Over the weeks I have posted the results from the land rush auctions and other stories about .Co.
Many of the comments I have received, are along the lines of no one will ever build out .co domains as stand alone sites.
The reasoning goes that .Co will only be used for defensive registrations by .Com holders and by those looking to get traffic on typo’s on their .com equivalent.
Wrong.
Just a month or so after launch there are already stand alone sites using the .Co extension.
The companies who own the .Co domain name do NOT own the equivalent .com.
Let’s look at a few
Owned by a company called Lehmer & Associates, which is a Missouri company doing web and logo designs. Lehmer.com is for sale at BuyDomains.com
A rather nice looking site owned by a company out of the UK selling business advice.. Brxnet.com is owned by a company in Germany and the domain does not resolve.
Owned by a company selling customized visual systems out of Minnesota. Cubic.com is a defense contractor.
Is owned by a real estate company is the UK. It does not appear they own the equivalent .co.ok domain.
Communivation.co
Is owned by a New York company called communivation communications. The equivalent .com is owned by Verizon registered with MarkMonitor.com
Is owned by a group with a trademark, the Nation Energy Rating. Ner.com is owned by New England Research out of Vermont.
Is owned by a UK company called Cambridge Help Desk. Both the equivalent .com and .co.uk are owned by othe company’s which are parking the domains.
This is just a small sampling of developed .Co sites.
Want to see some more?
Just visit Developed.co which lists many developed .Co domains and includes screenshots of developed .Co sites.
I will paraphrase a tidbit of wisdom Mr Snoop at one point dispensed – when one has to showcase examples of websites using the extension to prove the extension is not dead, the extension is dead.
Jon
How can the extension be dead when its just a month old and growing everday?
These examples are not to show the extension is not dead, but to show people are using the extension to build out stand alone websites which many readers previously commented was not going to happen
And another site to add to your list. Launched today http://www.winprizes.co
Why would twitter and overstock pay so much if the domain was worthless?
Nice point. I guess some don’t see the point…
On another interesting note, NBC is using NBC.co as a cloaked redirect to its NBC.com site. Both NBC.co stays in the bar when looking at the NBC.com site. Very interesting.
“Is owned by a UK company called Cambridge Help Desk. Both the equivalent .com and .co.uk are owned by other companies which are parking the domains.”
I think you are going to see a lot more of that type of situation. My guess would be that there are a lot of small companies which cannot or do not want to deal with speculative .com registrants, and would simply prefer a .co to my favorite line from a conversation years ago… “The Western Samoan domain name hell that the rest of us must endure.”
I really don’t know what “success” or “failure” mean in this context. .CO has been around as a ccTLD for ages, and will continue to exist as one, whether or not any particular group of folks makes a pile of money.
But my guess was that opening it up to general registration would provide an alternative to folks who just want to get a domain name, and aren’t particularly bothered with whether the corresponding .com is a monetized page.
Check out http://angels.co . . . It’s a cool site
This is no difference than the dot net or org websites
People is still curious to see what the dot com looks like
Jon,there are people that talk about the news and there are the ones that make the news.
I bought 1,200 .cos and i will buy at list that mach moore as soon as the auctions are over.
Bit by bit the dotCOM ” supremacy” will FADE AWAY !!!!!!!!!!!! Thank god. Hallelujah !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Next year the internet will be FLOODED with the .CO WEBSITES.
Greezzzz,
The dot DE + .CO LOVER
Just built http://www.blenders.co/ on the Epik platform
People need to admit that .CO s are on the path to rivaling the .COM s in the coming year and years. As more and more of these sites come online, the awareness will increase which obviously will lead to even more registrations. $200,000 for T.CO and $350,000 for O.CO are just the beginning.
Developed.co is a very good idea for all parties involved to try to put .co on the map – but respectfully it will be nothing more than an exclusive club, .co support group or maybe even a cult – with very little exposure to the real world – didn’t eNom or someone else push the heck out of .tv as as the cross-promoting social networking tld – man did that take off or what !!!
Do any of the following do the same as Developed.co ?
Developed.info
Developed.org
Developed.net
Developed.biz
Developed.us
Developed.co.uk
Developed.mobi
– oops forgot one more – gee wiz
Developed.com
The simple fact of the matter is all the good .COMs have been taken a long time ago, now after 25 years, the next wave is the .CO s The fact that .CO s are international and not country specific anymore and reiterated by Google saying it will be treated just like .COM s and the fact that it is a shortened better version of .COM is want a few here do not realize.
Sheesh, here we go again…
My clients (non of them have any idea of domaining) are showing a good interest in the .co tld. coz they say it is easy to pronounce and almost very similler in pronouncement to .com. Only think keep them from reg few is, it’s expensive.
I should say the marketting of .co is best so far !
specially the logo 🙂
I think the .co domains will get broader acceptance as time goes on and be an acceptable variation like .net and .org are currently. That prime .com real estate is gone and the left overs are not that appealing. More businesses come online everyday that all need a domain to call home. The big boys will pony up for a high dollar .com, but everyone else will look to get creative with an alternate extension. I think .co is a great candidate for those people.
a very long list… 🙂
“Cambridge Help Desk”
if the TLD isn’t part of the name, there is no rational reasons to pay $29.99 to registrer chd.co rather than $0.89 (e.g. on GoDaddy and for the first year) to register chd.info that is also better for this purpose
.
Per Broadway Tickets:
“.co …. an acceptable variation like .net and .org are currently. ”
Sure – that is a fair at-best assumption –
Look what happened to .cc 10 years ago – heavily marketed – Radio & TV stations were saying “…go to zzz.com zzz.cc” – the consumer got confused and only wanted to use the front door – .com.
Did very good out of the gates – but ran out of gas before the finish line.
Although the abbreviation for Company is appealing – should .co gain the traction some expect, the consumer will get confused with the Brand of the Internet .com and histroy WILL repeat itself.
and, no one of the really used .co is a mexi.co like domain
Consumers know .com , maybe a few less know .org and even less .net and so on. No major consumer facing entity has yet to put all their cards on .co (without having the .com) and I’m betting they won’t either. It will confuse the consumer.
Names like o.co and t.co are just redirects or alternate uses (url shortening,etc) . That isn’t the same. When a major company starts advertising themselves as brand.co , then you can start saying things are looking brighter but 1 move like that is not a groundswell or any sort of a paradigm shift
not even e.co is a devloped site!
Per Adam:
Yes – I have always looks at .net as the unwanted step child – not even the avis of TLDs.
You are dead on with the redirect comments as well
People have to face the truth: the supremacy of .COM can’t last forever.
The market will be, one day, totally saturated, even on the second market.
@Alex,
Respectfully – you are confusing your frustration and others with why the consumer has been programmed by billions and billions of dollars of advertizing , Corporate America and the Courts and UDRP that the .com is the only one on the shelf (minus a few dangling carrots).
What you propose is no longer the Internet Al Gore invented !!!
BrianWick -> Speak for you country, not mine.
In Japan, it has always been .co.jp. In Thailand, it has always been .co.th. In the United Kingdom, it has always been .co.uk. In New Zealand, it has always been .co.nz. In France, it has always been .fr.
I agree with you on one point: for an international business, .com is the best.
But when the market will be COMPLETELY saturated (nearly every meaningful combination used), be prepared to see some change.
People need to admit that .CO s are on the path to rivaling the .COM s in the coming year and years.
——————————————-
I’d be willing to wager any sum of money that nothing even resembling this statement ever comes to pass.
Cubic Co sounds the best so far.
“.CO s are on the path to rivaling the .COM”
apart all, millions US companies will never put the future of their sites (and business) in the hand of a foreign country using mainly (or only) the .co TLD
maybe, if the .co TLD becomes an US property… but this is unlikely to happen
.
can you imagine eBay or Dell or IBM or Facebook leave the .com to adopt the .co ???
“Cubic Co sounds the best so far.”
I am sure the guys at Cubico.com and CubicCo.com will appreciate that as well.
Maybe they will put the owner of Cubic.Co on their Christmas Card list and thanks them for the traffic
“Cubic.Co sounds the best so far.”
why?
so far, only mexi.co and e.co have a meaning
.
despite the large hype it generated, the .co TLD clearly is a flop and a very small source of business for domainers
.CO wokrs for what they are, “an alternate” if you can’t get the most recognizable (.com) .
The .co arguments above sound very similar to .mobi , .tv etc .. . . the registry play book is even very similar.
History repeating itself.
How can you compare .co to .tv or .mobi , apples and oranges
…apples and oranges that taste identical.
So how old is .CO now? I think its a month and a half since its official launch in the terms that we are talking about it.
That is hardly enough time to prove its self as a good or bad extension.
A month and a half is a very short time and for the sites that are developed already its moving right along.
Right now its still a speculation extension. I dont know why some domainers insist on rallying against the extension. If anything, if it winds up a failure it will only strengthen the .COM brand more then it already is.
Out of the onslaught of past *NEW* extensions and their failures, this one has history going against it. I still think that this extension has the best chance (out of the recent NEW extensions) to be something that is well worth your time to drop your money into. I am not saying that it will rival .COM but I am sure it will be worth something more then the registration fee.
Maybe I am just missing something.
@ Adam. I dont see the correlation between .TV/.MOBI and .CO other then being new extensions.
.TV was pushed towards sites/businesses that are TV related or are video dependent. It is LIMITED in its scope and appeal to many sites that do not pertain to either one of those areas.
.MOBI was marketed as a website extension for the mobile device. It failed because (1) its longer (2) why use .mobi (which needed to build up recognition) when any other gTLD will do the same thing. (3) it is also limited in its scope to only be on mobile devices, again something that any gTLD can do.
I dont see the correlation between the extensions.
.CO still has to prove itself! but of all the recent extensions. This one hold the best chance at becoming a good extension.
Cheers
These guys know a thing or 2 about investing capital in some useful start-ups.
See what they’re using: http://dfj.co
Yes, although they are niche specific, extensions have marketed themselves in similar fashions. Read the marketing materials. The early adopters and the domain speculators who are deeply entrenched in any of these spaces are very defensive about how their specific investments are going to be “the next big thing”. It’s what you would expect of people deeply invested in anything. I think .co is great for it’s alternate uses btw. 😉
.CO isn’t (nor can be) “an alternate” .com
if the .com is not available, it’s always best to register a .net or an .us or (best) use a different (but similar) domain name
.
It’s funny to see that some crappy extensions like .tel or .mobi had a warmer welcome by domainers than .co, which is far away.
Some domainers are just frustrated by the failure of previous TLDs and think every single new TLD will fail.
Come on, do you seriously think .com should be the only extension on Earth?
“Come on, do you seriously think .com should be the only extension on Earth?”
YES
For a domainer focusing on development I wouldn’t care that much about the pecking order my domain extension belongs to as long as I can get a good SERP rank, get a lot of traffic and convert well with my websites.
It is shorter!
So from a purely logical/technical point of view, it is better.
Emotionally it’s not as good. But that’s our generation.
What about the next few generations that weren’t around for the .com start?
Over time, value of .COM will go down and value of .CO will go up. I hate to own a lot of .COM s and have to admit this but it is the truth. Just look at the domains, there really is no difference except for the fact .CO is better because it is like an accesskey to the .COM s.
Plus, people need to realize, that .CO is being registered globally. And this is huge, gigantic, enormous. I see people registering from all over the world. This is different than .us where virtually all are registered by us citizens.
I think as more .CO sites are developed like angel.co we will see an acceleration in .CO registrations just because of increasing awareness. What do you think?
This only points to one direction in the value of .CO real estate. And it is Up, straight up.
For those in the US, just look at your own web surfing data and you’ll see 99% of the sites you go to everyday on a regular basis are .com’s.
Out of 400,000 reg’d .co’s how many are developed so far and what level of quality? How much money is going to be spent for brand advertising and marketing those sites? That’s the big question. Unless the public becomes aware of .co in a major way you’ve got a very limited audience.
I’ve tried typing in .co’s and I always typo to the .com.
Hey good luck to the .co investors and all the other TLD’s in the pipeline. But I think your money would be better spent on high quality .com investments.
The fact of the matter is the .CO momentum is already here. Ask yourself this simple question, which is more likely to double in size? .CO or .COM
Bingo. You have your answer.
This guy with his comment is spot on:
BroadwayTickets
I think the .co domains will get broader acceptance as time goes on and be an acceptable variation like .net and .org are currently. That prime .com real estate is gone and the left overs are not that appealing. More businesses come online everyday that all need a domain to call home. The big boys will pony up for a high dollar .com, but everyone else will look to get creative with an alternate extension. I think .co is a great candidate for those people.
and this guy with his comment should indicate the general sentiment:
zamaan
My clients (non of them have any idea of domaining) are showing a good interest in the .co tld. coz they say it is easy to pronounce and almost very similler in pronouncement to .com. Only think keep them from reg few is, it’s expensive.
I should say the marketting of .co is best so far !
specially the logo
But don’t let a few extra bucks stop you from grabbing top .CO domains now.
I think we need to wait a full year and look back to see how .co did. It’s still too early to tell.
Yeah, everytime i see a link to last.fm i close my browser immediatly.Thats only for the people of the federated states of micronesia!
now there is the big hype around .CO
the max number of .CO will be reached soon and will not change so much in the next years
.CO will never be a big success, simply, because 99.99% of people and companies don’t need it
old people and companies that already have the right .com don’t need to shift to a .co
new people and companies that find the right .com still not registered don’t need .co
and new people and companies that find the right .com already registered can’t use a .co for trademark reason
in other words, if you call a new web service bestinkjets.com but a company and service with this name already exists, you can’t use the bestinkjets.co domain without risk to be sued by the original service
.
The .Co’s future will depend on the investors to build equity in their domains just like any other TLD. Did we witness 6 & 7 figure .Com sales in the early 90’s? No, we didn’t. Did the public understand the value of internet real estate until the late 90’s early 2000s? Not really. I have witnessed many TLD/CCTLD launches and to date I haven’t witnessed a new launch with this much momentum. Even I chose to brand and develop on the .CO TLD. It’s new, it’s fresh, it provides new opportunity and most importantly it’s geared towards businesses.
It is encouraging to see sites being developed this quickly. It was also very astute of the folks marketing this too allow people access to domains if they agreed to develop them (Sunrise period?). Last but not least, we also have a very strong following with large entities such as NBC, Overstock, Twitter and MySpace to name a few.
As we know in order for the extension to succeed long term with the general public, they need to contiually see .CO’s when searching for everyday things. While the above mentioned items in the first paragraph are important, we also don’t have much control over those external factors.
To those folks who have purchased .CO’s, it is imperative we take time to build out sites on these domains. This will play a significant role in establishing .CO as long term success. One of the best things we can do to increase the value of our .CO domains is to invest in the domains themselves by building out sites. Waiting around for someone else to build out their sites is only going to prove all the naysayers right. Take some time and money and invest in what you believe in.
“Come on, do you seriously think .com should be the only extension on Earth?”
Yes – only if you are in the business of making dough – other than selling domains that will likely never be used in production
“I’ve tried typing in .co’s and I always typo to the .com.”
Me too – that is why I double check every entry involving .com threads – sorry .co’ers
“Ask yourself this simple question, which is more likely to double in size? .CO or .COM”
Denial can only be doubled in size so many times – when after all that it is still irrelevant
Thanks for posting this. Didn’t know any .co domains were developed.
Good to see there is still speculation in the market.
Maybe when the ccTLD for Oman (.om) comes public, there will be another rush 🙂
I think the real proof will be showing sites that are ranked in google or yahoo that are a .co, so far I havent had sucess and notice quite a few of the promoted sites are not ranking for any type of competitive terms…I suspect that if there is quite a hurdle in achieving rankings this will greatly de-value the .co extension..
Don’t underestimate the power of viral marketing. Things can change on a dime.
I do NOT think there will be a rush for the extension .OM.
.OM serves no purpose. It has no meaning in the English language (I have no idea about other languages).
I dont see any clear way that .OM can be marketed toward businesses.
.CO at least stands a chance to be something good.
It has a clear meaning in the English language as the shortened expression of Company. It has had that for well over 100 years.
.CO is also recognized and used world wide as a business extension (for secondary ccTLDs… Example .co.in, .co.cc, .co.de, and the list goes on).
So there is already the base of a fundamental understanding that .CO is a business extension.
Those reasons (and the fact that its looked on by Google as a gTLD) are what gives .CO a CHANCE at becoming a good extension.
It still has a long way to go, and a lot to prove. Lets keep an eye on it for a year and see what happens.
You will see people buy make some huge money buying and selling .co names during the next 6 months.
>.co is new so you always have excitement around a new extension.
>.tv is still a good extension also. Some great buys in that area. With google and everyone moving towards the tv set you will that extension stay around for a long time. Unlimited channels tied to websites which produce shows or information. >tv has a nice niche.
We still sell .mobi names out of the US. So even though it did not take off like people thought. Opp still exists. Esp if you have generic words.
The biggest potential is tv. Is has a certain niche that only .com can compete with.
Don
Check out Go Daddy’s newest URL Shortener on http://nima.co – Go Daddy is developing on the .CO TLD.
.com is dead. PPC… dead.
Hype and misinformation? That stopped eons ago.
Get with it. .co is the way to go. Yo.
PetFoods.co is up & running. It is running on the EPIK Product portal platform.
Get your Broadway Tickets here:
http://broadwaytickets.co/
My god check this out:
PetFoods.com
What a waste.
PetFoods.co is the real pet foods site.
someone with a lot of respected experience on this thread – or another .co thread shed a little light on non.com’s – have fun with it – but remember 99.99% of the money invested will get burned
I’m working on a Forex Trading blog website (FXD.co) and should be fully functional with content soon.
Can’t wait to see the .CO domain expand over the next few months. So far there are 524,206 .CO registered according to cointernet.co
.CO = Columbia some of you guys are smarter than this you know that .CO is a junk extension for the USA and globaly same as .CM is .CO is only good for Columbia your either making a lot of money from selling and promoting .CO or your clutching at staws hoping to make a lot money from gullible people this little storm will be over sooner than later.
dont they offer the trademark site for instance nationwide.com the right to purchase the .co before they do the landrush? so why would they come back and sue you if they could have bought it and it was offered to them first? i guess you can be sued by anyone …
I have myself developed http://www.200.co. I love .co domains.
I was one of the ones who purchased .co extensions. Hopefully, the .co extensions are good investments.
Add one more to the list of developed .co domains. I’m putting the finishing touches on my new site http://www.petforum.co. I hope you would please check it out!
I also have some other undeveloped .co domains I want to sell to endusers at some point:
CloudComputing.co (the hyphenated version in .de sold for US$38,000)
NatGas.co (whoever owns the .com is asking $400,000)
CleanEnergy.co
BioFuels.co
FuelCells.co
@Eric
Wow… nice names.
I mean those are really nice names. Good catch on those names.
You should attempt to keep some of those to a little while. If .CO ever catches on (given its current trend… it just may do that) then you would have some really nice names to sell at a large profit.
Just my opinion.
Cheers
I wonder what I could potentially sell those domains for to an end user that i listed in my previous post. Now or say 10 years from now!
@ Eric
@Slate
@ Whoever
It is not about dropping the “M” or some other logic –
The person that buys the .co will not get to the holy grail they expect to achieve.
Sorry friends
Hate me if you will – BUT – I am all about save family fortunes, savings and other resources from being lost , You cannot “WILL” something that is not there
Best,
@BrianWick
I agree with you partially, However, would you not agree that paying a few dollars now is better than paying a fortune in the future? What i mean is, it is a small investment in just a few names that have the Potential for a huge payoff at sometime in the future. It is not like I’m spending thousands of dollars or even hundreds. Why not get a few names for a few bucks and sit on them for a while. If one day .co really does achieve widespread use then some names gotten today in the right industry may be worth a large sum. I don’t smoke cigarrettes or go hang out at the bar and drop $100+ a week like some people do so i can afford a $100 or $200 small investment on a couple of domain names! 🙂
Cheers!
@Brian
Sorry buddy but there was no talk what so ever about the letter “M”.
This was a conversation about domain names that end with the extension .CO. Not comparing them in any shape, form, or fashion to .COM.
We all know that .COM holds the money for premium domain names. I am not disputing that. Infact 90%+/- of my portfolio is .COM.
Now with that said, the discussion was on his .CO domain names, and they are nice domain names. He can sell them for a profit already (all be it, much smaller profit then if he had the .COM version of the names…. but still a profit).
For the life of me, I do not understand why some “Domainers” will call foul if someone purchases a domain outside of .COM.
In the end, anyone who purchases a domain (outside of developing it), just want to hold onto it for the potential of making a profit.
I dont buy beach front property for 2 reasons.
1) I cant afford it. I dont have millions to shell out, and they are not making anymore beachfront. So, if I wanted beachfront… I have to lay out the money
2) Beachfront has its price already set. Its not really going to inflate or deflate anytime soon. Its pretty much plateaued, (in other words… if I buy it for 1 million now… and sell it a year from now… it will pretty much only be worth 1 million +/- a few dollars).
*in case you missed the reference… beachfront property = premium .COM domains*
Now, I can afford to *SPECULATE* on some other land, with *HOPES* that it will see a boom later in life. *IF* it does, my *SPECULATION* investment will go up in price. *IF* it does not… I lost little.
I have around 500 domain names, out of that 11 are .CO domains.
My interest in .CO is minimal but I will like to see how it plays out.
I do not let other perceived failures from other extensions get in the way of SPECULATION. Speculation is a risk, but a risk that has the best “ROI” (return on investment… for those who do not know).
Now dont come back with a once in a life time sale that you saw where some guy bought a premium .COM domain name for 300 dollars and turned around to sell it for six figures. Those are the exception and not the rule. Now a days you will pay six figures for a six figure domain name and 5 years down the road… its still worth about the same as you paid for it.
It held its value… and hopefully you where able to monetize off of it.
If you dont have six figures, your not looking to monetize a site (i.e. develop), you dont mind a gamble, and you are hoping for a high ROI, then maybe you can look to other domain extensions outside of .COM.
Anyways, I am off my soap box.
Cheers
.COM investors like myself are worried that .CO will devalue .COM.
With more public awareness I am afraid it will continue to reduce .COM value.
Innovators try different things. People that put down .CO are either sheep that are too afraid to walk out of their tiny little box that they live in, or they missed the boat.
Take the risk (wuth the right names)