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Rumor: Me.com bought by Apple?

by Cory Bohon Jun 2nd 2008 at 8:00AM

Over the weekend, the rumor mills went crazy with reports that Apple had bought a new domain name from their registrar (Mark Monitor). The domain name in question: me.com, which would agree with previous reports of Apple re-branding their .Mac service as "Mobile Me."

As we reported earlier it seems Apple is re-launching their .Mac service as an Exchange style service that might even be moving onto other mobile platforms as well as other OSes (including Windows).

As an additional reconfirmation of this rumor, the same tipster that told TUAW first about the .Mac refresh contacted us again to say that the rumors are in fact true. This is still solidly in the rumor category, but it is certainly shaping up to be an interesting WWDC.


[via MacRumors]

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Over the weekend, the rumor mills went crazy with reports that Apple had bought a new domain name from their registrar (Mark Monitor). The...
 

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macsruletheworld

In reference to my prior comment, www.markmonitor.com, where the Name Servers point registered www.apple.com. Don't believe it? Look at the WHOIS:

Domain Name: apple.com

Status: clientDeleteProhibited, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited

Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC.
Whois Server: whois.markmonitor.com
Referral URL: http://www.markmonitor.com

Expiration Date: 2009-02-20
Creation Date: 1987-02-19
Last Update Date: 2007-07-16

Name Servers:
nserver.apple.com
nserver.asia.apple.com
nserver.euro.apple.com
nserver2.apple.com
nserver3.apple.com
nserver4.apple.com

June 02 2008 at 2:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
macsruletheworld

A simple WHOIS returned this:


Registrant:
DNStinations, Inc.
303 Second Street
Suite 800N
San Francisco, CA 94107
US

Domain Name: ME.COM

Administrative Contact , Technical Contact :
DNStinations, Inc.
admin@dnstinations.com
303 Second Street
Suite 800N
San Francisco, CA 94107
US
Phone: 415-531-9335

Record expires on 22-Aug-2015
Record created on 10-Dec-2003
Database last updated on 21-Dec-2007

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.MARKMONITOR.COM 64.124.69.50
NS2.MARKMONITOR.COM 64.124.69.52
NS3.MARKMONITOR.COM 217.68.151.240
NS4.MARKMONITOR.COM 217.68.151.241

Current Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
IP Address: 38.99.83.2 (ARIN & RIPE IP search)
IP Location: US(UNITED STATES)-DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA-WASHINGTON
Record Type: Domain Name
Server Type: Apache
Lock Status: clientTransferProhibited
Web Site Status: Active
DMOZ no listings
Y! Directory: see listings
Secure: No
E-commerce: No
Traffic Ranking: 4
Data as of: 22-Apr-2008


DNStinations.com was parked by GoDaddy. A WHOIS of It Turns up with:


Registrant:
DNstination, Inc.

303 Second Street
Suite 800N
San Francisco, California 94107
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: DNSTINATIONS.COM
Created on: 20-Apr-07
Expires on: 20-Apr-10
Last Updated on: 08-Apr-08

Administrative Contact:
Administrator, Domain admin@dnstinations.com
DNstination, Inc.
303 Second Street
Suite 800N
San Francisco, California 94107
United States
4155319335

Technical Contact:
Administrator, Domain admin@dnstinations.com
DNstination, Inc.
303 Second Street
Suite 800N
San Francisco, California 94107
United States
4155319335

Domain servers in listed order:
NS45.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS46.DOMAINCONTROL.COM


Registry Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Registry Status: clientRenewProhibited
Registry Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registry Status: clientUpdateProhibited

Just thought I'd provide these tidbits of information for fellow speculators.

June 02 2008 at 2:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rick

Not that it's particularly evidentiary, but the email SOA is set to eddingsk.apple.com

and...

the "Registrant" of apple.com is eddingsk@apple.com

Just some more fodder for the rumor mill

June 02 2008 at 12:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
harsh

%@ = the service formally known as .mac

June 02 2008 at 12:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
christapher

im going to be pissed if i have to change my email to @mobileme.com or @me.com. they both sound so early 90's .com start-up.

June 02 2008 at 11:32 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
gian

Anyone consider the possibility of Apple launching a revised .Mac alongside Mobile ME, where the .Mac name doesn't change at all, and an ancillary service called Mobile ME is launched for Exchange users (Mobile Microsoft Exchange)?

Think about it.

Gian

June 02 2008 at 10:38 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to gian's comment
Dale

You obviously missed out on the post saying the string "%@ is the new name of Apple’s online service (was .Mac)" was found in certain applications.

June 02 2008 at 11:36 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Able-X

mobileme? Seriously? That's as bad as the "My Documents" stuff we always hated in the windows world that they finally grew out of, now Apple is going the "me" way. Lame.

June 02 2008 at 10:12 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
pcmaniac

mobileme.com's nameservers are also set to markmonitor.com..

June 02 2008 at 9:36 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Christopher Price

Let's clear things up here... this article is saying this is "all in the rumor mill".

We know Apple has control of Me.com

We know that .Mac was just changed to being a query-term, meaning, Apple can change its name easily... at any time.

We also know that the Mobile Me rumor started before the discovery of Me.com being controlled by Apple. I'd say that takes it squarely out of the rumor mill.

- Christopher Price
http://www.phonenews.com

June 02 2008 at 8:57 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
4 replies to Christopher Price's comment
Anon

If true let's hope that the new me.com IM service moves away from the clunky AIM protocol and onto XMPP.

After all XMPP is the standard for IM, and Apple already markets an XMPP server in their iChat server product.

Windows and Linux versions of iChat would also be appreciated. My little sister keeps harping on about why can't she do good quality audio and video chats with her Windows using morons... i mean friends. ;)

June 02 2008 at 8:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Anon's comment
Dale

I don't really understand how AIM is "clunky", other than the fact it remains cool to hate AOL for hating's sake. It has its drawbacks, but if it were truly difficult to use or feature limited, it would not still be one of the most dominant instant messaging protocols in the western world.

I don't really see a port of iChat as a valuable use of Apple's development resources. It has vast competition from a variety of rival programs, and with no apparent trojan horse benefit, it seems entirely fruitless. At least with the Safari port, they got to ensure more web developers could test their sites and applications to be compatible with Macs and iPhones.

Granted, it does have some great A/V components, but even ignoring their reliance on the Core foundation, it would make more sense to reserve them as upsell features for Apple's own machines.

June 02 2008 at 11:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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