Any idea how .ME domains are ranking for commercial terms in Google yet? That’s the make-or-break decision for speculators. it’s pointless having a domain that can’t rank but if Google decides to give them the same emphasis as .net and .com then they could become valuable.
Domain name speculation is great fun, but becoming increasingly hard. I only buy .com, .net or country extensions if I am targetting that market. I wouldn’t personally spend more than a couple of hundred $$ on any other extension until it proves it can rank, but I’d happily (and have) spend several thousand $$ on .com, net or co.uk. Even .EU has failed to carry much weight in Google on commercial terms and that’s been around for a couple of years now.
I think .ASIA could be an interesting one to watch, as it will be late next year when more extensions like “.gambling” appear.
There’s also an SEO issue here. Where do you host a .ME ? There is some weight carried by hosting your domain extension in the market it’s intended to represent. It’s an area where .INFO has sufferred – it is very hard to make a .info compete on commercial terms because it doesn’t have a “home” and it’s not viewed by the search engines as a commercial domain. I think .ME has similar issues.
I think .ME is great for branding (like the Prof points out above), but needs a marketing budget or viral campaign, or for non-commercial terms.