I just got word that Name.com is offering a special price on .COM and .CO domain registrations. The company is charging just $7.77 per new registration from now until February 12, 2011. I haven’t seen a better .CO price anywhere else.
Name.com also released a spoof Super Bowl commercial for your viewing enjoyment:
For domain investors who list their domain names with Go Daddy’s Premium Listing program, the Super Bowl commercial was possibly expected to bring a big bump to sales. With massive amounts of website traffic, premium listings should have received significant exposure during the game.
According to what I heard from a few sources, Go Daddy allegedly turned off the Premium Listings program at some point before or during the Super Bowl, just as the company was to experience a huge spike in traffic to its website. The listings are now showing again, but they were absent during the high traffic time when the Super Bowl ads were shown.
From a business perspective, shutting down the premium listings would have made sense since the company may have wanted visitors to focus solely on new registrations. As a domain investor, this is a pretty frustrating thing to have happened.
When I learned about the .CO Super Bowl commercial, I recommended that people leverage it to sell their premium domain names at Go Daddy. It’s a shame that domain investors apparently didn’t get the opportunity to sell some of their domain names during the Super Bowl
During the Super Bowl this evening, the long awaited and highly speculated Go Daddy .CO girl was finally revealed. In case you haven’t seen the Super Bowl commercial now exclusively on the Go Daddy website, the .CO Girl is Joan Rivers.
So, how many of you guessed it right? I did – way back on January 11th on Mike Berkens Blog.
I believe the GoDaddy commercial is expected to air during the first half of the Packers vs. Steelers game. It will be interesting to see how much of a bump in .CO registrations there will be, and also, it will be interesting to see how many domain names were purchased by speculators and how many by SMB who will develop their .CO domain names.
Incidentally, Joan Rivers is using her own neat .CO domain name: Joan.CO.
Not to beat a dead horse about this, but it appears that Overstock will completely overhaul its company branding, and will be known throughout the world simply as O.CO. It doesn’t look like the company will be called Overstock anymore, at least according to its O.CO FAQ page, which states:
The O.co web domain currently redirects traffic to Overstock.com. We are working toward migrating the site directly to the O.co. online domain for users. Right now, the O.co web address is used as a shortcut so customers can quickly access Overstock.com, especially when they’re short on time or using a mobile device to access the Internet.
This is a very risky maneuver for an established company. In the US, consumers know the brand as Overstock, so a change to O.CO might confuse loyal customers. They are presumably doing this because the company sells much more than just “overstock” goods, and the word “overstock” doesn’t translate well over multiple languages.
The re-branding effort is clearly forward-thinking though. Overstock is betting that in the next few years, consumers will recognize and embrace .CO, which will eliminate any confusion. Where the Overstock brand name doesn’t make sense internationally, a company known as O.CO does make sense across almost all languages.
I think it’s smart for Overstock to slowly introduce the new O.CO brand across its lines of business before changing it permanently. Customers will gradually become accustomed to visiting O.CO and hearing the name in marketing collateral, easing the transition.
During the past couple of days, a number of domain registrars have reduced their prices for .CO domain names, likely in anticipation of the boost .CO domain names will receive after its exposure in its Go Daddy Super Bowl commercial. Businesses and consumers will look for the best place to buy them, and buyers tend to be sensitive when it comes to domain pricing.
As a result of lower prices, and perhaps fueled by alcoholic beverages many will enjoy during the Super Bowl, some people may think about taking a chance and registering potentially trademark infringing domain names, since a lower cost would mean less PPC revenue necessary for break even and profitability.
This isn’t smart on multiple fronts:
The .CO Registry issued a press release urging domain registrants who may hope to purchase these “cybersquatted” domain names to think again. In case you didn’t get a chance to read the press release, I posted it below.
I am not sure what else a registry can do to prevent cybersquatting, aside from acting as a judge and jury when it comes to infringing domain names, which makes little sense and isn’t feasible.
MIAMI, February 3, 2010 – This Sunday, the .CO domain will be introduced to a broad global audience of over a hundred million consumers as the featured domain name in a highly anticipated GoDaddy.CO Super Bowl ad. Billed as the “hottest new Web address” for branding your online presence, the 30-second ad is expected to draw broad consumer awareness to millions of short, meaningful .CO domain names now available on the Internet.
Since the launch in late July, the .CO domain has already received tremendous support and adoption from the business and Internet communities, with well over 600,000 .CO domain names registered by individuals, organizations and companies in more than 200 countries worldwide. Many .CO websites are currently showcased on Opportunity.CO.
Juan Diego Calle, founder and CEO of .CO Internet, attributes a great deal of the company’s success to date to the fact that “we have invested heavily in the technologies and processes needed to create a safer, more secure online experience.” Given the explosive worldwide growth that the .CO domain has enjoyed to date; and the increased attention .CO will likely garner as a result of the upcoming Super Bowl ad, “I want to reaffirm our commitment to monitor, enforce, and develop the necessary safeguards against cyber-squatting and all other forms of domain name abuse, as those threats continue to evolve.”
In instances where a registrant with no legitimate interest in a .CO domain name secures a name that is identical or confusingly similar to a trade- or service-mark; or where a .CO domain name is registered and used in bad faith, the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) will apply. The UDRP is a mechanism to quickly and efficiently settle domain name disputes between registrants and third party complainants.
The UDRP was successfully utilized to redress claims of brand infringement by claimants in approximately 50 cases in 2010, said Eduardo Santoyo, VP & ccTLD Manager of .CO Internet. “The really good news,” according to Santoyo, “is that the number of UDRP claims filed relating to .CO domain names is extremely low, relative to the size of the Registry, and suggests that cyber-squatting has not been a pervasive problem for the .CO extension.
In closing, Santoyo advises that “the .CO Registry will continue to monitor and assess the efficacy of all of its policies over time, and will determine if additional policies are necessary to accomplish the Registry’s goals of ensuring a clean and secure name space.”
In early December, the .CO Registry announced the launch of a Rapid Domain Compliance Process, which empowers the Registry to quickly bring into compliance any domain name that is deployed for fraudulent, malicious or criminal purposes (such as phishing, pharming and malware); and the upcoming implementation of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC), which will help the registry combat against impersonation attacks, data integrity attacks, and the risk of users being diverted to any unintended or unsafe websites.
About .CO Internet S.A.S.
.CO Internet S.A.S. is the Registry Operator for the .CO top-level domain. The .CO domain offers individuals, organizations and businesses a truly global, recognizable and credible web address for branding their online presence. Thanks to leading-edge technology, enhanced security and unprecedented rights protections, the .CO domain is poised to become the premier web address where the world’s next great enterprises will make their home. For more information about the .CO Registry, please visit www.COinternet.co and www.Opportunity.co — or follow us on Twitter @dotCO.
