Patti wrote a comment on my blog this morning regarding .CO domain names that I want to share with you and get some additional feedback from others:
“If I had known that .co was a Colombian registration I don’t think I would have hand-regged so many.“
Yes, .CO is the ccTLD for the country of Colombia. It is similar in nature to .TV, which is the ccTLD for the country of Tuvalu and .ME, which is the ccTLD for the country of Montenegro.
While all three of the TLDs cited above are
I went to a very small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania called Muhlenberg College, and there aren’t many people in the domain space who have even heard of Muhlenberg. In December of 2007, I checked to see if anyone at all connected with the domain industry had attended Muhlenberg College, and I saw that Lori Anne Wardi, then of Mike Mann’s WashingtonVC, graduated from Muhlenberg in 19(no comment).
I sent Lori Anne this LinkedIn message after she accepted by connection request:
“I saw that you are a Muhlenberg College alum and involved on the domain space. I would love the opportunity to chat via email. I am a Muhlenberg alum (class of ’02) and I am active in the domain community. Please contact me when you have a chance to say hello.“
Since then, we’ve shared many emails, phone calls, lunches, dinners, and other get togethers over the last several years. It’s amazing how a brief introduction on LinkedIn can lead to a great business friendship.
Courtesy of a tweet from Juan Diego Calle of the .CO Registry, I want to share an article Lori Anne wrote for Brazen Life, a lifestyle and career blog for ambitious young professionals. The article is called
You may or may not have already seen the news that WordPress parent company Automattic has added .CO to its limited number of TLDs available for WordPress.com fully hosted websites. People who wish to have their websites hosted on WordPress.com can select from .com, .net, .org, .me, and .CO.
This is a pretty big deal for the .CO Registry because of the expansive reach of WordPress. Think about it like this. Let’s say you want to start a blog and know very little about hosting and development. You visit WordPress.com and decide you’ll let them host your website. Now that you’ve made that decision, you have to pick a domain name. You only have 5 extensions from which to choose. Most people prefer .com, but if it’s not available to hand register, they can either choose something more obscure or choose the matching .CO domain name.
Personally, I would always recommend
The .CO Registry is celebrating its third anniversary next week, and Sedo published a market report (pdf file) about .CO domain names that I think is very interesting. Some of the figures quoted by Sedo were a bit surprising to me, and I think they may surprise you as well. If you don’t love .CO, there is plenty of other information in Sedo’s market report you’ll probably find interesting.
Whether you’ve invested in .CO domain names, or if you are like me, primarily an observer, I think we can agree that the team at .CO has done an exceptional job of branding itself. Their focus is on marketing to startups, but through their marketing efforts, they’ve also drawn attention to domain names and their importance to brands. I am seeing more .CO domain names used by start up companies, and it’s not a surprise based on the Registry’s outreach and marketing efforts.
Before .CO domain names were sold to the public, the Registry went on something of a publicity blitz within the domain industry. Many people predicted .CO would lead to more cybersquatting and other nefarious activity, and many predicted .CO would be a failure. I have been surprised by the few UDRP complaints against .CO domain name owners, especially given the number of registered domain names. Ultimately, I believe .CO has been good for the domain investment space.
With that said, I want to share some interesting facts that were reported by Sedo this morning:
You can read the press release below, download the market report pdf file, and you can also have a look at a blog post written by .CO Registry’s Lori Anne Wardi, who has been involved in the domain investment space for quite some time.
Press Release:
Our very own Juan Diego Calle accepting his Ultimate CEO Award from @sflabizjournal! #WeLoveOurCEO pic.twitter.com/8Dsg3Yhpht
— .CO (@dotco) June 27, 2013
Juan Diego Calle, CEO of .CO Internet S.A.S., the company that operates the .CO Registry, was presented with a Miami Ultimate CEO Award from the South Florida Business Journal. Nine Miami-Dade County CEOs were awarded in the event held last night at the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami, Florida.
The South Florida Business Journal sought out nominations back in April for this annual award, and the winners were announced in May. The award is given to “exceptional CEOs who have set the standard in the corporate community, including civic leadership and charitable contributions.”
Other winners this year include the CEO of One Sotheby’s International Realty, Emilio Estefan, President and CEO of City National Bank of Florida, and other well respected business leaders in the community.
Congratulations to Juan for this honor.
Mike Berkens wrote about the parent company of the .CO Registry, STRAAT Investments, which “purchased a 16,000-sq.-ft. building in Miami’s Brickell area to house its growing headquarters.” This building will also become a workspace known as Building.CO.
You can see a photo of the building above, which is located at 120 SW 8th Street, in the Brickell neighborhood of Miami, and just half a block to a major Metro Rail stop. It is a three-story building, erected in 1982, and it was the original headquarters for Dr. Sanfford Ziff, founder of Sunglass Hut. The building is three blocks away from the company’s current office.
According to Jose Rasco, Managing Director of STRAAT (and the person who is managing the project), when the company finishes the renovation,
