LauchRock.co which bills itself as “A Platform For New Startups” has switched its main URL from LaunchRock.com to LaunchRock.co effective July 1, 2013.
In a email sent to users, LaunchRock.com announced the change:
“””
From: LaunchRock <hello@launchrock.com>
Date: 2013/7/1
Subject: ACTION REQUIRED: Keep your LaunchRock account from being retired
Hello LaunchRocker,
On Monday, July 15th, 2013 at 12:00 PM PST, LaunchRock will be retiring our Legacy platform.
If you do not migrate your account by the retirement date it will be permanently deleted.
You may have noticed the voluntary migrate account button that has been in your Site Builder for a few months. The time has come, due to expense and need for continuity of service, to require all LaunchRock customers to migrate to our current platform.
Please follow these instructions to safely migrate your account, site settings, and emails:
Login to your DNS host
Change your CNAME record host / destination to host.launchrock.com
Optional A Record redirects should point to any of our IPs
54.243.190.28
54.243.190.39
54.243.190.47
54.243.190.54
Go to http://app.launchrock.com/login and log in to your legacy account
Click the Migrate Account button
Open the migration confirmation email from migrate@launchrock.com to get your new temporary login informtion
Login to the new Site Builder (http://use.launchrock.co/login) to verify and adjust your settings
Click the Launch Site button once you’ve completed 100% of the required steps.
More detailed instructions can be found here.
If you have any questions or feedback as you work in the new platform, you can reach us through the ‘Ideas & Support’ tab in the upper right corner of the site.
Thank you for your continued support,
The LaunchRock Team
http://launchrock.co
hello@launchrock.com
“”””
While the naysayers will look at the fact that the company can only make the switch to .Co because they own the .com address as well, as you can see the switch to a .com is not a simple one and is going to require all users to take steps to keep their account active and may well loses users in the process.
Also this is not going to be a cheap process for the company so its willing to risk the loss of users and bear the costs of the switch over because the think .Co extension more represents their clients, the startup community which has embraced .Co
According to the .Co registry they now have over 1.5 Million domains registered.
HatTip: Mark Kychma
Maybe Mark Pincus, the founder and – as of yesterday FORMER CEO – of Zynga is behind this is a role model for these guys to drive their business into the ground as well ?
And Yes –
“the company can only make the switch to .Co because they own the .com”
– well that is not being a naysayer – that is a fact – reinforced with them URL forwarding the .com to .co as of today – that is like finding a new bank – but NOT a new source of revenue 🙂
8 mil signups ? wow !
Big move,good for .co registry too.
Apparently the new generation does not give a crap about old .com that could mean that there might be room for some gTLDs to prosper as well.
All in time.
so long there are suckers to fund these companies…
So Jose –
so long there are suckers (to funds suckers) to fund these companies 🙂
pure nonsense if you own the .com
What a poorly written email. It doesn’t say anywhere that they are switching to .CO or give an explanation as to why but they do say this
“You may have noticed the voluntary migrate account button that has been in your Site Builder for a few months. The time has come, due to expense and need for continuity of service, to require all LaunchRock customers to migrate to our current platform.”
….so basically they don’t want you to know that you are switching from the .com to the .co and are blaming the switch on expense and need for continuity of service but not giving a reason as to why. Seems like they are not telling their customers the whole story.
Bottom line it’s easy to make a switch to .CO when you own the .COM especially when you are not a company that relies on search engines for your traffic. If this company or any company for that matter relied totally on Search I can promise this switch would not take place.
> Login to your DNS host
> Change your CNAME record host / destination
> to host.launchrock.com
> Optional A Record redirects should point to any of our IPs
> etc, etc, stupid, etc…
——
It’s one thing to switch to .CO, it’s another to give your customers instructions (which at their worst, some won’t understand, and at the least, are simply a hassle) on how to migrate to LaunchRock’s new platform.
And while they are now a .CO, their email is still:
hello@launchrock.com. <—- .COM, if you missed it.
These guys should write a book about the best ways to run a business…
so long there are suckers (to funds suckers) to fund these companies””
Hey, you stole my line.
My Attorney will be contacting you for sucker lawsuit.
Please pay me now or else…
As seen above
http://launchrock.co
hello@launchrock.com
This is not confusing at all. :-0
hmm you guys are missing the point. yeah its confusing. yeah they will lose a few users probably..
but will websites continue to do weird stuff that “doesnt make sense and is confusing” in a 1,000+ TLD future? if a large chunk of businesses/websites are doing “stupid confusing things” – how long before people learn to not be confused..
and how long before the current “.com only” crowd are just old out of touch people shakin your fist in the air yelling about how “the kids just dont get it” when “the kids” are runnin shiat now.
The switch to .co will only make meaning if they drop or delete the .com completely.but if not the company still operates with .com simple
I think the point is knowing they would lose some users and obviously incure a cost and the fact the could have left it as a .com and have the .co for typo’s they made the call to rebrand as a .co
Its a statement
“how long before people learn to not be confused”
That is like watching an Obama Speech making things so simple – or Glen Beck for that matter.
As far as people “learning” not to be confused – well those are folks on the government dole – either by working for questionable gov. entities or by entitlement check of some sort. Those folks are not my .com “target”
ontheinterweb wrote:
> and how long before the current “.com only” crowd
> are just old out of touch people shakin your fist in the
> air yelling about how “the kids just dont get it” when
> “the kids” are runnin shiat now.
.COM isn’t just the preference of the “.com only” crowd. It’s the preference of every major corporation and nearly every well-known website out there. When those companies and websites start changing to .CO or .TV or .SHOP or .WHATEVER, then you have a point. But until then, people will know that .COM is the preferred extension to own.
This isn’t about us .COM people getting old, and then the young folk are going to take over and change everything. If you haven’t “taken over” by now, the odds are greatly stacked against you ever doing so. And what that means is .COM will endure, long after all of us are history. Why change something that so many people are used to? It would be like a business changing its phone number… and all the headaches that go along with that.
As an aside, you can type TheDomains.CO to get to this website. If typing that makes you feel younger, smarter, and hipper, by all means, that’s probably the way to go.
It is just plain stupid to expect such complicated actions by your customers.
Given that, other moves by this company cannot be assumed to have any intelligence at all.
Brian
People are confused about a lot of stuff.
Confusion is part of life and businesses.
You happen to be watching the Zimmerman trial?
There was a women last week that was shown her own Twitter site in court and asked did she follow Zimmerman, she said no, the attorney brought her over to the computer showed her, her own Twitter account and that she was following Zimmerman.
She told the attorney and the court under oath that she didn’t know how to use twitter, how to follow someone or unfollow someone, what it means to follow someone and had no idea how she was following Zimmerman.
However it was her Twitter account and it wasn’t hacked into
So obviously confused, should be shut Twitter down since a portion of their users have no idea of what the fuck they are doing?
lol.. why does every business that already has a website need to “change over” or “delete their .com” for gTLD’s to be used in larger percentages than now? why all the extreme statements about gTLD’s “taking over .COM”… that isnt even necessary or likely to happen.
you know, for a group of people who talk about not attatching their emotions to domains – why attatch it to a TLD then? for some they truly believe they ALL new gTLD will fail and that little to nobody will notice them (basing this on the last 10 years and a whole 10 TLD’s being introduced…yeeeeahhh makes sense)
but some of the lashout comes from those who probably PAID BUBBLE PRICES FOR .COM’s AND OTHER TLD’S LIKE .INFO AND .TV .MOBI ON AND ON and are NOT end users…they’re scared as shit and may not even realize it yet. whoops, things ARE changing.. get out of that denial thing quick.
inventory expanding to this degree changes things. resellers of QUALITY .com with large inventory that got in early dont really have a lot to worry about. but rationally, the value of .COM going up has got to slow down. that isnt such terrible news unless you try getting $100,000 for every domain you sell. that way isnt going to work *as well as it used to* you hardsellers you….
to the people who think all these gTLD’s will, in the end, lead down the pathway of every single new business who tries using a gTLD for their website “eventually realizing they need the .COM to be taken serious” and beating down your door all at once.. good luck living in that reality. you’re going to sound like a damned out of touch used car salesman with that pitch.
yes, some people WILL want the .COM eventually just like people are saying…imagine that. but some wont. it probably isnt going to be any ONE THING ANYMORE..
it’ll be really confusing… but so are crowded streets in major cities sometimes and people still visit.. turn on the TV..go outside.. its already not a *just* a .COM world like it was 10 years.
increasing the inventory 100X is going to reverse that trend? c’mon now..
The keyword is confusion.
Confusion is part of life and businesses.
Confusion is good for business!!
We all should thank for all the new dot whatever because it will bring new opportunities.
BullS – its kinda painful watching you try to be sarcastic. its like when a certain blog commenter here kept saying business dont take risks. they only do smart things.
what planet are you people from and how can i become a part of your perfect reality?
ontheinterweb
“what planet are you people from”
That is a very racist statement and you hurt my feelings.
I’ll be contacting a civil rights attorney to seek compensation for my pain and sufferings.
My enjoyment of life is further diminished.
I suggest you take an introductory class in racial harassment and racial tolerance.
you’re like a 5 year old trying to be sarcastic.
its endearing.
Yes, it is rather easy to migrate if you have .com and want a shorter .co.
On top of it, untold number of start-ups just get their .co and leave .com to old guys.
the “old and out of touch” thing is a mindset. more like stubborn and stuck in their ways.. its just more fun to picture a bunch of 95 year old domainers in walkers and wheelchairs shaking their fist at the next generation..
Nate Munger, Director of Customer Satisfaction at LaunchRock here.
There seems to be some conflation of events here. We switched to .co for our own domain back in March. We think it suits us (as the TLD of innovation) just fine 🙂 but email that went out yesterday has nothing to do with the change to .co
We launched a new LaunchRock platform at the end of last year. We have been encouraging our legacy users to migrate their account to that platform voluntarily for several months now.
Yesterday’s announcement was a notice that we will finally be retiring that legacy platform permanently. This requires users who want to keep the data and legacy account to migrate it to the new one before the deadline.
This was not an announcement of the TLD switch, thus the lack of mention. An interesting comment strand nonetheless!
Oh, and if you want to try your own .CO domain free for 30 days, head here: http://launchrock.co/domains
-Nate
Yes BullS –
“Confusion is good for business!!”
And that is what owning a non.com is all about and then fixing that “confusion” with Brand and Jungle’s (yes jungles) “old guys” that own .com’s
BrianWick…..I guess you read my mind not like others.
When the govt add layers and layers of bureaucracies to make it difficult to do business, add more confusion, it creates opportunities for someone to make it better and sell it. That why attorneys love confusion!!
I think a large amount of startups flock to the .CO web address because they can actually put a face to the brand. They believe in the .CO extension because not only are .CO names much easier to get and much cheaper but they believe in the concept that Juan Calle has developed and in turn are supporting the cause like others support them. When you think of .Com, .Net, .Us etc…..you can’t put a face to the brand. With startups, especially ones that end up getting funded the brand seems to be just as important as the face behind the brand. Every article you read lately the brand and the founders are one in the same.
I also think the venture capital companies that invest in these new startups want companies more and more to succeed on any other extension except .COM because they are sick and tired of dealing with the high prices and arrogance of the dot com community. The imminent downfall of the Dotcom brand will be directly connected to owners of ultra premium Dotcoms and their high prices. These high prices are at some point going to crash the whole Dotcom market especially after the new premium GTLDs hit the market. Time will tell.
.co and .com are typos of each other. Really easy to confuse.
Confusion in general will wane, as brands start using their .brand extensions, and other high profile businesses launch on Not-Coms.
There is no precedent for what is going to happen over the next 2 years.
Registries will also play a large role in educating consumers about Not-Coms. Just today .NYC officially announced the extension for the city. In a year, every New Yorker will understand that .NYC replaces .com in web addresses that are focused on New York.
The collective movement will alter consumer perception of web addresses.
Human beings have amazing adaptive capability, that’s why we’re on top of the food chain.
People are confused every time they get a new phone – they adapt.
Tom, but there is a precedent.
remember, we have an entire 10 “other” TLD’s that were released over the last decade as concrete evidence that nobody is interested.
(how am i doing at the lame sarcasm, BullS – should i throw in a couple of anal references and dick jokes just for good measure?)
Nate –
“Oh, and if you want to try your own .CO domain free for 30 days, head here: ”
That was going be my original comment – but I thought I would see if someone else would suggest that – being –
You simply have some kind of promotional co=operation arrangement with the .co registry – and all actions of your business over the last several months reflect that.
That is a completely different story than simply “deciding” to use “.co” isn’t it ?
Its great to see that end users are using .co and i think the reason for this is that they either can’t afford the .com or its just simply unavailable because the .com is being used.
Once the general public are made aware of all the new gtlds that are available there will be a devaluation of .com
If you try to put the value of a decent generic .com to one side and take a realistic look and compare .com to .co I think you would find general public would find that .co is easier on the eye and i would say most people would think that .co looks more likely to stand for company than a .com
Just my opinion though.
I can’t count how many times new generation has tried to replace long sleeve shirts with short sleeve, or even black tee shirt. I think Steve Jobs, and the Facebook.com guy, what’s his name, I think it’s Mark something; but one thing you guarantee yourself is that long sleeve shirts will always be the standard business attire for as long as you live. Replacing .com with .com is similar.
Correction:
Oooops replacing .com with .co is what I meant above.
I have to say this move does not make since to me. I still think .com is always the best to use if it’s available. It will be interesting to see how long this last.
@Nate Munger Did .CO Internet pay you to use .co ?
It’s telling that all the successful case studies on your website are .com’s. I believe .co is popular with startups because .com’s aren’t within their budget.
The thing with using the new gtld’s is, how will you stand out? How will you be global? ill give you golfclubs.NYC for your golf club/golf store. ill even give you golf.club(s)…golf.shop…golfclubs.shop….golfclubs.web/store/dad/buy….etc etc. How would any of those sound in a radio ad? How would you market selling your golf clubs to someone in AZ , or Florida or south Carolina with a .NYC address? Sure you’d have a cute domain name that might work in the NYC market but then you limit yourself to the ny market. Not that there’s anything wrong with that..its all some people want/need…but its also why .com is (still and will remain) the standard extension for major companies to use to do business/advertising.
Its global, simple, people are conditioned/used to it/trust it and its not confusing.
People are going to be confused. No one is going to remember all 2000 new extensions. Either know which .newextensions are legit, or assume that .anyword can now be used in a domain name…which will create an even bigger opportunity for scammers.
@ontheinterweb: I’ve read your posts…I disagree with your take. I think you are missing the point. you seem to be basing your argument on emotion and wishful thinking instead of taking into account human nature and the fact that simple is better when it comes to marketing/business. I still appreciate and respect your inputs though. peace.
Juan Calle invests in four companies on Angellist.com, I mean Angel.co
I’m sure this is just coincidence.
Ramahn: not all the TLD’s are geo specific. and why do people need to remember all 2,000 extensions? is there going to be a pop quiz like on the Cash Cab TV show or something? how do people remember 2 words strung together in a domain name like BigBeauty.COM?
you are saying the exact same phrase with the dot moved between the 2 words is that much harder to remember (Big.Beauty for example) ?
about the scammers: they can use .COM too… there is nothing from stopping them and they do it all the time. in fact some probably prefer .COM cause it looks legit right?
to me, wishful thinking is comparing like 10-12 TLD’s that have been released spread across an entire decade to 2,000 being released in a couple years. how is that comparable at all? people are acting like there is a precedent based on that. human nature changes when they’re bombarded like this. like was noted earlier: .info sites are only 1% of the top internet sites…. well what happens when even half that statistic happens 500 times with different TLD’s?
there is nothing for me to be “wishful thinking” about at this point. what im saying is domainers will probably be taken out of the equation at first.
I don’t know how else to explain it. Either you see it or you don’t.
I actually like some non coms like .me and .org…but I know there place. I would never actually build a business around any extension other than .com. If you plan to meet with business owners and tell them your web address is ‘mybusiness.shop’…or .web. or .co for that matter, go right ahead…ill stick with .com.
Its not so much that people need to remember all the new extensions…they need to know which ones are legit. Most companies will use their .brand and not the .randomwords.
Some things never change with human nature..never. Keep things simple. Customers like simple…easy to understand. People like standards.
I don’t know how else to explain it. Either you see it or you don’t.
I actually like some non coms like .me and .org but I know there place. I would never actually build a business around any extension other than .com. If you plan to meet with business owners and tell them your web address is ‘mybusiness.shop’ or .web. or .co for that matter, go right ahead, ill stick with .com.
Its not so much that people need to remember all the new extensions; they need to know which ones are legit. Most companies will use their .brand and not the .randomwords.
Some things never change with human nature, never. Keep things simple. Customers like simple, easy to understand. People like standards.
people like choice.
“they” could give a shit about “standards” if it saves them $10,000 or something..
@ontheinterweb “people like choice.”
People do like choices… when it comes to ice cream, pizza toppings, new car options, pets, accessories for the home, and the like. But KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) has been long used when it comes to the tech industry.
Look at the myriad of mobile devices you can get for Android… I’m a developer and I have trouble keeping up with all the new devices, screen resolutions, chipsets in each, etc. (Luckily I have people who take care of that for me.) Then look at Apple’s offerings. So much more simple.
When it comes to tech, most people prefer simple. Those gTLDs that are marketed well and have a genuine reason for being will likely gain a following. Most of the others will simply be forgotten. Just like any of the current choices for domain extensions that one can choose from now.
the article fails to mention they have a deal in which they are making money selling .co domains..
Here is the truth. When you type in Launchrock.com it already redirects to the .CO address. On their site it says they have 8 million registered users which is an incredible marketing concept for a new registry such as .CO. If you scroll down to the bottom you can register a domain and guess what kind is displayed to be registered? Yes, .CO and I found that to be a little odd because why would Launchrock care what extensions you register so I dug a little deeper and there are four companies the .CO founder Juan Calle invests in and guess what is one of them? You guessed it,Launchrock and here is the link below. So this story has nothing to do with Launchrock switching to .CO because they think its a good idea but they are switching because one of their investors told them to or said it would be a good idea. I wonder if the founder of Launchrock really does believe this was the right choice or if his arm was twisted.
https://angel.co/juandiegocalle
Good point
A lot of people can’t afford standards moreover depending on their business a new gTLD could fit the business better
@MB Which is why I actually like .NYC for those living in NY tbat just want to be/stay local.
@Todd/cmac good find.
@ontheinterweb its not about you, the developer/CEO…its your boss (aka your clients, bka your customers).