The big news for domainers out of the ICANN meeting in Colombia today was delivered by none other than Bob Parsons CEO of Godaddy.
Tonight .Co held a party for some of the attendees of the ICANN meeting.
As part of the party Juan Calle, who is the CEO of CO Internet S.A.S., gave a presentation using video to show some of the achievements of the registry.
Mr. Parsons the CEO of Godaddy delivered a video message directed to Juan, to the effect that Godaddy would be making a BIG announcement on December 13th and although he couldn’t tell us the exact nature of the announcement, he said he would give a hint, saying to the .Co party attendees ” keep an extra eye out during the Super Bowl”.
The announcement was followed by huge fireworks display to the music of Shakira.
The message from Mr. Parsons is clear.
.CO is going to either star in, be featured in or at least get a mention in at least one of Godaddy’s $3 Million dollar Super Bowl commercials.
The domain world went wild last month when Godaddy.com replaced the .com as the default choice for new domain registrations with .Co for one day.
Now it seems like .Co will star on the biggest platform in the world, the Super Bowl.
As of today there are 610,000 .Co registrations, (as also announced at tonight’s function).
After the Super Bowl commercial(s) there is every reason to believe that number will be well into the 7 figures.
Guess the world will have to tune in on December 13th to see exactly what Mr. Parsons has in mind for .Co, but for all our readers you just got a one week head start.
Of course Parsons is flogging .co. He’s apparently making an absolute mint off people registering them. Perhaps he should introduce the public to the fortunes to be made by adding “3d” to various keywords, too.
Wasn’t he a big .tv guy too, until some agreement (read: profit structure) changed, then he switched his tune to hyping .me?
LS
I’m sure Mr. Parsons isn’t doing it for the hell of it.
No one spends $3 million dollars for 30 seconds of airtime without a goal of making money.
Yes Godaddy was featuring .Tv domains for a while but don’t think they made in into a Super Bowl ad.
Of course he isn’t doing it ‘for the hell of it’. He’s doing it to sell more of them, which he will assuredly do after advertising them during the Super Bowl. He could advertise .ws during the superbowl and sell a metric buttload of them.
The people at Godaddy are shrewd. They know how to milk their loss leaders (ie- $3.99 .us registrations with $20 renewals), they know the actuarial math involved with offering .99 cent .com registrations, what percentage of them will renew, how long it takes them to recover their costs and start running black…
Prediction: Expect to see gateway pricing on .co domains during his superbowl ad.
Godaddy is in the business of selling domain names. It is their job to promote these names and sell more of them.
Clearly .co is paying Godaddy to both feature their ccTLD for one day as the default and for a Superbowl coop advertising deal.
and the company name will be changed to .CoDaddy 🙂
Superbowl is just not in the US, Registrations will come from all over the world for .co
That is why it will be so profitable.
.com mostly come from US residents. Though watch the .co break some records from registrations around the world.
LS Morgan @ Spot On comment
it’s good for me but is 100 times BEST for you @ So True
.co or .com /sorry the first was a typo error.
Most important by far for me is that when you delve deep into this issue, when every tiny facet is brought out into the open and no stone is left unturned, the real burning question I must ask is: was Shakira performing live in person or was it just a recording?
hey .co, Do not limit the .co campgain to the US people only. Rest of the world will start to think .co is another US extension. There are plenty of indian and chinese crowed out there. bring the commercial to india (next IPL season would be a great opportunity to attract millions of cricket fans in the asia spcially.
what, the .co owners will do, if ICANN will allow the .C domains TLD ??? 🙂
I believe 2 .tv domains (CBSCares .TV and Flo .TV) were seen at the superbowl commercials, did nothing special for that extension.
I’m sure 2011 will be a great year for .CO
Superbowl commercial promoting .co will be a waste of money.
Your average Joe watching the superbowl does not even know what a domain name is.
Your average Joe who watches a godaddy commercial will think godaddy.com is a sex site.
And once they visit godaddy.com and see no sex…they leave immediately.
Waste of money!
“2011 will be a great year for .CO”
the only good year for .CO has already been this one
never will be another year with over 600,000 .CO sold
“godaddy.com is a sex site”
so, they will surely buy (and use…) the GoDaddy.xxx domain 🙂
This “typo” thing that people keep hanging on to is kinda funny. Everyday domainers are making the finest discriminations between domain names ie we know “fees.com” is worth about $100,000 and “feess.com” is worth maybe $50. I don’t see how a person can’t therefore discriminate between “.com” and “.co”. Perhaps it is because you just don’t want to, for whatever reason.
In any case, “.co” is a separate entity/company. We are living in 2010 now, not 1985.
This “typo” thing that people keep hanging on to is kinda funny. Everyday domainers are making the finest discriminations between domain names ie we know “fees.com” is worth about $100,000 and “feess.com” is worth maybe $50. I don’t see how a person can’t therefore discriminate between “.com” and “.co”. Perhaps it is because you just don’t want to, for whatever reason.
————–
Your logic is all over the map here.
The difference between “Fees” and “Feess” isn’t a ‘fine discrimination’. It’s the difference between a word that has significant meaning and a series of letters that have no meaning, aside from loosely resembling a word that does. The difference is immeasurable.
Yes, the ‘difference’ in price and relevance isn’t proportional to the number of letters that technically separate the meaningful word from the meaningless one. This isn’t a particularly ‘fine discrimination’ as much as it is just understanding how words work and how people comprehend them.
You claim to understand that the value differential between ‘fees’ and ‘ffeess’ is gigantic, yet one sentence later, claim to not understand why that same pricing dynamic would apply to sawing a letter off the end of the TLD?
Seriously?
Mike, thanks for being there and the update.
@LS Morgan
I’m sorry my friend but there is no breakdown in logic. I believe you are overcomplicating things. Very simple. “Discriminate” means to see the difference between two things, as you know. You can visually discriminate between “fees” and “feess”, can’t you? That just means, simply, that one is not the other. “Fees” looks and means one thing and “feess” looks and means something else. The visual difference is small but significant. Prices are set according to meaning and practical use. Truly a simple linguistic exercise.
To say “.co” is “.com” minus the “m” is just .com propaganda. The discrimination lies in the most fundamentals of logic, ie, 1 is not 0 and analogously “.co’ is not “.com”. As signifiers “.com” and “.co” are clearly different. If you perceive “.co’ to be a typo of .com that is actually your own desire, not logical fact.
I am sorry for touching on your .com funny bone, but rest assured I also own .com’s…LOL
Great news! Despite the naysayers, prospects for .co domains are going nowhere but up!
“worth maybe $50”
clearly, only for small sites, but not for big ones like eBay, Amazon, etc. (that, however, will quickly sue you)
So many comments don’t know where to begin.
Actually yes I do.
Ist for Auunt your not serious are you?
“”Superbowl commercial promoting .co will be a waste of money.
Your average Joe watching the superbowl does not even know what a domain name is.””
How do you think Godaddy came out of nowhere and passed networksolutions.com, Moniker.com register.com and enom.com who had millions of registrations?
SUPERBOWL COMMERCIALS.
There is no one more effective way to reach the masses, not to mention the commercials get talked about, written about, and discussed in a huge number of publications before and after the game.
Second to all those concerned about what Godaddy’s deal with .Co is or there motivation behind it, who cares?
Unless your a shareholder of Godaddy or the .Co registry, it makes no difference to you.
What does make a difference that if your a .Co domain holder (we have around 150 domains out of 750,000 domains) there will be MILLIONS of people that have never heard of a .Co that will know about it and be registering them after the game.
As far as ICANN approving a “c” extension, the guidebook does not allow for anyone to apply for a one letter extension, actually I think it has to be at least 3 letters long and cannot be confusing to any existing extension.
Finally I must report quite disappointingly that Shakira was not there live otherwise I would have lead with that instead of the superbowl story
))::
MHB,
“Second to all those concerned about what Godaddy’s deal with .Co is or there motivation behind it, who cares?
Unless your a shareholder of Godaddy or the .Co registry, it makes no difference to you.
”
Exactly. I don’t know why people speculate over things that won’t make any difference to them one way or the other.
The last time I saw, GoDaddy and .CO Registry were businesses doing business. Isn’t that what businesses are supposed to do?…LOL
I may agree with those who saw .co as a .com minus the ‘m’ the first time they knew of it. You can say what you want but after months, to me, if one still doesn’t manage to see .co as an independent TLD from .com there are either two reasons for that: 1) they don’t want .co to emerge – 2) they have a serious addiction to .com
I personally see zero value to the .co extension. Actually, I’ve recently listed Concerned.co for sale on auction with a one-cent minimum bid…this is the value I place on .co. It’s a typo – nothing else.
I should add – yes, I was sucked in by the .co hype and bought five of them, but I completely regret it and am looking to dump them like a bad habit. Nothing but .com’s for me from now on.
@concerned
Were you expecting something overnight? If you were an investor, you have to have patience and some understanding of business infrastructures. If you were a pure speculator, then probably you have been disappointed.
If the .com of the world would have been .biz, How many .co registrations do you think the registry would have at this point? If you think 20% or more, i think you need to think again 😉
@MS
“If” is a conditional/hypothetical. “If this” and ” if that” makes no difference to what is happening in the present reality. .co registrations occur mostly because it means “company” which compliments the business world quite nicely.
But if you have a statistic on your hypothetical, that would be interesting. 🙂
Without domainers, .co would already be dead.
With domainers, .co is still going to die; it’s just going to take a little longer.
Em
I agree with you.
When I invest in a new extension I expect I’m going to have to hold it for AT LEAST 3 years and probably 5 years until the extension matures and the public gets educated on it.
If you won’t or can’t be patient than send the domains to auction and cash out for today’s value
I’d like to take the time to highlight an opportunity that owners of .CO domains now have. If you believe that .CO will be pushed by Go Daddy now and in the future, what better way to sell your .CO domains than listing them via Go Daddy’s premium listings?
A Go Daddy premium listing will display your domain as being available for instant purchase whenever a user types it into the domain search box of GoDaddy.com. Perhaps a large event focusing on .CO may send a flood of interested users to GoDaddy.com to search for .CO domains? Perhaps if you owned some of those names and listed them via our premium feed some of that flood of registrations may be presented with your domain for sale?
Go Daddy has recently allowed .CO domains to be listed into the premium feed because we feel that .CO is a premium tld, I’m sure many of you agree and can see the opportunity ahead of you.
-Paul Nicks
Director, Product Development – Aftermarket
GoDaddy.com, Inc.
If you ask a kid what “CO” stands for in “Jones and CO” (it’s just an example of course), he’ll give you the right answer. .CO is .CO, people worldwide recognize it as a short for COmpany, COmmerce, etc. That’s why it was choosen as a second-level domain in countless extensions even in countries where a small percentage of the population speaks English, but they all know what “CO” stands for.
@Em
Good luck, we will revisit this in 5 years to see how it comes (came?) out.
No reason to argue semantics when .com will be a very real reminder to my above “if” unscientifical baselsss assumptions.
Paul
Excellent plug.
While I usually don’t allow such blanant self promotion I’m going to let it stand.
By the way you make an excellent point.
Since Godaddy is looks like its going to be promoting the .Co extension in a super bowl ad if you don’t want to be a long term investor that might well be the best place and time to sell your .co domain.
Concerned.co
Let me ask you what do you think Concerned.com is worth
My guess under $10K
If you agree then what is your upside on a .Co?
In other words if you have only a fair domain at best that’s more of a statement of value of that domain than it is of the extension.
So if your only .com domain is yoursisterisfatandlazy.com and you have had the domain for 5 years and no one has offered to buy it from you does that mean .com domains are worthless or that you have a worthless domain?
You can say what you want but after months, to me, if one still doesn’t manage to see .co as an independent TLD from .com there are either two reasons for that: 1) they don’t want .co to emerge – 2) they have a serious addiction to .com
———————–
Break out of the domainer psudeo-logic bubble and you’ll soon realize that the money is made marketing to John Q Public. Domains that rely on a ‘reeducation campaign’ in order to be viable will never be viable.
The reason .com commands .com prices is because is because .com is what the public- who cares nothing about domain names- knows and understands. It’s the best possible eMarketing tool we have, at this time. Could this change someday? It’s possible, but there is absolutely nothing to suggest .co will play any role in that happening, if it does happen.
Hypothesize, hope, pray and rationalize .co until the cows come home, using whatever contorted precepts of logic you please. I know how this story turns out for you guys. Here’s a preview: The words “Namepros” and “Leaving Domaining Firesale Post” are involved.
@MS
No crystal balls involved. Just hard work. 🙂
Don’t forget, I’m not comparing .co to .com. .co stands by itself and the criteria for continued success will be its growth and development while serving its own function. .com doesn’t factor into because it has its own history and function.
LS Morgan,
Actually what I read is a lot of fluff there. Just a diatribe/rant that reads more like a self-proclamation than sound reasoning ( ie just using big words for the sake of it). Rhetorical nonesense comes to mind. Essentially, the rant includes nothing substantial nor factual. The words “academic whining” come to mind. Why do you even care about .co?
Albeit, maybe your crystal ball is better than mine. 🙂
I agree with Mike on Concerned.co – the problem is the keyword not the extension.
@LS Morgan
“Domains that rely on a ‘reeducation campaign’ in order to be viable will never be viable. ”
As I stated in my previous post, nobody needs to be taught what “CO” means. It’s just one of the words that are known worldwide like pizza, Internet, etc. As for the “leaving domaining firesale”, that’s what speculators are going to do, not real investors.
@ Joe
Good point. Once again it comes down to investor vs speculator. Not everyone here is a speculator.
As I stated in my previous post, nobody needs to be taught what “CO” means.
——
They absolutely do need to be ‘taught what .co means’ as far as sticking it on the end of a keyword and plugging it into an address bar. It will be interesting to see if it ever gains any traction in places like India or the UK where .co has some ‘domain name resonance’ due to their ccTLD structuring, but I’m still betting against that. Those places use .com too and to anyone other than domainers- to the consumers those business interests are trying to market their website to- .co is hardly much more than a bizarre typo. They understand .co.uk or .co.in, they understand .com… You think that there’s room for a confusingly similar “.co” in this mix? OK. Good. We’ve both placed our bets on that. Lets see who’s right in the end.
Em: “Don’t forget, I’m not comparing .co to .com. .co stands by itself”
IKEA also stands by itself, but when there’s an IKEA branch coming to town, the surrounding industries/businesses are gaining from the new neighbour and some are losing.
imo, speaking of .co which factually does have it’s own identity but this (new/small) identity has the biggest brand in the world which is identical to what Colombia’s ccTLD is with the exception of an additional one character, is not ‘wise’ neither as a speculator, investor or spectator which is all i am when it comes to .co
As for the time factor mentioned above, i also think it’s not an indication, as most possibly won’t agree at this point, but IDN’s have been existing and registered since 2000, 10 years, and still most view them as one of the least desired channel available in the domaining industry…
Different story for a different day…nice to see how the enthusiasm levels keep going up and down on a almost monthly basis.
@LS Morgan
“You think that there’s room for a confusingly similar “.co” in this mix?”
Our points of view basically differ in that, in my opinion, for people who type in .co.xx all day long, “.co” is not confusing at all. It may look a bit strange the first time one sees it, but living in a world which is constantly changing, people get used to new things and technologies quite fast (at least faster than certain .com investors who see nothing but .com around them).
I keep hearing the same stuff from the .co detractors and it all boils down to the same sour grapes. I suspect this is mostly because you feel you missed the boat and/or you are stubbornly clinging to your false beliefs about .com being the only game in town. If you really, truly don’t see the value of .co then go back to your desk job. You don’t have the right intuition to be successful in domaining.
I’ve only sold two .co’s but they were for very respectable prices. They were bought by end users…one large corporation and one startup…both english speaking. This extension will take time but I believe it will be a long lasting strong extension with value for companies and corporations. This of course doesn’t apply to pigeon-sh*t which is pigeon-sh*t in any extension.
The idea that it is a typo extension is so ludicrous it really makes me think that the detractors are either trolls or they are trying to encourage domainers to drop their .co domains cheaply so they can pick them up. If that is the case then well played, sirs, well played.
IMO, if there’s any one thing in Domainland that might actually change a meaningful segment of the game, it’s idn.idn.
MS.
There maybe mutual benefits but that doesn’t mean Mom and Pops Hardware Store IS IKEA. I’m sure they have to look after their own balance sheets and follow their own direction, as a separate entity.
I suspect this is mostly because you feel you missed the boat and/or you are stubbornly clinging to your false beliefs about .com being the only game in town.
——
The only boat anyone missed was the failboat.
Congrats if you’ve been able to flip a couple .co’s to “large corporations” (I’m assuming they’re protected by a NDA and you cannot disclose them) but yeah… I’ll stick by my tired, old-fashioned beliefs about .com while people like yourself are fast to buy .co, .tel, .mobi or whatever other flaming bag of crap comes sailing down the pike.
It really isn’t that I or anyone else who LOL’s at .co has any interest in seeing it succeed or fail. If it goes gangbusters and I’m totally wrong and you all make a fortune and can finally install that foosball table in moms basement, congrats. I’m happy for you. It’s just that the .co story is an old story- the same reasons people suggest ‘this time, it’s different’ are old reasons and there’s nothing to suggest anything has changed.
Since I’m guessing most all of you are new to this, I think I can safely assume you missed the .us landrush and the dialog that existed back then, about it’s ‘future’. Anyone who’s earned their whiskers in this game remembers that. I say this as a big .us fan- a .us developer and occasional .us speculator and investor- but if ever there was a TLD that had ‘game changing’ potential, it was that one, and look what happened. There it sits, off on the margins. The exact same lines of reason people cite for .co were in play there. It’s almost as if this entire discussion is a transparent overlay of that one… Deja vu, all over again.
LS Morgan,
.us wasn’t even in consideration as a gamechanger. United States already had its official extension: .com. .us became, naturally, an after-thought.
.co is a likeable, bona fide extension that has been around for 20 years. It comes with build-in “company” leverage. There was no leverage with .us. Just a patriotic extension that had a little international feasibility.
Why should .co be a gamechanger? It doesn’t need to be. It is a well-run company that is seeing nice growth, already. A constant comparison with other extensions and gray-whiskered musings is fruitless. It is what it is.
I wish all of .CO the best of luck!!!
.co is a likeable, bona fide extension that has been around for 20 years. It comes with build-in “company” leverage….
Why should .co be a gamechanger? It doesn’t need to be. It is a well-run company that is seeing nice growth, already.
————
Saying .co “has been around for 20 years” is laughably dishonest. As far as its bona-fides, we will see that in time. Prediction: Lots of splogs and domainer-development, no significant company outside of Columbia using it as its primary web presence.
We both agree it doesn’t need to be a game changer and if there’s some underlying merit to it (which I don’t see), ok, but the people who are fast to pump .co are usually doing so in the context of it being a ‘game changer’.
As far as it’s ‘growth’, we shall see if that’s sustainable and particularly, lets pay close attention to how it ‘grows’ outside of domainer circles, in terms of meaningfully developed websites with an offline marketing budget.
“no significant company outside of Columbia using it as its primary web presence”
===
Odd 100% of all .COlorado City names in development
Aspen.CO
Denver.CO
I agree with Em. What does ‘us’ mean to the rest of the world? .us isn’t even an open TLD, add that to the fact America already had its own collection of TLDs (.com, .net and .org) and you’ll see why .us is there now. Not to repeat the same stuff, but .co is potentially desireable to a much wider user base than just the US.
It seems as though people have been manipulated by the marketing efforts of the .co registry. This cycle just repeats itself over and over again. By the time you realize it your money is gone. On to the next worthless extension!
@Tommy
They (.co registry) are selling a service. Can one conclude from that point that they are being manipulative? What sort of evidence do you have for this accusation? Why are you angry with .co registry for making money? Isn’t that the idea behind a business?
I’m sorry for your past losses but history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself. If it did, we would still be reading by candlelight. The will of innovators makes change and success possible. It’s also important to choose wisely which innovations to support.
Hmmmm….I guess we would have been better off without the light bulb. Darn dem naysayers were so right…:)
I am really sure where people continue to get the notion that there is no money to be made by .CO.
Even “Failed” extensions have made money for some investors. .ME seems to be holding its own and that is considered by many to be a “Failed” extension.
Hell, I would take 3k-26k for an extension that I paid a few bucks for.
That is called a great return on your money.
Why is there so much hate about this one extension? It cant get any worse then .Mobi or .Asia (in my opinion) and those sites have still see prices in the couple thousand from time to time.
If you where lucky enough or savvy enough to get some particularly good .CO domains when they where available, with out a doubt… you will be able to pull off a profit over time.
It has happened in every extension, and it will happen in .CO.
If you didnt pick up any .CO or you came late, then dont expect to turn a profit or if you do, expect for it to take more then the few months after the initial launch.
That is just the way I see it
Cheers
@MHB,
To answer you question, I believe Concerned.co is worth nothing, which is why it’s on auction now with a high bid of 21-cents as of this writing.
Why did I buy it? I made a mistake by failing to apply proper discernment to the “.co opportunity” before pulling out my Visa card.
I also bought SandCastle.co and am in negotiations to sell it to a small beach house owner in NC for probably around $100 (not a done deal yet), but when I registered it I believed the .co extension had potential. Now, several months later, and after much more research and thought, I don’t believe .co domains will hold value. Actually, I’ll go one step further and predict that the average .co domain FIVE YEARS FROM TODAY will sell for about the same price as .mobi. Go ahead, call me a fool (I’ve been called worse), but time will tell. Since I’m in “prediction mode”, I’ll go one step further and say that .TV will slip right into the #2 slot behind .com for valuations within 4-6 years.
Good luck to all of you,
CH
@LS Morgan
I believe the advent of .co was 1991. The idea of .co as an alternative to gTLDs was conceived in 2001. There were quite a few business people inquiring about the .co in the past 15 years because of its “company” connotation and what it could mean for their internet presences. It really just is common sense. Internet-business-company-.co, internet-business-company-.co. Is that such a stretch? Laughably not.
This is what I would call built-in leverage.
@Slate
Exactly.
@concerned
See earlier comment. Speculator vs Investor.
To be a successful speculator, you need years of practice and a particular savvy. You tried to speculate.
Investing is something entirely different.
Best Of Luck to You.
before .com – if you had a company, would you instinctively choose .com or .co (if you had to choose between one or the other)
today if you are a company, if you had to choose between .net or .co (if you had to choose, which would you choose?)
if you can’t afford a particular com…where will you go?
@EM,
With respect, anyone who bought a .co domain in hopes of selling it for a much higher price down the road was clearly speculating. The .co extension was new and unproven, which means it was a gamble.
I’m getting the feeling that more and more .co speculators are waking up and realizing that, while we won’t know for several more years, the .co extension will probably never come close to the values we all had hoped it would. Let’s face it – most .co buyers were hoping, with fingers crossed, that .co would someday surpass .com in value due it’s potential as a url-shortener…well, that’s not gonna’ happen.
Then again, I could be completely wrong.
Motorcycle Bob Parsons throws away $4 Million for a party …
(there is a payback angle somewhere (ha)
then tries to recoup by conning the super bowl newbies
about the great and wonderful…
.Co … which does stands best for > .Con
@concerned
As an investor, you do your homewrok about long term viability. There are many things that need to be checked. This has to be done beforehand. MHB mentioned earlier that as an INVESTOR, you want to wait 3-5 years, have good keyword domains, ability to develop and expectation of a higher return after 5 years. This IS investing. Not all investments work out but the likelihood of success is much, much higher than speculating which requires a flip for a much smaller ROI.
lots of people like the name “sandcastle”….over 500 registered over .com, .net, .org
easy $200.00 for .co (Concerned, you would be in the money…since you have only 4 .co)
As an investor, you do your homewrok about long term viability. There are many things that need to be checked. This has to be done beforehand. MHB mentioned earlier that as an INVESTOR, you want to wait 3-5 years, have good keyword domains, ability to develop and expectation of a higher return after 5 years. This IS investing. Not all investments work out but the likelihood of success is much, much higher than speculating which requires a flip for a much smaller ROI.
————————
Sweet Jesus McGee. Please, for the love of Pete, stop throwing around the finer points of investing terminology here as if you have even the slightest clue of what you’re talking about. What you’re doing is absolutely, positively speculation.
I mean, it isn’t like this stuff isn’t totally, clearly defined. The difference between investing and speculation is quite literally the first question asked on the test of 101 level finance majors who are being quizzed after their first run through “Security Analysis”.
Don’t mean to come off sounding like a dbag here, but this whole “I’m investing, not speculating because I’m willing to hold on for a while” is just hilarious. It wouldn’t surprise me if MB checked his inbounds to find links from threads on various finance and investing forums full of people referencing this post and laughing their asses off.
LS Morgan,
Well shiver me timbers. Are we in a poetry class or in a domain forum?
You’d be surpised how many people don’t know the difference between investing and speculating. It’s all about intention. Some people did not know the difference and lost their shirts. If you’ve ever traded stocks or futures, you’d know what I mean. And no, it is all not speculation. Any good chart reader can tell you that.
On a side note, it’s actually not the points that are made but how its made which makes one sound like a dbag. When a tone is rife with the ugly C word, condescension, some people might call that intentional alienation.
You’d be surpised how many people don’t know the difference between investing and speculating. It’s all about intention.
————
OK, again. No. “Intention” plays absolutely no role in differentiating “investing” from “speculation”. This is not a semantic argument here. You might want to hit up Wikipedia or Investopedia or Google and go see for yourself.
I’m not experienced investor by any means, but isn’t the whole point to buy and hold? Sure, I’ve tried selling off a few of my less palatable .COs (and I have about 175), but the core of the ones I landed, I planned on keeping for at least 2-3 years. Several of these are Spanish keywords, and I don’t see any sense in letting those go until (some would say “if”) the market in Colombia embraces the extension.
But still, regardless of whether you want to call it speculating or investing, to expect some sort of amazing value from an extension that’s barely been out 6 months seems a little premature to me. I mean, isn’t it impatient to be disappointed after just a few months? That kind of takes all of the fun out of it. It’s a risk for a reason. I’m not guaranteeing results, but I’m at least willing to wait a while and see what happens.
@Nadia,
“I’m not experienced investor by any means, but isn’t the whole point to buy and hold?”
My answer to your question is: depends. I remember ClimateGate.com was available at the end of October, 2009 – I saw it was available and almost registered it, but passed (I’m an idiot for passing, considering some of the crap I’ve hand-reg’d before). The “Climate Gate” news broke just before Thanksgiving in 2009.
ClimateGate.com sold in December, 2009 for $10,000 on Sedo. Obviously, this story is extreme; but in the end, you just have to use your best judgement in any purchase or sales situation. Sometimes, you sell right away at the right price, sometimes you sit on the domain for ten+ years before cashing in, and sometimes you register the wrong domain and never make a penny.
Funny business, this domaining stuff.
Thanks, Cheeseburger. When I said I wasn’t an investor, I meant outside of domaining. I’m pretty conservative when it comes to stocks and mutual funds – but my overall impression is that it’s usually not a good idea to buy copious amounts of anything and try to sell it off quickly. I suppose that’s one investment strategy, but I prefer the slower approach.
Nice story about ClimateGate. There are so many examples of this – I can’t imagine the person who registered Star.me expected it to sell for 10K EUR, either. I like domaining because it combines skill and aptitude with a bit of gambling. 🙂
In terms of stocks, day-trading is speculative because most of the time its full of more guess-work than planning. Caring about company fundamentals, reading charts and so on and holding for long-term gain, this is investment. I’ve done both and the intentions are widely different.
If I managed to secure skates.co with intention of developing or holding for 4 years, to me this is more like investment. I have a solid keyword domain that has immediate built-in worth and has a promising future which I’m willing to wait for and work on.
If I managed to secure whattheheckisgoingonhere.co and tried to sell it right away, not having a real plan, except for rapid-flip gain, IMO, this is speculation. It’s pretty much guesswork as to whether that domain will sell and I may be stuck holding the bag if i had no further plans to develop it. Into the drop she goes.
The two scenarios require two completely different outlooks. Clearly scenario one is the more promising in terms of .co.
@Cheeseburger
Good point!
Mmmm Cheeseburgers…. I can go for a huge Cheeseburger right now.
Anyways!
In the end, .CO is being pushed by Godaddy. Its seems to be the case with their past actions.
Godaddy is a company and has every right to push the domains how they see fit. The fact that some of us have to put our 2 cents in and bash a company for trying to make a buck is really really backwards point of view.
If a company can NOT make a profit then they will cease to exist and that is true for all companies. If no companies existed… guess what!!!
NO DOMAINS!!!
None of us would be here on this blog. None of us would have jobs. There would be no one buying domain names because no one has any money. We would be thrust back to the PRE-INDUSTRIAL age when everyone literally worked on the farm.
You didnt work for profit, you worked to stay alive. Your only real hope was to grow enough food and get enough live stock to live through the winter.
No…. begrudging a company the ability to make a profit is NOTHING that we should be doing.
If you dont like Godaddy… then dont watch their Superbowl spot.
If you dont like .CO….Well, then dont watch their Superbowl spot.
Whether you like it or not, Godaddy has seemed to take a fancy with .CO.
Even if .CO is paying them to run spots and ads to promote the extension, that again would be a business at work. Just like any other business, some advertising needs to be done.
Either which way. I look forward to see what Godaddy comes up with. I hope it is a Superbowl ad. I would love to to see .CO do well.
Yes, I do own some .CO domains. I limited my speculation to only 11 domains but still, I would love to see .CO do well.
Just my point of view.
Cheers
@Slate,
I don’t think anyone here is necessarily bashing Godaddy for pushing the .co extension, at least I’m not. What we’re doing is discussing our views on the present and future profit potential and/or utilization of the .co extension by companies worldwide. I don’t think it’s going to happen, EM and others do…we will see who is right.
By the way, I like the 3D-site – good potential with that one. Do you have 3Ddb.com too?
– CH
well .co could have instant value if used in the correct context.research and development is the key know exactly what you are buying before hand. and now for the example boulder.com bought boulder.co and it forwards into the .com.
in this case the .co compliments the .com and the .co has instant meaning and recognition.the state of colorado
no 3- 5 yr wait here.the owner instantly enhanced his web position by shoring up the possibility of
market differentation/segmentation/fragmentaion by adding the .co suffix to his portfolio of domains.this could also be a defensive registration to eliminate a potential competitor to boulder.com. a smart domainer protecting his domain portfolio.
.CO is a Global TLD undoubtedly. Its also one of the neatest to have. Which TLD would you rather have lets say. Medco.co or Medco.com. Which naturally sounds better to the mass majority who enter the web daily in search for a domain, and who do not necessarily have any idea about TLD history or sophisticated insight. Those will go by what sounds neater and more brandable. To them the .CO is as old as the existence of companies, while other TLDs are as old as the internet and as popular as their Adv dollars.
.CO I believe needs not ADV, although its a great bonus to have… It’s eventually going to take over I’m sure deep inside, as I was about the price of Gold when the ounce was 500$…
So, I see the .CO TLD a one in a life time opportunity, unlike any other previous TLD like .mobi or .me… Simple incomparable on many levels.
My Opinion…
If Godaddy or anyone else wants to raise the value of a given extension… I am all for it, especially if I have some decent names in that extension.
I just hope that we are reading into this correctly and that Godaddy is actually going to give a nod to .CO during their SuperBowl ad and not something lame like showing the flying pig in the background. No body would get that reference, and would do nothing for the extension as a whole.
I am hoping for the best but expecting nothing major to happen.
Cheers
It is blatantly obvious to me and everyone on this board that there are a few sore losers here. Misery loves company. And you few don’t want to see .CO blast off to its rightful place as the successor to the .com
Just making downright derogatory statements, comparing .CO to everything from the sink hole to low lives and thieves and burglars. ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME
.CO is simply the best extension, even better than .COM
less is more! Looks better. Simple and to the point.
@Chadi,
I’d rather have Medco.com; no question about it.
@Robert,
.co is still unproven, as in, it isn’t being developed by ANYONE. The buyers of .co picked up the complementary domain to their .com as a defensive measure only. I don’t see .co’s being developed by companies, ever.
@Slate,
I predict the SuperBowl ad by Godaddy WILL NOT make a specific reference .co domains – doesn’t make sense for them to do so, since they’re trying to push domains to the masses, i.e., .co doesn’t resonate with anyone outside the domaining community. Why spend MILLIONS of dollars on a 60-second commercial that does nothing but leave people scratching their heads in confusion? That’s not Godaddy’s style – they’ll push .com, or just domains in general (my prediction only, no inside info).
What you guys should be doing is looking into .TV – it actually has alot of potential AND it’s being used by companies (Playboy, Oprah, Major League Baseball, NHL, and likely more to come). There are still alot of decent .tv’s unregistered, just make sure you register one that could be turned into a video intensive site – get creative.
@concerned
Do all the Deloitte 100 Companies have their .TV registered?
What is the security company behind .tv?
Em
Not sure what you mean by security but the .Tv registry is owned by VeriSign the same company that runs the .com and .net registries
So this is the day Bob Parsons should make his announcement about .CO?
@MHB,
Thanks about .tv. You answered my question.
Press Release:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101213005290/en/Daddy-Announces-1st-Storied-Super-Bowl-History!
” ‘We think this new commercial will do for the dotCO domain what our first Super Bowl commercial did for Go Daddy,’ said Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. “
UPDATE
Godaddy has now officially announced that they will be highlighting .CO in one of its Super Bowl Commercials
http://www.thedomains.com/2010/12/13/godaddy-announces-the-co-super-bowl-commercial/