Fortune: Who’s Bowled Over From The Super Hype About .Co?

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Fortune just published an article entitled “Who’s Bowled Over From The Super Hype About .Co”

The article quotes Sedo.com, chats about Godaddy.com, the new gTLD’s and ICANN among other aspects of the domain name industry.

Again regardless of your feeling about .Co or any new gTLD’s its good to see domain names on the front page again today.

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  1. The Big Cheese says

    And here’s the money-line for ALL ccTLD’s from the Fortune article:

    LaSandra Brill, Cisco’s senior manager for social media marketing, says that the main draw of .co was social media outreach. “We have a very active engagement with our customers on Twitter and Facebook,” she says. “Every character counts on Twitter, so I do see other companies jumping on this.”

    BOOM! This isn’t just about .co (well, for now it is); but rather, it’s about .ac, .vc, .tl, etc. We’re picking up two-character .vc domains for $39 right now, and estibot is valuing these domains at $5,000-$10,000 right out of the gates. Couple of examples: 4G.VC, 5G.VC, & G6.VC ….bottom line, when you couple mobile devices with social media, you will end up with end-users who only care about memorable domains that are SHORT. Brevity, baby…brevity.

    – TBC

  2. Dean says

    Any press is good press…?

    “There’s a place for .co, but it’s probably as a marketing gimmick and not a replacement for .com. “

  3. Mike Law says

    Interesting is the poll in which 63 people, non domainers, have voted in up to the time of this comment. Of those 35% (22 votes) chose:

    “Yes, I think with time it will be a viable and legitimate top-level domain “

  4. Robin Ong says

    .co rise in popularity really depends on the tenacity of its marketers. Die-hards of .com is out there trying to prevent the new tld from gaining traction…
    The one probable downfall of .co is the country of its origin Colombia. I mean yeah it comes from South America and Colombia is one hell of a cowboy even compared to Brazil. But they are blessed with this one beautiful tld… dot co. Even better than .co.uk.
    Therefore, for it to blossom, marketing is one thing, the other thing will be its reliability.

  5. NamePiks.com says

    I am ready to fight! The .co will definately become one of the fastest growing tld’s around the world. I am not going to list the statistical data of my findings, however, if you are a doubter then you may do the research yourself, but I can give you a bit of insight here. You will find that .co is selling in astronomical numbers and based on averages and percentages you will find that .co is in the strong hold. Too, you must understand that every business and or company, corporation will NOT go without purchasing their individual name based on the theory of what the Columbia tld will really become to mean. Godaddy will have spent 11 million dollars on advertisement, narrowing the scope to .co. So then, why? They are the largest and most successful registrar in the world…. Moving on, have you seen some of the .co top sales? Phenomenal! Have you read the latest articles from some of the top domainers in the world, suggesting .co is the big one? Better…do some research. Or you can utter and murmur among your network of half-baked domainer friends and never prove up your point.

    Thus, the frenzy will continue and what I have been telling all my constituents is if you have so much pride and refuse to accept the statistical data then you will not reap the rewards in the end. In the early 1990’s, it was the same people with all the pride who said it will never work….and now look…Kev

  6. cm says

    Over the past 4 days, I have had inquiries/sedo offers
    on these .co domains (a little boost from the extra Super Bowl
    exposure):

    Blankets.co
    Bub.co
    Mega.co
    Jewelry.co
    210.co

    ..with 3 domains in the Sedo auction afterward:

    Chico.co
    Dermatologist.co
    GiftBaskets.co

    Should be interesting…

  8. Alan says

    is .co going to sell like hotcakes? Sarah Perry, VP of SimpleDomains.com, says it won’t. “Anything other than .com, .edu, or .org are nothing more than money-making schemes for people that own the [domain name] industry,” she says. “They make money for the people that sell them, so from their perspective, they’ll do fine. But from a user standpoint, they’re worthless.”

    Well said!!!!

  9. Nadia says

    Interesting about the poll, Mike. Thanks for pointing that out.

    Aside from that, I have no idea what some of these comments mean. “Colombia is one hell of a cowboy?”

    It’s great coverage for domains in general.

  13. DomainersFriends says

    Who are the .Co registry Corporate phony plants …

    Nadia,(domainsushi) Mike Law,Bob,Slate,em,Robin Ong,Big cheese

    The whole post is just a Info Commercial from the associated .Co whores.

    TELLING THE BIG LIE, TO RIP YOUR MONEY!

  14. Landon White says

    Sure!

    HYPE …

    A 60 second commercial watched by drunks and pizza stuffed
    PC illiterates will change everything

    60 seconds and its all over…

    Take auto renew off!

  15. Slate says

    I just wanted to point out that the SuperBowl is watched by over 100 Million people world wide. It has be touted as the single most watched event.

    Then you also have to factor in (not just the SuperBowl but) the all the publicity that the ads get afterward. There are websites dedicated to covering the Commercials. There are betting pulls on what commercial will be the favorite. Even all the Local and National news cover the commercials.

    That 30-60 seconds turns into hours of multi-national press coverage.

    Its really a smart move on their part. Also, the SuperBowl ads singlehanded launched Godaddy and made them the number 1 registrar. I think there is something to be said about the effectiveness of those commercials.

    Just the way I see it.
    Cheers

  16. Nadia says

    “Single most watched event?” Try the World Cup final. Historically watched by 1 in 10 people worldwide, which is an insane statistic. Over 600 million people.

    I personally don’t care about the Superbowl, but I like chicken wings, and will be joining a few friends at a sports bar in D.C. on Sunday. I guarantee .CO won’t be mentioned a single time. 🙂

  17. ars1 says

    the point isnt .co, or any other TLD in and of itself
    the point is the beginning of the end of .com hegemony
    several *valid* choices now, it’s ok to think to the right of the dot
    soon we’ll see top corps with their own TLD being business as usual
    the game changes
    now add in real ‘meaning’
    then add local context
    then take out any extra letters
    what do you get = ccTLDs
    this figured out everywhere but US so far
    but no good names left so it’ll come
    me I’m just not sure about .co or columbia, I’ve seen Scarface too many times..

  21. Aniol says

    1st: I think they will sell more… in a long term

    2nd: I think the .co registrar participates in the cost. What about: We will sell you x.co for 500.000 (or 1.000.000) but we will participate in your SuperBowl commercial dedicated to .co in the same value?

  23. MHB says

    Face

    1st of although I don’t know for sure I would be absolutely shocked if .Co registry did not pay for part of this ad.

    Its a cobranded ad promoting two companies, Godaddy and .Co usually such ads are paid for by a combination of the two companies but of course don’t know the split but I’m going to assume something close to 50-50.

    Also a big sale starts as early as tonight with new .Co registrations going down to $11.99 on most registrars sites including Godaddy so there is not going to be a $10 profit for at least a few days

  25. David J Castello says

    D-Day for dotCO will be this July when the first year registrations expire. After that point it will become much easier to see how long the legs really are on this extension. Everything up until that point is great marketing by dotCO, GoDaddy, speculators and more than a few bloggers 🙂

  26. Dean says

    @David J Castello

    BINGO!

    Unless your one of the big boys, and can carry that weight ($29.99) for an extended time without it crushing you.