With the auction for E.Co hitting $25K today with almost 2 days to go, Twitter.com announced today that it acquired and was going to use T.CO as its official URL shortener.
The Whois shows the domain name was registered as part of .CO Internet’s Founders’ Program.
T.Co now resolves to a Twitter page which says:
“”Twitter uses the t.co domain as part of a service to protect users from harmful activity, to provide value for the developer ecosystem, and as a quality signal for surfacing relevant, interesting tweets.””
“”Twitter’s link service at t.co is used to better protect users from malicious sites that engage in spreading malware, phishing attacks, and other harmful activity. A link converted by Twitter’s link service is checked against a list of potentially dangerous sites. When there’s a match, users can be warned before they continue:””
“”Our link service will also be used to measure information such as how many times a link has been clicked. Eventually, this information will become an important quality signal for our Resonance algorithm—the way we determine if a Tweet is relevant and interesting.
“”All links included in Direct Message notification emails currently pass through our link service and are converted to a t.co link. We’ve also begun testing this service for links in Tweets; our recent blog post has more information on what we’re building.””
“”If you’re wanting to shorten links to share with others, please see this help page on using URL Shorteners. You can continue to use a URL shortener to shorten links, and any tracking metrics (like those from bit.ly) will continue working as before.””
“”The link service at t.co is only used on links posted on Twitter and is not available as a general shortening service.””
Twitter has some more thoughts on T.CO on their blog
No doubt this is further proof that the .CO folks are on top of their game and .CO is here to stay.
Anyone who hasn’t placed their vote for the final selling price of E.CO there is still time to do so on our poll on the right.
I’m proud to say I started the bidding out on this domain auction at $10K to the benefit of the American Cancer Society.
Since I am Twitter Following you I find this a great blog, I mainly use su.pr from Stumble upon and I noticed you mainly use bit.ly Will you be changing to use t.co when its launched?
Definitely a huge win for us. I have to give it to Lori for pulling it off!
Thanks for the note!
Randall
I mainly use the retweet button on the posts to tweet them.
I probably will change over when T.CO goes live
In an effort to greenwash (ahem..) I mean show the public that BP truly cares about the environment we are happy to announce that we will be re-allocating a portion of the funds now spent on our extensive PPC campaign over to bid on the e.co domain. We will be donating the proceeds to Haliburton
Toby Odone, CBA, BP
how much did Twitter pay?
Mike
Twitter did not pay anything.
The domain was granted under the founders program:
The .CO Founders Program is an initiative designed to engage early adopters, also known as .CO Founders, to proactively develop and maintain domains with the .CO extension prior to the public launch in July 2010. This is a tremendous opportunity for applicants to secure memorable domain names and get a jump on the competition by developing their .CO domains before the masses.
Who should participate?
You should! The .CO Founders program is appropriate for individuals, businesses, big brands, agencies, bloggers, affiliate and Internet marketers, developers, advertisers, non-profits and entrepreneurs of every kind – anyone interested in building a brand online, launching a website, blog, or community, and those who want get in on the next big thing.
What’s in it for you?
You get a premium, memorable domain name in the .CO space to build and develop before the rest of the world has access to register .CO domains. This is a true first mover advantage! You get the benefit of our marketing efforts as we showcase each of our .CO Founders on our website and through other global outreach efforts.
What’s in it for us?
We get smart, talented people like you to help us to build and develop the .CO space by posting credible content on .CO domains. By having great COmpanies, COntent and COmmunities on .CO domains, we can better promote the .CO extension and awareness of this exciting, new opportunity in online branding.
Here’s how it works:
1. Create: You come up with a great idea that you’d like develop on a .CO domain. It should be something that will serve as a showcase site for future .CO registrants or otherwise benefit the greater .CO community.
2. Apply: You submit an application explaining the .CO domain you’d like to develop and provide details on how you’ll develop and market the domain.
3. Review: We will review applications for compliance with program criteria and assess whether the proposed plan will contribute to the .CO community in a meaningful way.
4. Approve: We will approve only a limited number of applications meeting our criteria, making this a very exclusive opportunity.
5. Launch: You develop, launch and market your .CO domain per your proposal and our agreement.
The fine print:
The .CO Founders Program is available for a limited time only. To be eligible to participate as a .CO Founder, you must submit a complete Application by June 15, 2010, and contractually agree to specified program terms and conditions. All decisions regarding the program will be made by .CO Internet in its sole and absolute discretion.
In addition to submitting a brief proposal explaining how you would build, develop and market your preferred .CO domain, you will need to demonstrate your ability to execute on your plans, and to adequately promote and market your .CO domain.
You must use your best efforts to launch your site within 30 days of signing the .CO Founders Contract, and in any event before July 20, 2010.
You must agree that your site will remain in good working order, with unique, meaningful content; user-friendly interfaces; and broad user appeal, for a minimum of 2 years (potentially longer for domains considered “Super Premium” by .CO Internet). Use of each .CO Founder domain will be licensed to the winning applicant until this commitment has been met (subject to all other program terms and conditions), at which point the applicant will be permitted to register their domain name with an accredited .CO registrar of their choice (standard registration fees will apply).
During the license period, you must agree to actively market and promote the .CO domain in a manner that is likely to produce widespread awareness of your site based on industry best practices.
You know, .co really infringes on .com the same way .cm does.
1: IMO it takes the value of .com down a knotch. It’s still on top, but it’s now a little less valubal.
2: Why wasn’t the fact that .cm .co .om are all variants of .com the ORIGINAL brand of the internet. By UDRP and our current standards these would be disputed.
CO for me: location, location, location = typos, typos, typos.
Daryl
.co doesn’t infringe on .com, the country has an inalienable right to have their own extension. The extensions we long ago determined by the UN.
The .CO registry has gone out of their way to downplay the “typo” label and market itself as viable brand.
Twitter’s selection of .CO, when it could have used many other extensions, takes the extension further down the path of an independent ccTLD.
Definitely a huge win for us. Since I am Twitter Following Fan 🙂
@MHB thank you for the explanation!
Congrats .CO team and thanks for the great updates Mike- keep them coming.
The only problem with URL shorteners is MOST of them JUST shorten URLs. http://onecent.us also allows custom URLS, which many others do, it allows you to add a movie style RatedG, R or X to your short URL OPTIONALLY to give a warm fuzzy or even warn against adult content, which NO ONE else does. MOST shortened URLs are created in the USA and dot US domains get IGNORED! These guys play the patriotic angle to the MAX. They also donate 90% of revenue to CHARITY and users can select a reputable charity from a drop down list every time they create a short URL or let onecent.us pick for them. EVERYTHING is optional and no extra work ! They offer sweeMail © 2010 which is a unique way of building a form email for people to write their congressman or promote products/services/websites, VERY cool, NO ONE ELSE HAS EVEN THOUGHT OF THIS! These guys ROCK and seem to come out with a new nifty twist time and time again. it’s only a matter of time before their aggressive marketing and creative add ons grab a decent chunk of the market. And if they ever go public? WHOA.
WordPress should buy W.CO to join the wasting money party.
Wallace
Word Press picked the .Me extension for its shortner last year before .Co came out,
WP.ME
http://www.thedomains.com/2009/08/16/word-press-starts-its-own-shorting-url-using-the-only-2-letter-me-in-the-world/
A huge win for us, for sure! I am Twitter Following Fan