My “meta” domains were registered years ago

Facebook rebranded its umbrella company as Meta, moving away from strictly social media and marketing and onto a more complex company.

Brands in the US but also globally tend to be short vs. long words, and Meta is a simplified form of Metaverse – the online universe that arrives next.

As I explained recently, the meaning and use of “meta” in domain name registrations follows some rules originating from its function as primarily a Greek prefix that indicates placement in space or time, past another place or event.

In that sense, Mark Zuckerberg’s mention of “meta” as a meaning of “beyond” is not exactly precise: that word is “peran.” Sorry Mark, your classical studies must have been a bit tardy while you were busy developing Facebook.

I’ve registered, acquired and sold domain names that contain the “meta” prefix and those domain registrations and acquisitions took place years ago. The most notable sale took place in the summer, with metaproxy.com, a 1999 domain I acquired in 2009 for $79 dollars selling for four figures via the Uni Market. A NameBio listing of a Sedo sale in 2011 is inaccurate.

My remaining three “meta domains” were registered in 2000, 2003, and 2007. Two of them receive regular inquiries and there’s an ever increasing number of TLDs getting registered on these keywords. There’s no doubt the interest is fueled by the Metaverse and the Meta brand becoming common buzzwords; as such, I’ve no intention to register any more meta domains as I believe the name space is already overly saturated.

Should you form a company or a brand that contains the “meta” prefix or the full “metaverse” keyword?

That depends on what type of market you’d be targeting. The commonality of the “meta” keyword definitely dilutes the Facebook brand; already one company is willing to sell its Meta trademark application to Facebook for $20 million dollars, allegedly. I would not hold my breath it’d materialize.

Domain investors seeking potential buyers for their “meta” domains should keep all this in mind and use caution and common sense. The next popular buzzword will render this one obsolete.