The .Co Sedo auction just ended up with a with around $150,000 in sales.
Music.co lead the way selling for $30K
Shop.co sold for $22K
Love.co sold for $2oK. (Love.com is owned by AOL and pretty much sits unused)
Creditcard.co sold for $17K (creditcards.co only got as high as a $7K bid)
Pizza.co sold for $15K
Vodka.co for $10K
Download.co sold for $10K
There were several domains that sold in the $5k and lower range.
The best buy of the auction in my opinion was Soccer.co which sold for a reasonable $5K.
Casino.co got as high as $60K but the reserve was $100K
All results contained herein are unofficial.
so much for the .com is a typo.
Really and truly poor results , low bids very few bidders (most had 2 guys) , not a suprise I say even much lower results all around then .mobi in it’s best days.
The casino bids seem shill-y …
In additon EMO they are not sold till they are paid and change hands.
down the hill now…
I got to see a 60,000 bid on casino.co that was immediately canceled by Sedo (closing the auction) , whatever the reason (most likely fake or shill)
Good for them .! to do the right thng.
Let the .co flames ignite!
Casino.com is probably worth around $6-million (Estibot values at $5.5 million). So, Casino.Co got a top bid at 1% of the comparable .com – this is a huge FAIL on multiple levels – for both .co and for the domain marketplace as a whole. This will be a bad year for domainers…sorry, guys.
I thought recipes.co was a steal at ~5k.
Didn’t .co registry guy just said last week:
————————————————–
.com is a typo of .co?
————————————————–
🙂 lol
Considering these were the best of the best keywords, the results were very weak.
It doesn’t say much the for average .CO investor.
Brad
Shop.CO for $22K was the best buy IMO.
.co it’s just a typo, see high traffic sites facebook.co, google.co and baidu.co (alexarank 5900 China)
Here comes the trademark lawyers…the sharks are hungry.
Really u think soccer.co was the best deal. I think .co’s out to be more international friendly, so then football, or futbol.co would have got my $5k speculatively.
The set buys were the generic ones that got typo traffic. I think the best one I saw was 4k visiors in the past 31 days. Can’t remember which it was. These domains will at least generate some revenue for the next 10 years while the extension has a chance to mature and the owner waits for an end user to cough up a retail price.
If I have to sit on a non revenue generating domain for 10 years, I’d rather it be a .com
@domo
I thought casino looked shilly too, just keep extending the auction a harmless $1k just in case somebody decides to bid. Why would real bidders keep extending it $1k at a time in the final minutes when still so far off of reserve. Doubt the owner is willing to contact that bidder and settle for half off reserve.
The Biggest SHILL Auction in History!
Try this on for size, Repost from last nite …
———————RE-POST LAST NIGHT.
@ Robert Cline
I would be bidding 5 x times more if i didn’t have to god damn login everytime I had to bid.
———————–
So there is one of the SHILL’S bidders confessing right here and now …
James Kim is your real name …
So SHILL lets see how many you end up owning, (winning) NONE!
——
SO, did 5X more SHILL BIDDER Robert Cline
Bogus Sedo bidder name James Kim …
Win even 1 Domain Name? (Opportunity Knocks)
@MHB:
“The best buy of the auction in my opinion was Soccer.co which sold for a reasonable $5K.”
Nope. The best buys were:
download.co for $10,099
fotos.co for $1.350
Check out the statistics.
What a difference a few months make – the domains this time round were superior yet the appetite for them has waned.
http://www.thedomains.com/2010/09/20/vail-co-sells-for-15k-as-the-co-land-rush-auctions-end-with-another-200k-in-sales/
Buyers from the September auction must be writing down their assets following this result.
I am surprised a great typo, of a huge site, Download.co only got 3700 hits/month according to SEDO. That is virtually nothing.
Download.com is Alexa ranked 169. I would have expected far more traffic.
Some of the super generics got under 100 hits/month according to SEDO.
Brad
Very disappointing…
I thought the auction was a disaster……..business.co couldn’;t even get past the $8,000. mark………….but I’m sure we all will see what we want to see from the results. SpinMasters,
On your mark, get set, Gooooooooooooooooo!!!!
oh well, soon there will be .xxx……….
“Check out the stats”
Fotos.com only get around 200 visitors a month according to compete.
Download.co gets around 500 visitors a month.
Soccer.co also gets around 500 visitors a month according to Compete.
@MHB
Violations of Privacy issue.
I ask that you keep Landon White off your site or prevent him from posting identifying information from your site.
I find this to be a violation of privacy and
a violation of security.
Please take all identifying information off this site and prevent Landon from incessantly posting identifying information.
I feel the SEDO.CO auction to be a super success considering the terrible login challenge they have. I went on the site to bid in between breaks a number of times only to not be able to login to place bids.
They need to fix this huge problem.
James/Alan
To be fair I don’t think you can compare the landrush auctions which were no reserve auctions to this auction where most of the better domains had reserves of $25K, $50K and $100K
I mean what is the point of bidding $20K on a domain with a $100K reserve?
So lack of bidding has a lot to do with reserve prices meant for end users
fotos.co
That probaly makes 5 USD a month in parking and I am been generous most likely southamerican traffic which most parking companies are starting to ban or even punish with .01 clicks. and less (adsense type he he)
from a traffic’ point of view not a good investment at all.
re-saleable ..not sure.
remember cupones.co just went for 900 USD.
@ MHB
Landrush domains were grossly overpriced. There is no doubt about that.
If .CO was offering refunds for those purchases most people would probably be happy to take the offer.
Terms like Pizza were 5x better than virtually anything at landrush. It sold for $15,000.
This auction shows where .CO is on the totem pole. Many of these terms are $XXX,XXX names in .NET
Brad
Robert
I’s not sure how much privacy one can expect or be entitled to when they post on a blog or board, especially as often as you do.
Certainly I would not give out personal info without a court order, but to the extent you have an issue with other readers, then you will have to resolve that with them.
As far as kicking someone off the blog, I’m pretty reluctant to do it based off of another readers request. Just for the record I received several requests from other readers to kick you off last week as well which I decline.
Personally I use my real name on any blog I post comments at and don’t understand why people, if they have something to say and believe in what they are saying don’t use their real name.
A big bust and hype around .co
Commercials on radio and sedo brokers going to domain blogs pushing this shit to keep there .co friends happy imo. Plus commissions
Oh wait .co isn’t a typo, its not Columbia. It means COMPANY
This auction just proved this imo:
1. Net/Org are many times more valuable than .co
Just imagine same keywords/domains with Net/Org.
2. It also proved if .co has failed so early with so much promotion, then what will be the fate of other new TLDs?
PS: I used to get excited about new TLDs, got burned before in .mobi
In last 2 years, I have improved my portfolio to 99.1% (Com) and less than 1 % other TLDs (mainly org/net). Dropped or file sold all .mobis and .us
I am NOT going to touch any new TLDs other than the mighly .COMs
Boy, new tlds pump-and-dump operations are dying faster and faster. .Mobi hype lasted years. .Co patient is dead just after a few months. These results will derail new tlds releases way faster than government bans. If shop.tld and love.tld can only fetch $20K during hype phase, good luck finding idiots bagholders to buy your several hundred thousand worthless domains you need to sell to make launching new tld a viable biz.
I want my $7.77 back!!!!!
@ Brad
Has Robert Cline aka James Kim aka MR Shill
As you had requested of him
told you how many .Co domains he won at
the .Co Auction Yet?
All SHILL i Bet!
———————RE-POST LAST NIGHT.
@ Robert Cline
I would be bidding 5 x times more if i didn’t have to god damn login everytime I had to bid.
———————–
Jon, well said!!!
there is a stock saying – “buy the rumor, sell on the news”…I think if they would have held the auction prior to the godaddy .co superbowl commercial then results could have been higher, the big event has passed and the mainstream buzz for .co along with it
.com values increase and have type inn traffic names is priceless
Save your money and buy a quality name imo. Don’t chase trends
You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. This whole thing reminds me of the .cm hype and pump. Bottom line, they are the extensions for Colombia and Cameroon…
@MHB:
“Personally I use my real name on any blog I post comments at and don’t understand why people, if they have something to say and believe in what they are saying don’t use their real name.”
I couldn’t agree with you more, Michael.
An oversaturated auction. Way too many premium names. Having 20 premiums instead of 120 would have been a lot better.
I dot understand why anyone thinks that any extension to newly become available will go from 0 to .com in 1 year or less. That is plain silly. If 10,000 new extensions launched at once over 10,000 years the odds of any one of them being a .com in 1 year is almost 0%. it’s speculation folks, if u speculate on a new tld it’s a 10 year guess realistically. 5 if you are really really lucky.
The number 1 concern for anyone launching a new tld should be the 10 year plan, not the 1 year plan. History has already shown that it is quite simple for a new registry to raise a bunch of cash in the first year. What really matters is how the registry looks at 10 years.
@MHB
What is your take on this .co auction results?
I mean, what is the ‘rest of the story’?
How do you get some many comments on these articles Michael? 🙂
I write this huge write-up about the .co auction results (and cover the whole thing) and get two comments in the latest article so far. 🙁 You get 30+ on this one already. 🙂
Congrats!
P.S. As a blogger, it sucks not having people post comments, at least for me.
@ Jamie
I did 🙂
Jamie
Its all the cash prizes I give away
)):::
” You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. ”
I love that saying, works the same way for flying pigs too 😉
“This whole thing reminds me of the .cm hype and pump. ”
Yep, same old typo play but with a twist, once again aimed and marketed at domainstream, its the only (or main) reason .co was resurrected from the dead.
.so …next !
ps, nice reporting Jamie 😉
Jamie ,
Many ingredients I think, but overall it’s not about one article, but about the brand one builds over time. In addition, and maybe not as much related (but maybe it is), great read here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-pain-of-exclusion
Best,
Sahar
I think this year will prove .CO is a bubble with a short life span.
Already signs of it cracking are evident going by the prices.
Even millions of dollars spent by Godaddy during the Superbowl are not going to save this extension.
Thanks RKB! 😉
@MHB it must be the cash prizes and the “My blog is bigger than yours shirt” 😉
RKB
I think these results are fair.
I wouldn’t say its a boost to the extension nor would I say its an indictment of it.
I have said before and do believe you need to give an extension 5 years to mature.
This one is only 8 months old since the reformatting and roll out.
Did I buy any domains today, no I did not.
I do like Soccer.co but I am still somewhat troubled by the fact that not on UDRP has gone in favor of the .Co holder yet.
I certainly would stay away from domains like advertising.co and love.co where there is a trademark on advertising.com, and love.co.
A lot of these bang on generic’s are owned by big companies with big money and lots of expensive lawyers.
So I’m not going to spend $20K or more on a domain that might get a ad.com type of lawsuit from AOL.
I have a few hundred .Co domains including many 3 letter domains and think I will ride it out for a while and see what happens.
“I certainly would stay away from domains like advertising.co and love.co where there is a trademark on advertising.com, and love.co.
A lot of these bang on generic’s are owned by big companies with big money and lots of expensive lawyers.”
Well said, it would be pretty high risk to do so.
SEDO’s gross, if all deals complete, is $15K. With all the advertising and promotion they put into it, they must have lost a fortune.
Brad
@ MHB
Good points.
I appreciate you taking time to write your thoughts.
Thanks.
I’m sure people realize this, but maybe not all… if you own a .co domain, you can add it to your Google webmaster account and set the geographic target (i.e. the US). It does not need to be used as an international domain only.
Thanks for the comment Sahar and the link! Interesting read.
@ Jamie
Very precise insightful detailed reporting …
It is very helpful as a true assessment on the true state of
affairs with this otherwise SHILLED to death Auction
by the .Co Nazis who tried to rig it in a new york minute. lol
all good domains, but not a big result of sale
@ Jamie
Very precise insightful detailed reporting …
It is very helpful as a true assessment on the true state of
affairs with this otherwise SHILLED to death Auction
by the .Co Nazis who tried to rig it in a new york minute. lol
I think the .Co Cartel had a smart marketing plan, but what they lacked was transparency and common sense. Marketing hijinks and PR stunts will only get you so far. Consumers these days are too smart and savvy to have the wool pulled over their eyes or something jammed down their throat.
The 30 second Joan Rivers Superbowl commercial came and went and has faded just as fast. The PR stunt of hitching on to the purchase and re-branding of Overstock has been forgotten. You have to have something robust and substantial now days to make an impact. We live in a day and age where every marketing gimmick has been tried and people just are not buying it anymore.
Based on everyone’s comments it looks like .co is a buy and hold…Luck I only bought a handful of .co’s…TabletAccessories.co being my best…Only time will tell…
I like .info best.
I like .Mobi Best, it looks so nice and pretty…
don’t you agree Robert James Kim, Mr Shill >the bogus poster as me above!
I still say they have to lower the price of .co permanently so it becomes more commonly registered and used.
@ Dean
I think the .Co Cartel had a smart marketing plan, but what they lacked was transparency and common sense.
————–
i Agree …
And a extension that was not a con and typo of .COM 🙂
.Co is Dead …
Long live the .COM
I am surprise they did not have more top spanish names in the auction.
Also, do .co’s get type-ins, I own some of the best in spanish but they maybe get 2-3 type-ins a day?
“I am surprise they did not have more top spanish names in the auction. ”
I am surprised also. 7 out of 15 spanish keywords got sold. That’s a pretty good ratio. I think they had reasonable reserve prices.
@ Jon said: New tlds pump-and-dump operations are dying faster and faster
If this is true, why does it seem consensus among domainers is against gov’t involvement in slowing the introduction of new tlds?
What, exactly, is ICANN doing for us?
ICANN sure didn’t put DNSSEC high on its agenda, which measure would curtail phishing emails and bolster consumer confidence.
@Jim Holleran, you bring up a great point. I never hear how are Colombians using the extension. Do they ?
This is why:
There is hardly any market…
Today
prestamos.co = LOANS went for 2330 EUR
videojuegos.co VIDEOGAMES 410 EUR
Both met reserve.
Pending payment of course, I have a very strong feeling some names will not change hands.
I am baffled by some people reluctancy to see the writing in the wall , stampede already started in spanish.
*******
Question on the Nicks/Names:
Are you people referring to changing your Nicks, or signing your actual name every time your post?
The large majority of people here use Nicks : Jim , Dan , JP etc etc
TIA
Robert Fernandez
Spanish speaking country=more spanish domains in that extension. I submitted both Peliculas.co (movies in Spanish) and Vacacion.co (Vacation in Spanish) but auction was already full.
Personally, I am not buying .co but putting money in another extension but I think long-term, strong spanish .co has the best upside.
Thanks, Jim
Louise
ICANN does not have any authority over ccTLD’s, like .Co
@Jamie
Reportage for the most part is boring. What makes MHB’s blog a success is that his blog is as democratic as it get’s. He allows and encourages opposing points of view and rarely if ever steps in to referee. You don’t want your readers to just passively read the news, but become engaged in debates, opposing points of viewpoints, etc. No matter how counter-opinion it may be to yours let the readers and contributors hash it out amongst themselves and formulate their own opinions.
Nothing disgusts me more than contributing my humble and esteemed opinion on a matter, than to come back to a blog and find my comment has been deleted. That’s for pansies and I don’t respect any blogger that does that. See passion and engagement are important. There is a place in the world for everyone including the likes of Me, and Landon White.
🙂
@ MHB, thanx for the correction! @Jon makes the point: “These results will derail new tlds releases way faster than government bans. If shop.tld and love.tld can only fetch $20K during hype phase, good luck finding idiots bagholders to buy your several hundred thousand worthless domains you need to sell to make launching new tld a viable biz.”
ICANN is wasting taxpayer dollars.
Louise
Not to be picky but ICANN doesn’t get taxpayer dollars they get our dollars as domain registrants.
In my case $15K a year or so
Officially they are wasting domain holders money not the taxpayers.
But they do through a nice party, I mean meeting.
@Dean
Very true about this blog! That’s why I love it and can’t stand the ham-fisted moderation in some forums…ahem…Namepros.
I’m dumping all of my .co’s and saving my money for the next extension that is going
to make me a fortune……………………… .XXX
@ Dean
There is a place in the world for everyone including the likes of Me, and Landon White.
———–
You tell em Brother 🙂
@ Jamie
Everyone who could help YOU got a Thank you on there compliments
where’s mine? think your too good for me or something?
🙂
0000.1% of .co owners made money from the auction.
Whilst the rest of us have had our pants pulled down given that g*daddy have reduced .co by over 50%. which is not a good strategy for any investor (under 1 year loose 60%)…ouch
the auction had some serious flaws and some very very nice names never made it onto the list whilst others with less ‘catchy’ names are accepted….maybe didnt sell but still left a bad taste in many peoples mouths reading the list.
the .co bubble has burst and g*daddy seemed to be the only ones that made money from .co.
lesson here is. no matter what the pig looks like, with the right marketing you can sell it for the price of a beauty queen….being .co
@Landon White
Thank you! I was watching the NASCAR race 🙂 so I was away from the computer for awhile.
@Dean,
Thank you for your comment as well. I always allow everybody to comment and I never filter them. The only time I do filter, is when people feel the need to promote their own domains all the time.
I is dum
@ “Consumers these days are too smart and savvy to have the wool pulled over their eyes or something jammed down their throat. ”
Ha, that’s why they were selling to domainers.
So…whats the next big new tld to come out? 🙂
Hi @ MHB, Yes, I appreciate what you are saying. ICANN’s enabling and turning a blind eye toward illegal activity is causing a big cleanup for the government agencies, as ICANN operates with tax exempt status. It snubbed the White House invitation to the meeting about counterfit drug websites, as it said something to the effect, “ICANN’s job is to make policy covering internet names and addresses, and not to regulate the content of web sites,” on the one hand, while ICANN excuses its aggressive policies benefitting its insiders by its mission to: “Introduce and promote competition in the registration of domain names where practicable and beneficial.”
Whether you follow me or not, which is it? ICANN is supposed to remain neutral overseeing domain address allocation, or “promote competition” anyway it sees fit?
ICANN is the mafia.
Well, at least the auction is over with……………..for the past 3 months all I have heard from
the .co crowd is “Just you wait until the GoDaddy SuperBowl commercial ………..
It came and went and it was a disaster, (unless you wanted the 80 something Joan Rivers to be the next GoDaddy girl).
Then came the big Sedo auction, “Oh, just you wait and see, it will bring in millions”
It came and went making a paltry $160,000. Sex.co is listed for sale with Sedo with a make offer and has yet to attract even 1 bid. Its not looking good for .co folks.
I won’t be surprised if misleading statements such as calling .co, (company, commerce, etc) leads to lawsuits later when investors realize they have been mislead. I guess a lot of people learned the hardway with the .mobi fiasco so fresh in everyones mind
It always surprises me when an extension is overhyped and everyone says it is but they are surprised when the names don’t sell well. Well the .co has no track record… If there were some .co success stories it would be different. The extension is 6-months old, what do you think .com was like in 96?
Parking wise, .co kicks butt in CPC. So go ahead, don’t register any. Leave them for me.
.COM domain name owners – thanks to all owners of .CO for providing the new user by mistake.
Long live. COM
great co domain sold but no so impress me
…what makes me upset is… now I am stuck with all these
good looking .co, high search, single word product names… all
while .co is starting to show up on page 1 of google.
Not to mention that I covered my initial costs fairly early.
Can’t win them all…
🙂
I did break some of my buying rules when a few days ago I registered
TheBigEasy.Co
not being a product/high search volume
oh well….lost again.
Damn that is an ugly domain.
two words….
actually…. 1 word and 1 recognizable abbreviation
sums up my feelings….
Damn.Co !
should of had more forethought
Yawn.
Take a three year nap, wake up, and find yourself with a bag of .co dust that can’t be sold.
Bruce your statement that .co kicks butt in CPC means what ? It needs traffic and the keyword will kick butt with just about any extension. The cpc will be the same on debtconsolidation.biz as it is on debtconsolidation.co.
To clarify a bit my position , since I mainly follow the spanish market , in reference to the real market for this c.c. the Country Code for “Colombia” I feel that in a long long time from now common-sense says people should prefer the .co , I asked a couple of developers recently to give me their “hands-on” feedback and the situation in the Country itself and both stated currently people are very used to the .com.co (very much alike Brasil and the .com.br) in addition in Mexico the .mx has struggled to become the official extension even after a few years after it’s launch , to make matters worse Google could care less as far as using Google.mx and/or Google.co hard to believe … but neither one resolves , if that doesn’t tell you the state of affairs I don’t know what will ?
There is talks about Uruguay thinking about launching the .uy , I say the sooner the better like a “bad medicine”, Argentina refuses even to discuss the idea of launching the .ar
Best.
Robert Fernandez.
Breakout.co sold for $550 folks put that in the books.
I was going to build a fun summer site but sold it to a company that actually has Breakout in their business name so they will be making nice use of this site.
I am really looking forward to seeing what they build on it.
I regards to Sedo auctions. Their system sucks.
It does not pre-fill the login pages like Godaddy does and every other site does. So you have to fricken type in your username and pass every single frigken time. How can anyone bid like that.
Otherwise, I think it was a tremendous result. And a nice place for the .CO to build off of.
back to work.
100k for casino.co ? I think it’s crazy … Sure it’s a good domain but too expensive :s
.co has become a major player. Its different than the .me and the .biz in that people especially in other countries like the U.K, Korea, Israel etc are use to typing in the .co.
I thought that the marketing during the super bowl would have worked better, if every other online store advertising would have used a Dot co. Godaddy.co and & O.co were the only ones, the other commercials were all Dot com. People heard the Dot com many more times than the Dot co.
I tried to get some of my .co’s added to the auction but it seems they just let Michael Mann’s names in the auction. Do you know someone that had their name in the auction? mp3.co was in it, I own mp3s.co and it was denied entry into the auction. I think in this case mp3s.co is the better name. Anyone agree?
David
David
There were other domains in that auction that were not owned by Mike Mann
I like mp3s.co
People search a lot more for mp3 though.
mp3.co had a low reserve in the auction.
I had 3 domains in the auction, had around 25 total bids, total amount $6500 (still below reserves)…bidding that is below reserves doesn’t really mean anything unless you want to
try to sell afterward below your reserve.
Whisper…whisper… “the next .co” ends in “io”…shhhhh……
Next big domain is gonna be the invisible dot and the invisible extension.
just the name 🙂
“Next big domain is gonna be the invisible dot and the invisible extension.
just the name”
I agree 10,000% but it will never happen … no TLDs, no business 🙂
@scott – i’m afraid that’s already been done. it’s what we used before DNS. aka the HOSTS file. which incidentally is still found on every windows pc and on every mac. if you want “custom domains” without dots and extensions, you can have them right now, via your HOSTS file. no DNS and no domains needed. your computer, your way.