Quick Poll: How Much Will i.Co Sell For?

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With today’s announcement that i.CO is hitting that auction block, I started a poll as to how much you think the domain will fetch at auction.

You can see some history on single letter .co domains on my previous post from today.

Some of the possible buyers of i.Co off hand would include; Apple, king of all things “i” (iPad, iPod, iPhone, iTouch) ibm and any company in the internet business.

You can vote on the right and place your comments below.

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

  6. David J Castello says

    @Henry
    That’s not what the Mashable article said. There’s a big difference in the availability of a TLD and its value. Just because there is no inexpensive property for realtors left to sell on Park Avenue does that mean it’s no longer the most desirable or valuable location? Of course not. In fact, in real estate the opposite is true and I believe the same will hold true here.

  7. Landon White says

    I Agree,

    And also because it is ONE(1) letter it is a collectable
    but it does not mean that other .Co names
    will hold equal high value, just a novelty.

    >.Co is still a >.Com wannabe (a never will)

  8. Henry says

    David J Castello -> You’re right, but the ICANN is planning a future which will be harsh for .com-lovers.

    When the TLD .microsoft or .apple will be created, I guess Microsoft will soon abandon microsoft.com for home.microsoft, and microsoft.com/downloads for downloads.microsoft. Then .com will lose all its sense.

  11. Einstein says

    “Mashable thinks too that the .com reign is finished. ”

    A Mashable writer said so. His opinion, at best, is worth as much and mine or yours. The thing with .co is that Colombia can, with one stroke of the pen, take your name away, and there’s isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. .Co is assigned to Colombia. So spend $20 Million for insurance.co if you dare…

    See .TV and how pissed off Tuvalu is. The next contract, they say, will be different.

  12. Jim Fleming says

    @Einstein
    “The thing with .co is that Colombia can, with one stroke of the pen, take your name away, and there’s isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.”
    ====

    Can “COlombia” do that in the parallel servers that will be operating in the State of .COlorado ? [Note the new .COlorado Governor’s domains…]

    Also, do you think Neustar, based in/around Washington, D.C. will do that ?

  14. Robin Ong says

    There are really people who think that the Colombian government as imberciles who will pour sand into their rice bowl without valid reasons. Wake up dude…a new era is emerging.

  15. Anunt says

    i.co … less than $25k …if there are higher bids than $25k, they are most likely fake bidders trying to bid this thing up and then not pay…the usual scam that they do in domain auctions these days during tough times!

    good luck!

  16. dcmike77 says

    Weren’t we all just talking about .me??

    We’ll all be talking about some newer extension before you know it.

    Save your money, buy a .com

  21. Landon White says

    An “overnight COUP” in the Banna Republic of Columbia

    and the “new hardline dictatorship” will teach you what

    the true meaning of a “new era really means”.

    Goodbye Domain.

  25. Internet Media says

    Slots.co was resold by (dot)CO auctions several weeks ago for $11,500 versus $41,000 two months previous when originally released at auction.

    Does this tell us anything about the future values for the .CO ccTLD?

  26. Anon says

    @ InternetMedia

    I am not a conspiratorial minded person, but I am starting to strongly believe that a significant part of landrush strategy- as perpetrated by a small group of interested parties- is the ‘facilitation’ of gigantic sales that get reported, which in turn causes the newbies to rampantly register. Those sales are usually complete fiction.

    Creating the illusion of instant wealth is right out of the Tardfarming 101 playbook. The Tardfarmers know this.

  28. Em says

    @David,

    The problem with virtual real estate is that other addresses can do the job just as well. We aren’t talking about physical properties such as antiques, we are talking about abstract things like “names” and “brands” which can be changed. With reeducation, any extension can take the lead.

    @InternetMedia

    If I had been allowed into the reauction of Slots.co, I would have put up more money than $11500, that’s for sure. So no, this tells us nothing about future ccTLDs.

    @Sequin

    Flowers.mobi was a macho buy by Rick, IMO. With your logic that would be saying that O.co is useless, which of course it is not and is currently taking some international prominence. Sorry but the people who keep pumping crummy 4 keyword, backward .com domains are the same ones who own more of the premium ones. All the pumping does is increase the value of their domains and fools people into thinking they are registering a “good’ domain. The public should be educated about this, for obvious reasons. Let’s call a spade a spade. I would rather have a solid keyword in an alternate extension than some jumbled, cockamamee .com, just because it’s a “.com”. GMAB.

    Prediction:

    $400000 as loose change for Apple.

  29. Jason says

    I still think .co is a waste of money. The extension is overprised, doesn’t produce any traffic, and is a tough sale. Domaining is not possible with the .co.

    You have to sit on your investment, hoping that companies develop .co into a popular brand. I own 6 .co domains.

    I always do well on the .com. I can purchase many quality .com, and enjoy immediate clicks. The only .co that receives any clicks is a resume domain. If I focus entirely on the .co, I have no chance to succeed

    As for I.co, the domain will probably sell for between $250-375k. The domain is not worth the amount.

  30. Jason says

    Don’t waste your money on .co unless it’s a resume or job domain. I don’t the value in the extension. Even if the extension commands big end-user sales in thf future, I don’t have any regrets not buying more names.

    I’m glad I stopped at 6. I can buy 4 .com that I can flip in a few months. There are two generic ticket domains that I’ve been shopping around. I found many resume and cover letter .com domains with 1.5-3k local monthly searches.

    I also scored big on locating many quality education .com. I wouldn’t waste my time and money on .co. I don’t believe the hype. .com is still the best buy. I would rather buy 15 .info domains. I have many .info education domains, as well as a few job and hotel versions. These domains produce clicks, and generate traffic.

    One .info regarding movies generates between 650-1000 unique a month. An NYC hotel related.info earned back registration in the first 3 days. Focus on buying all extensions.

  31. Joe says

    @Jason:

    “If I focus entirely on the .co, I have no chance to succeed”.

    That’s the real problem. The key is diversification. In today’s domaining you must never focus entirely on only one extension (be it .com, .co, .in, etc), you need to invest in different ccTLD’s to succeed.

  32. David J Castello says

    @em
    “With reeducation, any extension can take the lead.”

    Not a problem. All you need is to do is brand another worldwide media phenomenon that happens once a generation and add trillions of dollars in marketing.

  33. Jason says

    @Joe

    I recently mentioned that investing in all extensions is the best strategy. I agree with your comment on building a diverse portfolio.

    I own many .com, .net, .org, .us, and .info. I also have a few .mobi, .biz and .co. I acquire domains in all niches.

    Thanks for the feedback.

  34. Joe says

    @Jason:

    Exactly. That’s why I don’t understand the domain name fanboy’s mentality. There’s money to be made in any TLD.

  35. Em says

    @David “Not a problem. All you need is to do is brand another worldwide media phenomenon that happens once a generation and add trillions of dollars in marketing.”

    David, how many .rf have been registered in the past 6 days? I think it’s something like 400,000. This is very significant. If Russian was my first language, I would want to use the .rf extension as opposed to any other. Usability is a main factor here and .rf is as “usable” as .com. This will be the trend as new IDNs roll out and also other extensions like .co. Industries normally have crescent charts meaning there are highs and lows and inevitably events will occur which will undermine .com. People demand something (good keywords) and when the supplier is too expensive (.com), people will go looking for other suppliers (.rf, .de, .co etc). Its just basic economics of supply and demand.
    l
    The so-called “.com” phenomenon can hardly be considered a phenomenon. It was the default extension, that’s all, a “name” which people promoted the **it out of. What happens when promotion starts to sink a bit? And promotion goes into other extensions? in the age of viral marketing, things happen very fast

    Essentially, the Internet as a new electronic medium was the phenomenon.

  36. MHB says

    I believe the reserve for this domain is going to be set at least $100K as that is what people who want to bid on the auction are going to be pre-qualified for.

    So if you don’t think the domain will sell for at least $100K then you should vote that the domain “will not sell”

    They aren’t going to sell it for $25K

  37. Bruce says

    $1.2 million…. Brandable for short letter meaning (Internet). If I had the money I would buy it. But I only have $1.199,999.99

  38. Robert Johnson says

    What is amazing if you think about it is that

    i.co

    is the very shortest possible domain you can have. Less is more, way more.

    The thing about the lesser .com is that they do not have 1 letter domains so you can’t have

    i.com in the lesser .com extension

    so

    i.co is not only a single letter domain, but combine that with the elegance of .co again shorter than .com makes it uniquely the shortest possible domain.

    The most fanominable thing is that have you tried typing i.co, it is amazingly fast. I have never gone to a site so fast.

  41. Anon says

    People demand something (good keywords) and when the supplier is too expensive (.com), people will go looking for other suppliers (.rf, .de, .co etc). Its just basic economics of supply and demand.
    ———————-

    ccTLDs and IDN have precisely *nothing* to do with the repurposing of a ccTLD into a gTLD… unless, of course, you still do believe that .ws really means “website”.

    A lot of domainers significantly overstate traffic bleed when talking about .net and .org. It’s not nearly as bad as some people suggest- those few ‘case studies’ done on this rely on some smoke and mirrors and aren’t exactly up to scientific rigors. Use a legacy TLD or a familiar ccTLD, people will remember it OK. Sure, you may increase someones traffic by a small bit, but you’re also going to increase their bounce rate by that same amount, too. I say this as someone who has a couple .orgs developed with the .com as a re-D.

    With that said, I dare *anyone* to offline market a .co name in the United States or the UK. The traffic bleed would be otherworldly. You would truly lose *most* of your business. For this reason alone, you will never, ever see one of those full scaled by a major concern and marketed. Absent those marketing dollars carving out familiarity with the TLD in the minds of the public, it never gains any traction whatsoever…. and in time, idiot domainers start to blame the ‘registry for not promoting the extension’ when those morons need to realize that registries don’t make or break a TLD.

    Yes, there will be plenty of adsense splogs and wordpress sites put up by ‘domainers’ … and clueless newbies will point to those as examples of ‘developed .co’, but do notice the complete dearth of large companies using it as a repurposed TLD. You’ll run into an operating mid to large scale business using a .co about as often as you’ll encounter one of them using a ‘domain hack’ as their primary web presence.

  42. David J Castello says

    @Em:
    “The so-called “.com” phenomenon can hardly be considered a phenomenon. It was the default extension, that’s all, a “name” which people promoted the **it out of. ”

    If that it what you truly believe I can understand your position.

  44. Michael Marcovici says

    I was in the landrush auction for slots.co, it ended at 41K, then some weeks ago it came back to the auction because of a non-paying bidder and it went for 11,5K, clear sign that the hype is somehow over… i.co my guess 150K because the .co registry will not put it up on auction without checking if there are some high bidders to avoid negative press.

  45. Landon White says

    @ ANON

    I am starting to strongly believe that a significant part of land rush strategy- is perpetrated by a small group of interested parties- in the ‘facilitation’ of gigantic sales that get reported, which in turn causes the newbies to rampantly register. Those sales are usually complete fiction.

    THAT’S IT IN A NUT SHELL!

    END OF STORY.

  46. MHB says

    Landon

    I think you figured it out, Overstock spent $350K for O.co just to trick you into buying $30 .co domains.

    Nice

  47. Jason says

    Who was competing against Overstock? I don’t see how they paid $350K for o.co when e.co went for 80% less. e.co is a far better domain with high commercial value.

    Because of the .co, I put together a strong resume portfolio. I purchase a .co resume domains, which motivated me to pursue resume, cover letter, and cv domains. I thank the .co extension for helping me to build a portfolio that will make me revenue in the future.

    I may close a few resume .com domain sales this week because of the .co resume domain. The .co resume domain is generating some decent traffic, and has produced a few clicks. It was worth my $30 to acquire 80-100 resume domains, with 95% of them being .com and 10-15 having high monthly searches.

    Thank you .co for inspiring me to buy more .com sites.

  48. Landon White says

    @ MHB

    MICHAEL, That was “ANON: quote from top of the POST … NOT MINE!

    BUT I AGREE, HE IS SO RIGHT … he said it better then anyone HERE!

    ONE EXCEPTION DOES NOT MAKE A REALITY…

    “iTS ALL HYPE, IF NOT WHY MUST IT BE DEFENDED ????

    the Mashable blog has got to be the “Joke of the Month”

    with there mislead the newbies .Co promo article

    I WILL NEVER ASK THEM FOR DIRECTIONS, TO MY BANK ,lol

  49. Bruce says

    Let’s face it, .co is the next best extension to having the .com. If you don’t develop your domains, the you are just plain dumb.

  51. Internet Media says

    On 7/28/10, I received an email from Sedo seeking a buyer for E.co at $500,000. This was only a month after it sold for $81,000.