The Chaos That Was The .me Land Rush Or: How I Lost Houston.me And Want To Complain Like Everyone Else
It’s been a goal of mine to not post general domaining news. You can get this on all the other blogs. But I had to chime in on this one as it made me a grouch yesterday.
Like everyone else, I planned on buying a few .me domain names. I was at work ready to buy at 10am, and I had my wife ready to buy just in case something went wrong on my end.
Well, something went wrong on my end. 10am hit and I attempted to purchase two domain names:
Houston.me
NYC.me
Later I found that NYC.me was on “the list.” It wasn’t on the list that I saw before I placed the order, but apparently it’s on “a list.” So that aside, this post is a rant on how I lost Houston.me.
In the end it’s my fault, I understand that. I didn’t place a pre-order. But that doesn’t excuse the chaos that was the .me land rush.
So, at 10am I placed my order. And since GoDaddy has about 100 pages you have to “continue” through, I eventually timed out on the third one. So I asked my wife to proceed with plan B. While she was attempting to place the order, I kept trying myself. I never EVER could get past the third “continue.” It timed out every time. My wife was able to get past it, and purchased the names on my behalf. I was sweating, I tell ya.
I received my Godaddy email confirming the purchase. Completely satisfied that I had just purchased two great domain names, I went back to work. As a Houstonian, I already had plans to develop Houston.me, it wasn’t something I was going to flip. NYC.me I would have flipped.
A half hour later I received two more emails; Error: HOUSTON.ME: cannot register - already registered. A half hour that if Godaddy didn’t let me buy a registered name I could have spent grabbing another one.
I’ve learned a lesson. I should have pre-ordered. I should have used Dynadot. But I still feel screwed by Godaddy. One by one I will remove my domains from them.