Why I Believe Overstock Has “Become O.CO”

Elliot Silver
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In a pretty surprising  announcement today in a press release, Overstock.com Chairman and CEO  Patrick Byrne commented, “We have become O.CO.” Byrnes went on to say, “As a lifestyle destination, consumers can find absolutely anything on O.CO whether they are shopping for furniture, bedding, clothing, and jewelry, buying a car or home, and, soon, looking for their next vacation spot.”

It’s not often that a large retailer announces a re-branding effort like this, and it looks like the company may be ahead of the curve, as .CO will go more mainstream during the Super Bowl. The press release mixed Overstock.com and O.CO, and I think we will probably see a lot more O.CO and less Overstock.com in the near future, as using both would probably be harmful to the brand as that would be confusing.

In my opinion, Overstock has become much more than a company that sells overstocked items cheaply, as the brand name suggests. By transitioning to O.CO, the company that has done it’s best to become known as the big O, will now become the big O.

In a way, it’s similar to how Kentucky Fried Chicken moved towards the KFC branding when fried foods became a negative stigma in the US.

With the marketing efforts of the .CO Registry supporting companies like Overstock and Go Daddy, I think we are going to see more companies using .CO domain names in the next few years.

Overstock Buys Another “O” Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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OverstockI just received word that Overstock has acquired another single letter “O” domain name. The company purchased O.co.za via Sedo for $9,000. The .co.za extension is South Africa’s ccTLD.

Overstock also made two other public “O” domain name acquisitions within the past year: O.biz and O.co.

Some people believe the company may be making these efforts in order to be in a better position for when O.com comes available. That would make sense, especially in light of their US trademark for O.com.

It will be interesting to see if Overstock continues to acquire “O” ccTLD domain names. It would seem that these public sales could impact their negotiation ability.

Could Facebook Launch a Mail Service on FB.com? ** Updated **

Elliot Silver
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Facebook.At the end of September, I wrote an article speculating that perhaps Facebook purchased FB.com in private. There hasn’t been any public acknowledgement about whether the company bought it or not (or who may have bought it if Facebook didn’t), and the domain name still does not resolve.  See update below.

Multiple websites are reporting that Facebook will be holding an invite-only event in San Francisco on Monday, November 15th, and it is expected they will announce a new email system or platform that Techcrunch has dubbed “Facebook’s Gmail Killer.” According to the folks at Techcrunch, this project has been referred to internally as “Project Titan.”

This is pure speculation, but it would be pretty neat if they launched this mail service on FB.com (if they own this domain name now confirmed that Facebook owns it). Assuming it is a mail service they intend to launch on Monday, they could also use another name like FacebookMail.com (which they already own), or they could just tie it in with Facebook.com.

In my opinion, launching a mail service on FB.com would be a great idea. I am sure there are still plenty of people who still think Facebook is just for social networking, despite the company’s growth and evolution. By using FB.com, they could somewhat disassociate from the Facebook brand, which could make a mail service @FB.com look more professional and serious. I think it would look strange to receive a job application from someone emailing me from Facebook, perhaps somewhat unprofessional in my opinion.

Google moved away from the Google name when it started its GMail platform, and I think it would be a smart idea for Facebook to use FB.com for mail, if they did in fact acquire the domain name.

**8:45pm Update**

As Andrew pointed out within the last hour, the Whois information for FB.com has changed, and Facebook is now listed as the owner (see screenshot below).  Additionally, FB.com is now forwarding to Facebook.com.


Dallas Cowboys Fumble Domain Name on Big Day for News as Coach Phillips is Fired

Elliot Silver
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A few days ago I wrote about the Cowboys.com domain name going up for sale on Sedo, brokered by Dave Evanson. This came three years after the Cowboys infamously bid and won the Cowboys.com domain name at auction, but they didn’t complete the deal after apparently confusing the price, thinking the winning bid was $275.00 rather than the actual $275,000.00.

Apparently the Dallas Cowboys suffered another domain name  embarrassment today. It looks like the Cowboys didn’t renew its DallasCowboys.com domain name on time, and as a result, the default Network Solutions landing page is currently showing (complete with pictures of young soccer players).

This afternoon, the Cowboys fired coach Wade Phillips after their horrendous 1-7 start to the season. I am sure a lot of people turned to DallasCowboys.com (and probably Cowboys.com, too) to learn more about the firing, directly from the team. Unfortunately for them, they were disappointed in the Cowboys once again.

The good news is that the Cowboys appear to have renewed the domain name through 2020, and the domain name should soon  propagate  back to its website. The bad news is that the Cowboys will still be bad whether the website works or doesn’t.

Cooking Channels Owns .TV Domain But Doesn’t Use It for Branding

Elliot Silver
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CookingChannelTV.comI recently noticed that my cable tv provider added a new channel to the already huge lineup. The Cooking Channel features a number of cooking shows featuring famous as well as up and coming chefs. I guess it’s probably because the Food Network focuses on more than just cooking.

While watching Kelsey’s Essentials, I heard her mention the url of the Cooking Channel’s website, and I was a bit surprised by what they chose: CookingChannelTV.com.  The Cooking Channel does own CookingChannel.TV (a name the company acquired sometime between May and July 2010), but they understand that most people know .com, so they are branding CookingChannelTV.com instead.

They do smartly forward the .TV domain name to their website, but it was somewhat surprising that they didn’t use .TV and do the reverse since that almost seems more intuitive.

Unfortunately for Scripps (the owner of the Cooking Channel), CookingChannel.com is owned by Reflex Publishing, a company that is known to not sell its great generic domain names.

GOP Issues “Pledge to America” Launches PledgeToAmerica.com

Elliot Silver
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When the 2010 election votes are fully tallied, it appears that the Republican Party will have won the majority in the US House of Representatives, and the Democrats will retain the majority of the seats in the US Senate.

As Representative John Boehner gave a non-celebratory “victory” speech, the GOP’s A Pledge to America took center stage, literally, as the backdrop behind Rep. Boehner. Corresponding with the “Pledge” campaign, PledgeToAmerica.com was recently launched.

It appears that PledgeToAmerica.com expired in February of 2010, and it was then purchased again in May of 2010. It’s currently registered to a Steven Conn of Scottsdale, Arizona, who is also the registrant of the Mark It Media domain name (MarkIT Media Group is listed as the Pledge to America website designer).

Interestingly, the registrant chose not to register APledgeToAmerica.com (strange since the branding all includes “A” in front of “Pledge”). APledgeToAmerica.com was registered on September 17, 2010. This domain name currently resolves to a Godaddy landing page.

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