A story published by BBCNews.com today, talks about the growing popularity of .Co domain names as .Co now approaches 600,000 registrations.
The story quotes Juan Calle the CEO of .CO Internet S.A.S., the company which is operating the registry for the ccTLD.
How big are .Co’s plans:
“”We are going for a global audience and in three to five years we hope to have three to five million registrations.”
The article also states that:
“38% of firms registering for a .co domain are in the US, with 20% in Europe, the majority of these from the UK.”
The post finally also cites the .TV and .Me ccTLD’s:
“The .TV web address has proved a hit with the broadcast industry, while Montenegro’s me has appeal to the social networking generation”
If .CO were to bring the retail pricing into parity with .COM there would likely be a true horse race.
Other DNS changes coming may favor .CO
There are advantages to having .COM as a (cheap) back-stop TLD behind the premium .CO [Some of the FREE dynamic domain services also play that role.]
In limited market research, FREE still trumps all domain ventures and adventures.
Microsoft appears to be on-track to FREE with PNRP and dotZero .0
Thanks for mentioning this article Michael. I believe that .CO has done a superb job of marketing itself to the global community. I do however, agree with Jim that the renewal rate will keep it from attaining numbers it wishes. Even with a $8-$10 reg/renewal rate it won’t ‘challenge’ .COM.
I would like to see a couple years of sustained numbers (including renewals) before I see people getting too high on .CO.
Not a chance …… merely wishful thinking.
.co is just trying to sustain the hype it generated couple of months ago imo.
.me has already lost the luster.
I doubt if any of these new TLDs can ever come even close to NET/ORG.
Beating .com is just day dreaming lol
Good article – I can see the .CO extension gaining in popularity and becoming a high priced extension. It is being heavily marketed right now and if this continues and people become more aware of .co then I would not see a reason as to why this extension would not become valuable and bring in a decent amount of cash. Even if it takes a few years to build value – paying $90 for a 3 year .co renewal (for example) and selling it for a few hundred to a grand would be well worth the initial investment. It costs only .08 a DAY to register a .co domain – and could be a great investment if you get a great domain.
Internet market dynamics are very hard to predict.
Many years ago, in a FREE 3D Chat Community, we encountered some people who were singing the praises about a $40 per MONTH 3D Chat Community which had terrible technology.
When asked, “Why would anyone pay $40 per MONTH for that…?” the response was, “We want to meet men who can afford $40 per MONTH!!!”
.CO may become the Premium Domain for the Rich and Famous [Queue Robin Leach from VegasOnline…]
Let’s not forget that .co opened its doors worldwide only 3.5 months ago. During this time period, major companies like GoDaddy and Overstock have made use of their one-letter .co acquisitions. Successful domainers like Andrew Allemann and Elliot Silver also have secured their .co domains (Elliot is working, among others, on a nice website: Bahamas.co). Of course nobody can predict the future, but the extension’s looks promising.
its all hype
remember you cannot set any country in google webmaster tools other than colombia for these turkeys
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=62399
so they will do very well in colobia. LOL
wake up noobs and a splash of water on the face for those who should know better
my opinion, hype may last a few more months, mass drops in 2 years time on renewals and when webmasters realise theyre getting nowhere on serps
last .co auction failed already
mark my words… someday .co will be as big as .cc
.co domains can be geotargeted for the U.S.
http://www.cointernet.co/frequently-asked-questions/general-co-faqs#q8a
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/359704/google-approves-co-domain-for-international-use
There are many ways of defining success. It’s not necessary to overtake .com for .co domains to succeed.
.co domains can be geotargeted in Google:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/359704/google-approves-co-domain-for-international-use
I think that it will become a harder sell moving forward for one main reason, the inability to get the .co ranked well in search engines
I have not seen many relevant keyword searches showing a .co result, ive been attempting for 60days on a few .co sites and have not gained much traction, while google/bing may allow you to target the audience, they do not give you the same url love that they presently give to .com, .org or .net sites
“search engines” ? “rankings” ? “Google” ?
Those are so “last century” and so WEB-centric
.CO seems more oriented toward serious development, not Parking Lot .COM
so, the .CO registrations have slowed very much
but BreakingNewsBlog.co.uk is much better for BBC 🙂
“38% of firms registering for a .co domain are in the US”.
Firms?
Not sure they should say firms, individual speculators is probably more accurate.
.co had a great roll out but mark me down as declaring the death of .co. I’m guessing there might be another 100k or 200k registrations but I’ll go on record and say that .co will NEVER reach 1million registrations.
There will be less .co domains registered this time next year than there are now.
Pull up this article one year from now and see if I’m right.
Not a hater, just a realist. I’ve seen this many times and not just in domains.
People rush in and people rush out or trickle out and that’s the end of that.
“38% of firms registering for a .co domain are in the US, with 20% in Europe, the majority of these from the UK.”
There’s a big difference between the word “firms” & the word domainers, I wonder how accurate this statement is ?
“It will help educate consumers that you can type .co into a browser and get a valid website,” he said.
How many times have we already seen people write .com when they meant to say .co 🙂
… good luck with that one.
“How many times have we already seen people write .com when they meant to say .co :)”
Funny.
.com is the typo of .co
Seriously, is anyone really going to build a business on .co?
Doesn’t pass the cocktail party/phone test.
Hi. I’m so and so from so and so.co.
You mean, so and so.com?
No. .co.
dot what?
.co
What’s .co?
It’s a new domain extension for Colombia.
Are you Colombian or does the website have something to do with Colombia?
No.
Why don’t you have .com?
etc etc
The result? you look stupid and now have to explain .co to potential customers that you are not so and so .com because that was taken a long time ago.
Good luck with that. The .com owner thanks you.
It’s funny but its also TRUE 🙂 … maybe in another couple of decades it’ll be “more natural” 🙂
“.co will NEVER reach 1million registrations.”
In theory, there are about 1.7 million 4-Letter anchor tenants.
If the “Registrars” lock those up and if new DNS features destined for .COM
are moved to .CO one may see over 1 million happy .CO domainers.
Don’t forget, .CO is largely free of ICANN and the legacy .COM .NET .ORG regimes.
At least there is finally a choice, after decades of insider deals.
Rob
“but I’ll go on record and say that .co will NEVER reach 1 million registrations.
“There will be less .co domains registered this time next year than there are now.”
“Pull up this article one year from now and see if I’m right. ”
Ok Rob I’ll take that bet.
600K registrations on November 15th 2011 I’ll take the over.
you got the under
now for the stakes
I know your really into domains dealing with Cuba.
So we are betting a weekend trip.
If you win I will take you to Medellín for a weekend, airfare, hotel, drinks food, fun etc all included.
If I win, you do the same for a weekend in Havana, all travel, hotels, food, drink and fun etc all included
Oh crap we can’t go to Cuba can we, its illegal
“we can’t go to Cuba can we, its illegal”
.CUBA is now open to Americans (and the Pope) if you are part of the Telecommunications and Internet “Industry”.
For .CO the State of .COlorado will welcome you with open arms.
While you are distracted, the .FL Top Level Domain will emerge.
“.co will NEVER reach 1million registrations”
maybe, not “never”, but rarely
post edit: maybe, not “never”, but for long time (sorry, my english isn’t perfect 🙂 )
I would bet .CO reaches 1 million registrations before Apbil next year, anyone want to take me up on it?
Talk about long domain names…
Hickenlooper.CO
“John Wright Hickenlooper (born February 7, 1952) is an American politician who has been the Mayor of Denver, Colorado since 2003. A Democrat, he was elected Governor of Colorado in November 2010.”
“Pull up this article one year from now and see if I’m right. ”
Ok Rob I’ll take that bet.”
Okay. I didn’t lay out a bet, just a statement that I am confident in my history to know a speculative bubble when I see one.
What is the “big drop” date for .co domains in 2011?
This is my point that more domains will drop than be registered come this time next year. Maybe a couple hundred thousand more will be registered, MAX and then a couple hundred thousand will drop.
So, I’ll make two predictions…
1. .co domains will never reach one million registrations and
2. There will be less .co domains registered on November 9 2011 than there are registered on November 9, 2010.
Honestly I have no interest to go to Colombia but we can have drinks in Cuba, no problem. (plenty of legal humanitarian missions and the like).
How about my CubanGirls.com for your CubaGolf.com? 🙂
Another .,CO in the making ?
The Wynkoop Brewing Co.
“Although he had to interview with more than 20 banks, he eventually opened The Wynkoop Brewing Co. in the dilapidated warehouse district of downtown Denver. His vision proved successful, and his brewpub and restaurant are now mainstays of Denver’s community”
So many names, so little time.
Looks like there are already plenty of .co domains developed into international business websites, not counting those not indexed yet -> http://x.co/KBl1
I think that .CO may need over two years to reach 1 million domains
Today’s news that ICANN is going to allow DIRECT .COM Registry access without a Registrar may change the .CO future.
If Verisign quickly opens up the DIRECT (wholesale) access to .COM and lowers the cost closer to true-cost, .CO could be in trouble.
The only competitor Verisign would then have would likely be Microsoft with FREE domains via IPv6 PNRP and the Dot Zero (0) TLD.
.CO could be in trouble at $30 wholesale
“.CO could be in trouble at $30 wholesale”
I think that the .CO prices will fall soon to half or less
I believe $30 is the retail price not the wholesale price, of course depending on what registrar you use
“I believe $30 is the retail price”
ICANN is removing the wholesale/retail charade.
That was a concoction of market meddlers and government regulators.
The true cost is well under $1 per year.
$30 is what many buyers see.
Volume Domainers should soon start demanding direct Registry access.
There would be no ICANN in that relationship.
Haha. Michael, you were wrong about .CO and you’ll have to admit it eventually. 🙂
At this pace, .CO is a complete failure. Once renewals come, they will fall back to 500k registrations or less is my prediction.
Matt
OK so using your figures they get 500,000 registrations at sat $25 wholesale I think that comes to $12.5 million a year.
Not to mention that they already have 600,000 registrations this year which comes to $15 Million, plus all the land rush fees which were over $200 per, plus all the land rush auction winner premiums, plus they still have their reserve list.
So lets just call the first year $20 Million and the second year at your figure of 500,000 renewals another $12.5 million.
That’s a complete failure?
I wish I could have several “complete failure” businesses like this one.
Jim
What I’m saying is in response to “Domain Price” comment:
“.CO could be in trouble at $30 wholesale”
All I’m saying is that is the retail price to customer who want to register a .co not the wholesale cost the .co registry is getting.
I agree with you that “their true costs” are less than $1 a year, making my comment above regarding their business operations even more relevant
@MHB
The ball is now in Verisign’s court. [Buying GoDaddy would be game over.]
.CO could try to get back in the game with a massive offer, such as $1 per domain until they reach 20,000,000 domains ? (some limit) Those “slots” would cost them almost nothing. They would have to put up some simple DIRECT access interface. Maybe eBay or PayPal could handle the “sales” ?
Jim
If Verisign buys Godaddy what would the price of a .com registration be in your opinion?
It is a complete failure for the domainers as they were tricked into believing that they grabbed some premium real estate that will be worth millions in the future.
The .CO will never be able to compete with .COM nor will it ever overtake the .COM.
Money does not equal success.
12.5 million is nothing for a registry like .CO. That money will go in a heartbeat. Half the employees will need to resign by the third year at this pace.
“If Verisign buys Godaddy what would the price of a .com registration be in your opinion?”
===
I would imagine the U.S. Department of .COMmerce would re-enter the picture.
Things would get very complicated as people became confused trying to separate the GoDaddy Added-Value from the BASIC .COM Registry (preICANN) service.
Would VeriDaddy be required to offer BASIC .COM Registry ?
…or would the U.S. Department of .COMmerce require that to be RE-BID ?
Several major players have all said a .COM RE-BID for BASIC DNS would be under $1 wholesale.
This would almost be a return to the original NSF model of IS-RS-DS with three companies playing “roles”. AT&T was supposed to be DS (basic DNS cloud)
Matt
“”complete failure for the domainers as they were tricked into believing that they grabbed some premium real estate that will be worth millions in the future”
How were they “tricked” and who told domainers .Co domains would be worth Millions in the future, hell most .com’s are never going to be worth millions
Jim
Just give me a dollar amount
What would a .com cost to register if VeriSign bought Godaddy?
$1, 5, $10, $50
Give me a number
Let’s just wait and see in about 1-3 years what happens. You can count on me coming back and posting, either way it goes.
Historical Note:
At the time ICANN stepped into the picture (1998) the .COM platform was growing fast (less than one million names?) and the Network Solutions to Verisign transitions with SAIC in the mix caused a lot of distractions.
For people in the “domain industry” at that point, there was a plan in progress to create Premium Access to the .COM Registry. That was designed to allow volume vendors (ISPs, webmasters, etc.) to more efficiently interface to the .COM platform.
All of those Premium Access plans were tossed as ICANN in concert with shadow players such as IBM began to re-shape the .COM platform to pre-conceived plans that eventually became more visible from U.S. Department of .COMmerce
players (who eventually left and became big players in ICANN).
The industry shifted from a focus on new TLDs and Registries to the artificial
Registrar, EPP, transfers, domain locks, etc. nonsense. IF the market meddlers
had not arrived, NetworkSolutions/Verisign would have likely evolved to
have Premium Vendors with DIRECT access and LOWER costs and LESS
nonsense.
@MHB
“What would a .com cost to register if VeriSign bought Godaddy?”
Without uncle sam ? I would bet $1 less than .CO – $29
@MHB
One other point people often forget is that with SEC-controlled Public Companies like Verisign and Neustar operating Registries, there would be LESS Concern about wind-fall PROFITs because domainers could buy a piece of the Registry via stock.
Has anyone bought a piece of the .ORG empire ?
Jim
Then going to your earlier post above why would .Co be in trouble at $30 when the price of a .com would rise to $29?
“Then going to your earlier post above why would .Co be in trouble at $30 when the price of a .com would rise to $29?”
===
That was given NO Uncle Sam. That is very unlikely.
Also, what happens if Bill Gates re-emerges and says…”What part of FREE .0 don’t you understand ?” [a replay of the Netscape/IE story]
Also, that $29 would likely be the Menu Price, there would probably be Premium Partners at $1.
I don’t know why people are so pessimistic about this extension. All I know is number of companies making use of their .CO domains is steadily growing. Another huge company is Armani: their .com is obviously a brand to them, but in this case Armani.CO is not a redirection but a regular website.
@Joe
“why people are so pessimistic about this extension.”
===
I think the concern (real or imagined) is that “renewals” could become $1,000 per year and Armani would not bat an eye.
Volume domainers rely on (government regulated) low renewal costs, cheap hosting, traffic, and ad revenues. .CO may not be for them.
@Jim Fleming:
We’ll see how ‘volume domainers’ are going to deal with their acquisitions. The only certainty is that the value of good keyword .CO domains (not to mention the premium and superpremium ones) isn’t going anywhere but up.
@Joe
“value” or annual maintenance cost ?
====
Much of this goes back to the age old discussion of “Who really owns YOUR domain names.”
With S.C.U.B.A. DNS there is more certainty that you own the domain, because you can hold it in your hand. It is burned into a CPE device. The Network Becomes the Registry, as the devices come online.
.COM is special, because it descends from U.S. Government IANA Work Product. The assumption was that .COM would be the first S.C.U.B.A. deployment. The incumbents (and ICANN) would of course likely want to
delay that for as long as possible. Chaos and confusion can help facilitate that.
Consumers will benefit from S.C.U.B.A. DNS
That did not take long…here comes TLD Registry in a BOX – Turn.Key
“Neustar’s new service offering will provide registrars with all of the registry services they need to apply for and become a registry for their own gTLDs. The service operated by Neustar includes the back end registry, whois, global DNS, DNSSEC and all of the other capabilities required to meet the ICANN requirements for new gTLDs. The service will be offered as a white-label offering, meaning registrars can brand the solution as their own. “
Overstock looks to be moving its main site to o.co?
http://www.overstock.com/
(see logo top right)
Charles
The Overstock servers I’m pulling are showing their logo on the top left and it says OverStock.com
@MHB:
If you change the country, a new logo will appear saying “Soon to be O.co”. Here’s a screenshot: http://i53.tinypic.com/2iuxmi9.jpg
Joe
Maybe for all non-us traffic they will be switching to .Co
That would be huge
it seems that .CO has reached its peak
Apologies, I meant of course top left corner. And yes, I am accessing the Overstock site from outside of the US and it says as part of the main logo “soon to be .co”. Will be interesting to see how this develops.
@Joe
“The only certainty is that the value of good keyword .CO domains (not to mention the premium and superpremium ones) isn’t going anywhere but up.”
===
Note: The new Governor of .COlorado is a “domainer” he owns 6+ Restaurants, Pubs, etc. with local branding.
Aspen .CO is where many historic meetings have been held shaping the DNS
GoDaddy Replaces .Com with .Co, Now Default Choice
domainnamewire.com/2010/11/13/godaddy-replaces-com-with-co-now-default-choice/
Wow. The GoDaddy default to .co is huge.
http://www.mediaoptions.com/catalog.php?mode=viewdomain&id=18126
DENVER.CO
Insiders working the .COlorado scene
://www.defragcon.com/2010/DEFRAG10-Home.htm
Does anyone have more information on GoDaddy’s non-permanent switch to .CO?
Great news!
I see .Co dropping to a value-level BELOW that of .info within 24-36 months. It’s a typo, nothing else, which is why I’m dumping my last two .Co’s on Ebay auction with no reserve. No value.
@Jim Fleming:
We’ll see how ‘volume domainers’ are going to deal with their acquisitions. The only certainty is that the value of good keyword .CO domains (not to mention the premium and superpremium ones) isn’t going anywhere but up.