.CO

I was reading the CrunchBase funding report, when I saw something of interest. A company called HeyDay reportedly received $3.5 million in Series A funding. It was reported that the funding was provided by General Catalyst Partners, Google Ventures, and Spark Capital. In December of 2013, it received a reported seed funding round of $2 million.

According to its website, “Heyday is an automatic journal. It makes remembering effortless, beautiful & fun, so you never forget another day of your life.” It’s available to download for free in Apple’s App Store or via Google Play.

To me, a domain investor, the most interesting aspect of the company is

Global Entrepreneurship Week is billed as “the world’s largest celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship.” The worldwide initiative is held annually in November, and this year it is scheduled from November 18-24, 2013. Organizations, businesses, and universities from around the world participate with their own activities, all focused on promoting and encouraging entrepreneurship.

Since the founding of GEW by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the event has used a .org domain name for its website – UnleashingIdeas.org. It also owned the exact match .com domain name, which it forwarded to its main website. This week, GEW announced a major change / rebrand for its website, and the initiative is now using GEW.CO.

In a blog post on the GEW website today, Mark Marich explains why the url change was made:

TechCrunch is reporting that a company called BranchOut has launched Talk.CO, “a mobile-first web, iOS, and Android messaging app for coworkers.” Prior to BranchOut’s acquisition of the domain name, it was owned by the .CO Registry and listed as one of the Registry’s “Restricted and Reserved” domain names.

I have never used BranchOut before, but it seems

I want to share a press release I read this morning announcing that a yacht company has acquired the Y.CO domain name from the .CO Registry. The company previously operated on  ycoyacht.com, so this seems to be a major upgrade for them.

I believe it is the first non-Internet company to own a single letter .CO domain name, and the company stated that it is “the first luxury brand to migrate to a single letter domain” and they made the acquisition because it “reinforces the company’s position as an industry leader in digital marketing and innovation.”

The terms of the deal were not announced, although Juan Diego Calle of the .CO Registry had stated at one point that single letter .CO domain names cost over $1.5 million.

Here is a list of who owns (or operates) single letter .CO domain names, not including those that are still owned by the .CO Registry and remain unused:

• A.CO – Amazon
• E.CO – Someone in China
• G.CO – Google
• K.CO – Amazon
• O.CO – Overstock
• S.CO – Startup America
• T.CO – Twitter
• X.CO – Go Daddy
• Y.CO – Y.CO Yacht Company
• Z.CO – Amazon

Press release:  

I was asked to provide an update about my Bahamas.CO website, and although I will oblige, I don’t think it’s going to be all that interesting (or helpful) to anyone.

Because of the improved domain sales market, Bahamas.CO hasn’t been updated in 3 years. As a result, I am sure there is little traffic and little Google love. Frankly, Google shouldn’t rank the site well because I haven’t put forth the effort that would be required to rank this website in the competitive travel market. Although I intended to create something far more in depth, my focus shifted on domain sales and maintaining my few profitable websites, and sadly, I built what now amounts to a mini site.

I am confident my .CO