contemplating registering a web site , either a complicated name with .com ( as all names taken already ) or a nice simple name with .me as an extension.

if a shorter / simpler name - easier for people to remember.

Are there any negative aspects of using a non- .com address ( i.e. in google ranking or other wise ?)

Thx.

a domain name is is only as good as its promotion ... so any domain is a good one if you own it ..

A meaningful domain name that people can remember and spell is much more important than the extension.

I am tempted to say .com became some kind of reference domain or even world standard.

I would rather go for a regional (co.uk, co.th), rather than .me, which are not popular at all and most people will be confused.

also be aware, that some extensions, like .com.uk are not genuine and won't do well in google

I am lucky enough to remember the basic URL and would assume the extension is .com and have never heard of .me. So, if you are selling something I think .com will get more people to your Website.

Thanks........ I did a web site once in .biz, and a guy told i should have gone for the .com because of search engine ranking or something of the sort.

I doubt that search engines can afford to discriminate against non-.com sites anymore, as they are so hard to get. But country-specific extensions might possibly influence your ranking because Google searches are location-sensitive to some extent (if you run the same search in google.com and again in google.co.th the results are often different). I presume that they might give you some 'context' advantage for searches run in that particular country.

I wouldn't get too hung up on it. Your site ranking will overwhelmingly be determined by how useful/interesting it is.

Depends whether people have to remember the URL from a poster or finding your site via a search, in which case SEO will be the focus of your work.

Consider: http://www.whorepresents.com/

Did you read that as - www.WhorePresents.com or www.WhoRepresents.com

...you can see by visiting the site that they use color to make clear the meaning of the name clear.

There are many examples like this.

.com, .net & .org are all treated the same in the eyes of google when it comes to ranking. Other extensions such as .me are not but could rank well eventually, it would take a lot longer and more quality backlinks though.

If you are building a brand .me could be OK, if you only want to rank well in google choose .com if available, if not .net or .org