50,000 people rush for personalised e-mail accounts

The chance for people to create a unique space on the internet has broad appeal and many of the most popular first names and surnames have already gone. It costs as little as £12.49 a year to register a .me domain name through dozens of official registries in Britain and abroad. The minimum “rental” period is two years. The .me domain name was previously assigned to Montenegro after the country gained independence in June 2006. But the country, like Tuvalu (.tv) before it, saw the potential profit in selling off its domain name for general use. The .me registry officially opened for live registrations on July 17. More than 5,000 were registered in the first minute and more than 50,000 new domain names were registered in the first two days. The first “live” name registered was yusu.me. Companies were given the chance to... [read full story]