:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Online Support. I am sorry that your backorder did not go through. Please note that backorders are not guaranteed. When more than one company has a backorder in place, it is a "coin toss" in a sense.

Again, I apologize that we were unable to acquire your domain. It appears another service captured the domain. Please let us know if you have any further questions, comments, or concerns. Our service departments and telephone lines are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to accommodate your needs anytime.

Or, you can send an email for speedy electronic service. We look forward to serving you in the future!

Best Regards,
Amber P.
Online Support Representative

This time I wanted to chew at anybody with Godaddy! In my attempt to get an explanation. I emailed them back:

So what you mean is your service essentially SUCKS? And utterly useless if it's just a coin toss scenario?! I thought Godaddy had the best service in it's industry. If a coin toss is all I'm going to get and what you offer, why should I even bother with backer-ordering? That's a total waste of 17 plus dollars!!! How am I going to have the confidence to put the backordering credit I have to another domain if all your saying is I'm just going to deal with a coin toss??? And besides, I thought the deal was if two domainers were able to request for the same domain, it will be an auction... What ever happened to that?????!!!! How was the other person able to get this domain when in fact I had a backorder and monitoring thing on it for 3 months???? Should it have been an auction? I'm extremely disappointed at Godaddy.com. I await for your answers to my question above. And don't give me that "coin toss" bullshit! I need a clear and actual explanation on how the other people were able to get this when I had a backorder on it a loooooooooong time ago!

I felt I just got screwed!

**** Thank you to nodaddy.com for the logo. Nodaddy.com, apparently is like a hate-testimonial site of all things bad about godaddy. Worth a look! ****

Here's a cool freebie that I'll definitely be watching at Dotster.com. I've never registered a domain outside Godaddy.com but this opportunity to snap a free .com .net or .org domain is just too tempting to resist. Dotster will be giving away a total of 500 free domains in exactly 3 days as of this writing. Count it! At exactly 3 days those who are logged on to Dotster.com will have a sort of landrush for domain names.
I guess I'll be on it but being my cynical self I can't help but wonder what's the catch? Is it totally free... taxes, ICANN fee at all? There's a great marketing pitch down at dotster but really no visible fine print so I guess the only way to find out is sign-up at Dotster.com and get one. Mark the countdown be on it!

Ok here's a lame excuse at making a post about dot me domains and also for trying to be a little funny. Ha! I'm not much of a funny person myself but I've thought a lot about what would make a funny useful or maybe not-so useful dot me domains that may interest some prospecting domainers out there. Thanks for one suggested by webwatch in a previous commented made. Like what my friend Aaron mentioned, the possibilities are endless so bear with me for a moment and lets try to mention some maybe not-so-cool .me domains.

Bite.me - interestingly enough there's an online mag aptly named bitememagazine.com apparently dedicated to vampire freaks. Not too sure if they've got a trademark on the word bite me but Beyond their brand name, I don't think there's really a worthy use for bite.me. Not in a money-making sense at least.

Windows.me - Apart from Microsoft having a trademark on Windows Me, I don't think there would be any interest in getting a domain hack for a legacy operating system. Let's move on.

Sue.me - This one is from webwatch. Hmmm... Nobody wants to get sued but think about an insurance company that offers protection from negligent liability. Great tag line for confidence. I'd say it could be useful. Or maybe not.

Crotchet.me - I don't know about you but for me this one is as boring as watching grass grow. While I was doing a little research for this post, there seems to be a website called crochetme.com. Guess what they're all about...?

So much have been written and press-released about these Montenegro domains yet nobody really realizes the great marketing possibilities of these .me domains. Since the Montenegrins have decided that they would allow anybody to register these dot me domains, this could be a world of possibilities for those who can actually register good domain hacks. The significance is great recall marketability and personalization.

In this light, lets run down some few .me domains people would be dying to get because of a presumed intrinsic value. Take note that I'm going to base my presumption on the biggest business industries in the world and assuming they would be interested in landing some of these .me domains for marketing purposes. Lets start with the good ones first.

Buy.me- this is a gimme for almost anybody. There's no other word in the retail industry that could be more blunt, more generic and more useful than this one. It has the universal appeal to almost every business. Don't get your hopes up high for this one. Godaddy's definitely auctioning this!

Trade.me - this is the second word I can think of when it comes to the retail industry. It may not have the "oomph" as buy.me but it'll be nice for a stock trading business and some other places applicable.

Fuck.me - Ok I was afraid I was going to have to mention this one but I just can't resist the temptation. According to Forbes.com, the *pron industry is a 10 to 14 Billion dollar industry. This is based on a legit Forrester Research. There's a lot of *pron bosses out there who'd love to get their hands on this. Like a New York Times Magazine headlined once, "There's No Business like *Pron Business!"

Fly.me - No need to explain too much on this. I've mentioned this in my previous post and it will definitely be auctioned off by Godaddy. The airline business has experienced heavy losses in this decade and have just recently been on the upside again. What a perfect marketing tool this domain would be for anybody who could land this domain. This one I expect to auction for millions.

Call.me - I don't know about this. It may have an appeal to those in the telecommunications industry but I'm not sure how they are going to react on this one. Still, this one's a good buy even just for it's marketing worth. Making a brief search on Google, nobody seems to have a trademark on it.

Blog.me - Blogs have been one of the biggest marketing tool in recent times. a lot of advertisers have used pay-per-post campaign's to get their word out. For its good appeal, I think this is a good buy as well.

Hire.me - This one also has a universal appeal. Good for people or businesses in the services industry. Using the U.S. Trademark Electronic Search System, it doesn't seem that anybody has a trademark on the word hire yet.

Drink.me -The beverage industry has been one of the most resilient of recent times. This domain can cover a lot of ground from sodas, coffee, alcohol and health drinks.

Deliver.me - Shipping and Transportation are also big businesses. If somebody buys this one for decent money, I think it will definitely turn into big profit eventually.

Eat.me - I almost forgot this one. The food industry is also a huge one. One of the biggest if I'm not mistaken. Imagine a food package delivered to you with a logo that says Eat.me... Pretty useful marketing again.

Some pretty funny .me domains you may wanna think about:
do.me
blow.me
iknowyouknowyouwannado.me ( honestly, somebody actually suggested this one to me)

Enough of the sex stuff... I just ran out of ideas. Feel free to leave a comment if you think of anything good, funny or interesting .me domains. Dot me domains' open registration is scheduled July 17, 2008.

The upcoming landrush for the latest domain extension will both be an exciting and frustrating time for domainers this summer. Exciting for those who have enough dough to shell out for expected premium dot me domains. Frustrating for those expecting to land premium domains because most will be held for auction.

With less than 2 months to go before the tentative landrush for Montenegro's .me domains, I received streams of emailed alerts about it which is nothing new really. The same old news about dot me domain registration has been around for months now.

With the supposed universal appeal of these .me domains, Godaddy.com the registrar who won the rights to sell these domains will be holding "premium" verb-oriented dot me domains for auction after the landrush period. So expect domains like fly.me, buy.me, find.me, watch.me, rent.me, ride.me, sell.me and many more that may imply some form of commerce, to sell for at least hundreds of thousands of dollars. Marketers will have a feast day with this new development!

So how many English verbs are there that could potentially be verb-oriented dot me domain up for grabs next June? In one forum I read, they say there's about 9,117 verbs but not counting the other tenses of verbs. So a safe bet would be 30,000 verbs could form a meaningful dot me domain name. That's a ton of possibilities to get rich quick! For others at least...
But then again, that's only in the English language. The word me also pertains to self or something of personal in other languages for example in Spanish. I'm not too familiar with Spanish so I don't have a clue as to how much meaningful dot me domains can be formed.

I will definitely be snatching up at least a couple of them .me domains when they become available. But with all these domain idea pinching, snatching and tasting, let me just say I'm keeping my domain ideas in my head for now.

In my quest to be a knowledgeable domainer, I rummaged through a gamut of references, blogs and search engines to find the very best in domaining blogs, websites and tools... Not really...

I used the good old Google blog search to find my next read on my latest internet obsession of domaining. And today I find the Avivadirectory.com's article about "How to Get Started as a Domainer: 28 Tips, Techniques and Resources". A very long (almost boring) but informative article about the realities of domaining for beginners in these times of late. The article starts out as interesting with bits and pieces of information about people who've already made it big in this domaining industry. The first couple of paragraphs about earning potentials will definitely make a domaining newbie carry on and read. With me being cynical, I thought I'd move along and read the piece for what its worth. My mantra in this domaining venture is "to keep learning and learn a thing or two a day."
It turns out that this piece is worth my time after all. I learned what domain tasting was ( which was something I've been reading about a lot since I started blogging ). Domain tasting was also something I've been a victim of for one of the domains I initially wanted to get. There's a few points in here that would be interesting to note especially for somebody like me who is just starting out in the business.

There's also a whole list of domaining tools to visit and test. I made a few visits to those online domaining tools but I only found a handful of useful ones. But then again I might just be a newbie too naive to realize their worth.

Overall, it's quite a good read. I picked up a few things and I'd recommend newbies like me to give it a go as well. But its just something worth one read and I wouldn't say there's a point in visiting it again.

In my quest to be a better more knowledgeable domainer, I have made it a point to scurry through the web in search for good reads, great domaining tools and sensible domainer bloggers. Yesterday, I found one in predictivedomaining.com. The domain name speaks for itself and finding the domain name in another article alone made me go click on it right away. Predictive domaining as a strategy, exactly what I'm all about about. I guess finding predictivedomaining.com is just destiny. I guess.

Reading through the current pages opened my newbie eyes to a lot of insights into domaining and how it works. The current article "How much is my domain worth" was something I was actually needing to read about given that I'm developing domains myself. The author's words are simple and concise. That made me feel comfortable in reading further unlike the other domaining blogs I've read (or tried to read). So much technicalities in terms and definitions in those blogs were too much for me as somebody who's just starting out.

Here's a brief introduction to predictivedomaining.com and what it is all about (copied from its homepage):

Predicting domain names that will be successful in the future is as much an art as a science. This website is dedicated to techniques for finding good domain names that will become valuable in the future as well as discussing opportunities as you see them.

Spotting domain names that may be valuable in the future is both frustrating and addictive. You are speculating that something will become popular and draw attention. You can then choose to sell off the name or develop a website to turn your investment into profit. You can in fact develop a website before the topic becomes well known and therefore be seen as an authority by the time the topic becomes hot.

It's a good read to say the least and I'm definitely coming back.

I've recently been plagued with 2 problems in editing the layout of my blogger template. First is I can seem to add more page elements because the "add page element" is missing as described at the Known Template Issues at Blogger Help. The second and more annoying one is that I can't scroll all the way down because for some reason the lower part of the layout is missing. This is also described at Blogger Help. Check out the screen shot below.

If this happens to you, may I suggest you check out blogger Help first. If you've tried their solution and can't resolve this issue, try my solutions below:

1. The simplest way: On the page elements page, click on edit html then without editing or doing anything click on the save template button. Click on Page elements again and voila the "add page elements" is back and now you can also scroll down the bottom. Very easy!

2. If the problem persists, go back to edit html, tick the expand widgets radio button and check for java scripts. Delete them. Also delete those that start with .



DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING THAT RESEMBLES as this may mess up your template. Save it. Then look at the front end of your website. If there's been a significant change on the front that you don't like, put the code back. I'd suggest that if you're going to delete a few things, start at the bottom of the HTML codes. This lessens the possibility of committing a huge mistake that may severely affect the overall appearance of the front end.

4. If these don't work, go back to number 1! It always works for me. Although it is not a permanent fix, I rather do this every time than not doing anything at all. :D There's actually quiet a few issues with blogger and these are the fixes I found to work for me.

I hope this helps. Cheers!