Leverage the .CO Godaddy Super Bowl Commercial to Sell Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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12

Godaddy Super Bowl CommercialAccording to a post on the .CO Registry’s blog, Godaddy will use at least one of its Super Bowl commercials to inform consumers about .CO on the massive stage that is the Super Bowl. Each year, millions of people across the world watch the Super Bowl, and advertising on it was one of the primary ways Godaddy first became a household name.

One can assume that when the Godaddy Super Bowl commercial mentioning (or featuring) .CO domain names airs, a lot of people will be interested in learning more about .CO domain names. They will visit Godaddy.com, and they will search for their favorite .CO domain names, hoping to register them.

Since there are now over 600,000 .CO domain names registered, I would imagine most people will find their coveted .CO domain names previously registered by others. Many of these domain names are probably owned by domain investors, and some of those names may actually be for sale, although consumers most likely wouldn’t know that or wouldn’t know to look.

It might be a very smart idea for you to list your .CO domain names for sale on Godaddy’s sales platform, where your name may be seen if a visitor searches for it or for something similar. The sales commission rate is very high at 30%, but when you consider the potential exposure, it’s not so bad.

Many Trademark Holders Don’t Protect Their Brand in Today’s TLDs

Elliot Silver
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7

There have been a whole lot of complaints from trademark owners that new TLDs could potentially cause massive amounts of cybersquatting.

Similarly, it could cost them tens of thousands of dollars or maybe much more to protect their brands in a variety of new TLDs when ICANN releases them. This whole debate sounds pretty interesting and the trademark owner contingent makes a good point about this.

Well, it would be a better point if they actually owned all of their brand names in existing TLDs, or if the ones they didn’t own were being cybersquatted in different TLDs.

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some leading brands to see if their brand names were sitting unregistered, which I believe is what will happen for many new gTLD domain names. For instance, Xerox.sport hardly seems to be a domain name that would be coveted by cybersquatters.

Here are some unregistered brand names in various ccTLD and TLD extensions:

  • HewlettPackard.tv
  • NewYorkTimes.travel
  • McDonalds.aero
  • Intel.ac
  • MercedesBenz.sc
  • Gucci.jobs
  • MorganStanley.im
  • Xerox.fm
  • Danone.la
  • Motorola.name
  • Disney.mn
  • Budweiser.vc
  • Accenture.bz
  • Hyatt.ac

gTLD Applicants Should Keep Eye on .LA & Other ccTLD Marketing

Elliot Silver
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3

Did you know there is a .LA domain extension? Similar to .TV being for Tuvalu, .CO being for Colombia, and .ME being for  Montenegro, .LA is the country code for the southeast Asian country of Laos.

If you’ve heard of .LA or seen .LA domain names advertised, it’s most likely by a domain registrar marketing it as the Los Angeles extension (like the Register.com email that spurred my post). It is probably being marketed in a similar fashion to how the .NYC, .Paris, and other geographic areas intend to market their own gTLDs once ICANN approves them.

Anyone who intends to bid on and win a gTLD should look at the efforts ccTLD registries are making to sell their domain names. They should analyze what is working and what isn’t working. They can monitor the amount of domain registrations along with the ups and downs in registration cycle to see how marketing efforts are paying off.

gTLD registries are going to have to pay a lot of money to manage a registry. I’ve seen a number of extensions that I think will be successful with a strong marketing effort (such as the geos mentioned above), but I’ve also seen a number of head scratchers that just don’t seem to make sense, no matter what the marketing effort will be.

I do think there’s a place for gTLD domain names, and I also think anyone who is pining to manage a registry should pay close attention to what’s working and what isn’t working.

Korea News Service Uses Japan ccTLD

Elliot Silver
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6

I noticed something interesting this afternoon while reading some world news. The North Korean government oversees the Korea News Service, which is operated by the Korean Central News Agency of DPRK (North Korea). This organization is responsible for the news in that country.

This organization posts its news on the KCNA.co.jp website, where .CO.JP is the Japanese ccTLD. It’s interesting to me that they are operating the state news website on the Japanese ccTLD.

KCNA.co.kr is owned by the KC&A Corporation, and KCNA.com is owned by what appears to be a private individual. It would be interesting to find out why they use the .CO.JP domain name, but I doubt they would give an interview on domain selection.

Overstock Buys Another “O” Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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15

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.

Overstock International to Rebrand as O.CO

Elliot Silver
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29

OverstockI was speaking with a friend on the phone after my post about FB.CO, and it was mentioned that Overstock has indicated that the company will rebrand its International websites as O.CO. There is a small reference “soon to be O.co” below its logo.  At the present time, O.CO forwards to the Overstock website.

I think this could be very big for the .CO Registry, domain registrars selling .CO domain names, domain investors who have .CO domain names, and companies who have built websites on .CO domain names. The key to any TLD’s success is consumer awareness and that comes most rapidly when large brands actually use the extension rather than have it simply be a forwarder or other form of brand protection.

If Overstock actually “uses” O.CO and doesn’t just forward O.CO to something like Overstock.com/international, this will be very big news since Overstock is one of the more popular brands online.

I’ve mentioned this a number of times, but as a disclaimer my company owns a grand total of 6 .CO domain names (Bahamas.CO, cmm.CO, Elliot.CO, Torah.CO, Another.CO, and Beeb.CO), and .CO has been an advertiser.

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