Overstock CEO Discusses O.CO

I read an article today, and I thought it might interest you. Business Insider interviewed Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne about the company’s turnaround, and among the topics in this wide ranging interview is the O.CO re-branding effort, which is has been covered at length by domain industry outlets.

I highlighted what I believe might be of interest to domain investors, particularly those who own or are thinking about buying .CO domain names:

“O.co is a shortcut to Overstock.com, with a different logo and layout. It has become our international name too.

“In television ads, we’ve introduced it as a shortcut to our domestic site, and if you type it in, you get free shipping.
The percentage of people who are typing it in is going up substantially, so you might see a new brand emerge. Or, you might see a brand morph from Overstock to O.co depending on how receptive the public is to it.”

“O.co is more consistent with how we’re trying to brand ourselves now, as a savings engine. It’s the simplest way to explain what we do.”

It’s an interesting interview that you should check out when you get a chance. It really digs into Overstock’s growth strategy and business history.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

75 COMMENTS

  1. Sounds really dumb to me. I bet he got paid a lot of money from the .co registry to pump this fraud. I know you will tell me that he just called them up and offered over 300K for the name, but I’m not buying it. The registry needed a public corporation to try to pump this scam, and this shady CEO was only too eager.

    The botton line is that it is just doesn’t make sense, and it is confusing as hell. In fact, if your sole goal was to confuse the consumer in an ad, you would probably dream up .co if you wanted to destroy your business.

    I would guess that less than one in one thousand people who see that ad even know what .co is. Pitiful, disgraceful, dishonest, intellectually bankruptcy, and moronic extension.

    • “I bet he got paid a lot of money from the .co registry to pump this fraud”

      @ Confusing and Dumb

      Yes, he was willing to risk a billion dollar brand for a pittance of a payout from the .CO Registry. That makes complete (non)sense. šŸ™‚

  2. Ok I know there are more of you so called .comy investors that have a lot riding on your current .com investments but

    the fact of the matter is that .CO is what most people are looking to when they are registering new domain names now days.

    Investment is defined as the return on your current investment and I can tell you that .com is on its way down. It is on its descent and .CO is on its way up.

    So if you want your investments to gain value I would suggest in investing in .CO

    O.COmpany is doing the smart thing. They are ahead of the curve.

  3. @Confusing and Dumb

    is a well chosen and apt name you have picked for yourself.

    It is precisely why you are Confusing and Dumb that most investors like you will gain a -25% return this year.

  4. No sane businessman would ever start a business with a .co name. That is, unless he had a death wish and wanted to go broke.

    The CEO of Overstock has way too many shady dealings for me not to suspect that he is in cahoots with the .co registry in some way.

    It is the absolute dumbest thing I have ever seen. Notice that he mentions increases in .co traffic yet neglects to mention any real figures.

    The extension is a fraud and those who pump it are frauds as well. If yo cannot figure out why it is an unethical extension then you are not a moral domainer.

    It has nothing whatsover to do with Coloumbia, either, so don’t go that route. This extension was created for one reason only, and that is for those who are in charge of the registry to profit off of confusion and idiocy. It serves no purpose and anyone who traffics in it deserves to be ridiculed and shunned.

  5. You are a sucker to buy anything besides dot com and you are a bigger sucker if you buy it and thinking of flipping.

    Selling dot com is so much easier,99.99999% of the negotiation is already completed.

    Dot com is KING

    Now ,can you handle the truth??

  6. We appreciate your lobbying for .COMs, but comparing both extensions is like comparing internet explorer to chrome. Most people are still using internet explorer, but at one point they will not mind using chrome because it’s faster (shorter).

  7. @Elliot- Thanks for sharing this great read. I am proud to see a major corporation supporting the .Co movement. I’m also happy to see a major corporation publicly give credit to a domain name. I wish people didn’t see .Co as a threat, but rather as a new opportunity to capitalize on.

  8. Anyway I don’t get when he talks about a new brand or a brand morph, what’s the difference given that in both cases the final brand will be O.co?

  9. lol @confusing and dumb and @BullS-

    don’t worry, it seems like the only people buying this extension are a small portion of domainers (i.e. a tiny, unknown portion of the general population) that just don’t get it. When GoDaddy stops cutting deals with them and the reg fee goes up again, reality will sink in. People are also forgetting that “o.co” is literally the best name you can get out of that extension (1 letter and rhymes with extension), so even though I think it’s an awful decision, at least they got the most fitting name for themselves.

    Wait until the number of registrations comes out, I bet it WILL be over 1,000,000 and they will try to make a big deal out of it. The domain blogs will eat it up. But of course it will mean nothing because 99.999% of the names will likely be held by domainers and therefore remain undeveloped, parked, and/or listed for sale at sedo and afternic.

  10. Give me a break.

    Why the big insecurity.

    I sense a big insecurity by .com owners.

    They seem to be working overly hard to say what may not be true. If what they are working so hard to prove is true then they wouldn’t have to work so hard to say it – it would just be self evident. The fact they are working so hard to prove and disprove makes me suspicious.

    BenchMob.CO is nicely developed and guess what? .com forwards to .CO

  11. There is one main reason, why they bought o.co and o.biz. They want o.com if it ever becomes available. That’s the end game. Qwest has q.com, Overstock wants o.com. They started off with mainly overstock type merchandise but want to rebrand as just O since they carry much more now. So I wouldn’t take any of this as some praise for some country code of Columbia, it’s just a stepping stone to what they really want, the .com.

  12. @ Robert Cline- “The Bench Mob is now featured at The United Center! The Chicago Bulls are using the Benchmob.Co logo for the UC scoreboard graphics.” – Thanks for sharing šŸ™‚

  13. Johnnie is exactly right. They really want o.com and this is a stepping stone to getting it.

    Guess who owns 11 trademarks covering “O.com” – some of which have been owned for 6 1/2 years now. This is not about the .co extension. It is ultimately a play for the .com. A one letter .com is worth an insane amount to so many companies.

    And yes, they did file for the trademark O.co July 14, 2010 with a first use in commerce date of December 23, 2010.

  14. Some of the .com people need to get over themselves.

    If short is in, then O.co is far better

    And don’t forget

    .com is the typo of .co

    The trend has begun with actually many sites now

    where they are forwarding their .com to their .co sites

    If you really think about it, long ago, they really made an error
    .co was what Al Gore really meant not the longer version.

    Plus who wants to type anymore than they have to; case in point, when you text you go;

    see u there!

    Plus every character matters when downloading and that extra character ‘m’ with all the internal links plus millions of people adds up to probably years cuts off the download time.

  15. Robert – I have to laugh. You link to epier.com in every one of your posts yet epier.co is currently available for registration. Do you really believe what you say? Highly doubtful.

  16. .co opened up some options for people to register some nice keyword names they otherwise would not have been able to afford the .com way. Why does everything have to be mine is better than yours. The Internet Pie is big enough for all of us, But if domainers keep competing instead of helping each other your going to end up with crumbs. IF your going to succeed you need to start building your businesses before its too late. One small niche Ecommerce site can make more in a month than your whole portfolio makes in a year. I mean WTH ! I’m reminded by how one domainers story of how he sold a .com lead generation business for xxxxxxx amount of money. The person that bought it then sold it for much Much more . The guy grew the business by advertising it. That’s all he did. Big brands don’t want you to advertise because they know you have an edge, you will end up paying less than them for the same traffic and will make them pay more for it. Its common knowledge, read the case studies online. A one word generic is good but come on you guys too need to advertise too, thats what the buyers of your names are going to do. gotta go Bye. (p.s. you can’t advertise a garbage site with no value and expect to make money these day,.. Those days are gone. (Sorry for the sorry state of my writing,.I’m a Fighter not a Writer šŸ™‚

  17. @ Robert Cine

    `The trend has begun with actually many sites now

    where they are forwarding their .com to their .co sites`

    could you give me some examples, please?
    the more the better

  18. Good that the CEO is coming out to support the rebranding. Always a big deal with any company to rebrand.

    This is really more about marketing and rebranding than about .co.

    He is hoping the whole thing works.

    So, they are seeing type ins increase after spending millions on TV commercials? I would certainly hope so!

    And we MIGHT see a new brand emerge? Might?

  19. @Cline. I think you need to go easy on the way you are pushing .CO, many of the points you make are actually quite valid and there is a clear increase in consumer awareness and usage of this extension. However, when your points are coupled with exaggerations so frequently, it can do more harm than good to what you are trying to say. Just a heads up šŸ™‚

    M says
    “99.999% of the names will likely be held by domainers and therefore remain undeveloped, parked, and/or listed for sale at sedo and afternic.”

    I would like to see where you are getting this statistic from; Companies and organisations who were unable to get their .com will be a major contributor to the .CO reg number. Companies and Organisations who already own the .com and want to protect their name will also be a major contributor to the number of .CO registrations.

    My guess is that there are in fact many many many more .COM domains which are undeveloped, parked and/or listed for sale on sedo and afternic, for the simple fact it has been around 2 decades longer!

    @Dumb and confused
    So by your own words, Overstock’s decision will lead to death and also to them going broke? Sounds a bit harsh to me.

  20. “Some of the .com people need to get over themselves.

    If short is in, then O.co is far better

    And donā€™t forget

    .com is the typo of .co”

    Hmmm, Is this the same Robert that was begging the register to put down the reg fees because you could’nt afford to renew your $xx,xxx in .co’s ?

    ———

    “@Cline. I think you need to go easy on the way you are pushing .CO, many of the points you make are actually quite valid and there is a clear increase in consumer awareness and usage of this extension. However, when your points are coupled with exaggerations so frequently, it can do more harm than good to what you are trying to say. Just a heads up”

    Now that is some good advice right there šŸ™‚

  21. Mr Byrne doesn’t give a shit about .co

    This is a ploy to strengthen his claim on o.com

    Once he gets o.com watch him drop o.co like it was stolen merchandise.

  22. Look.

    Every point I have made is very valid. Just don’t take them out of context or selective pull just the sweet lines, that I see some of you do here.

    Yes, I am enthusiastic about .COmpany .COrporation .COoperation .COntext .COntextual .COhabitation .COmputer .COmmunity, la te la, etc but

    not cocky.

    And yes, I and all the enthusiastic Internet entrepreneurs who took the risk and helped out should get some sort of break in renewal registration.

    I am hoping for some sort of sliding scale. We are at the spearhead of this new and exciting phase in the Internet development. And yes, $25000 is a bit too much, so I am hoping come this July, the registry will be reasonable and bring the cost down to earth so that many owners will enjoy developing their domains rather than losing and getting a bad taste in their mouths.

  23. Robert,

    You forgot the #1 – .COlombia

    Was that intentional?

    .COlombia is only as stable as the country behind it, like all other ccTLD’s.

    Who’s to say .COlombia won’t revert back to a squeaky-clean ccTLD after the next general election in .COlombia? You certainly can’t guarantee against it. No one can.

  24. @Robert Cine

    `The trend has begun with actually many sites now

    where they are forwarding their .com to their .co sites`

    could you give me some examples, please?
    the more the better

  25. @Robert Cine

    I see you invested some money in .co
    What are your 3 the strongest .co domain names you have in your opinion?

  26. “And yes, I and all the enthusiastic Internet entrepreneurs who took the risk and helped out should get some sort of break in renewal registration.

    I am hoping for some sort of sliding scale. We are at the spearhead of this new and exciting phase in the Internet development. And yes, $25000 is a bit too much, so I am hoping come this July, the registry will be reasonable and bring the cost down to earth so that many owners will enjoy developing their domains rather than losing and getting a bad taste in their mouths.”

    Took the risk…helped out….should get?

    That’s not how the world works Robert, but I sincerely hope it works out for you in the long-run.

    I mean that 100%

  27. @Gazzip

    heh.

    This is precisely how the world works.

    It was Christopher Columbus that took the risk to venture into the new world that founded this country.

    It was Albrin that took the risk to be the first man in space on a rock called the moon.

    It was that entrepreneur that risked mortgaging his home to start a company he believed in.

    It was the caveman that risked venturing out of the cave and risk hunting an elephant for food.

    on and on.

    Without risk we would be an amoeba.

    And I risk getting fired from my job if I keep writing here.

    Got to go.

    oh, some of the domains I have are:

    bookshops.co
    botanist.co
    breakfasts.co
    brokered.co
    campuses.co
    carcinogen.co
    cared.co
    cardholders.co
    cellos.co

    Yikes! boss coming my way. got to go.

  28. Wow, Robert, those are some horseshit names. Absolutely awful. Totally brutal and worthless. I would rather have a dead rat in my mouth than have any one of those horrible .co names you listed.

    What the heck were you thinking? My God.

  29. Yeah, some way to stick up for your crappy names. Saying that they are for your own use? Lol. That is similar to those idiots who paid 500K for 200K houses and think it doesn’t matter because they are going to live there forever, anyways.

    The bottom line is that those names show what a terrible domaining mind you have. There can really be no argument. You do NOT have what it takes.

    For your own use….lol.

  30. @Robert Cline- I want to personally apologize for the rude and hurtful comments by others in this post. It’s really uncalled for. Don’t take the abuse personally. Learn from the small tidbits that are fact based and disregard the slander.

  31. The problem is that nobody tells these people how horrible these names are. Seasoned domainers often dabble in this crap for extra income, when what they should be doing is ridiculing those who launch or otherwise get involved with these nonsense extensions.

    If you think that GARBAGE like dotmobi and .co helps domaining in the long run, then you are mistaken.

  32. I don’t know if .Com will ever be overtaken by another gtld. But I bought a few .Co’s because they’re available without having to fork over thousands for the .Com. Plus most of the registrars have .Com .Net and .Co as their top three by default for new domains and I think in the end (potentially) those will be the top three to choose from, in that order or maybe .Co above .Net.

    However, there’s been no increase in new registrations since Dec hanging around 600k, unless that number’s not been updated. And after the big Super Bowl ad, I’m a little disappointed it hasn’t hit the million mark by now. Anyone know where the numbers lie?

    @Robert, hey those names look pretty good to me. Short and generic which sell good on .Com. Not sure why these people are saying they’re bad names. Bookshops, botanist, cellos, all one word generic. Pretty much all of those have been taken in .CO at this date.

  33. Tom,

    You have a better chance of seeing God than you do of ever seeing .Co pass up .Net. People need to get real and show that they have a bit of smarts.

    Very few people on earth have ever heard of .Co. It has zero chance to pass .Net. And Robert’s names are atrocious.

  34. @Tom,

    I’ll tell you precisely what is wrong with his example .co domain names:

    1. They are .co and not .com (or .net or .org).

    2. For every word to the left of the dot, there is a superior word from either a Google Adwords use perspective or from a perspective of most common use in English.

    These are the superior names if you are unfortunate enough to be stuck with buying only .co:

    bookshop.co
    botany.co
    breakfast.co
    broker.co
    campus.co
    carcinogen.co (just plain no good for any commercial use)
    care.co
    cardholder.co
    cello.co

    Although I think the domain names I’ve listed above are better than Robert’s list, I still wouldn’t pay more than reg fee for any from my list either. I’d rather pay thousands to get the .com than to build a business around a .co. Americans are simply conditioned over many years to think .com — you cannot change ingrained behavior and expectations with only “hope”, regardless of what President Obama says. Hope and reality are two very different things. Reality is: .com is ingrained in Americans; it’s what the expect to see and use. Why fight the tide?

    Full disclosure: I’m the current registrant of only one .co domain name — homeinsurancequotes.co. Clearly, I bought it for the SEO-friendly and lead gen-lucrative keywords to the left of the dot and not for the co to the right. It’s only value is for lead gen through SEO. Anybody want to buy it from me for $35,000? I didn’t think so.

  35. Well, just the ones I mentioned I would have bought. They work in the plural. Maybe not cared, brokered or breakfasts, but botanist, cellos are pretty good. Cellos would be excellent for an instrument company to divert traffic but the .Com is for sale too so take your pick or snag up both to eliminate the competition.

    Music.co sold for only 30k. High commercial value generic name, I’m surprised it didn’t go for more. So again, I’m wondering if there’s much confidence in .co right now. E.Co sold for only 80k. (kind of thought eBay might buy it for quick association).

    HomeOwnersInsurance.com sold for 570k so maybe homeinsurancequotes.co might be a good bet. Probably not worth 35k though. But no, I guess I wouldn’t spend a lot on .co and I haven’t bought any more.

    Is it just me or does .COM and .NET just look better in your browser and on your homepage? .CO seems like it’s missing something.

    Let me ask you this: I purchased: PLANESEATS.CO, is this a good domain? Why or why not. It’s in the plural, (the singular is still available but I think the plural is better in this instance like cellos) and a .co of course so lesser value. The .COM is also parked at SEDO. I’m not really in the domain game, I just bought a few to tinker with without going broke. I also have some .com’s .net’s. Yes, I know planetickets or airfare would be better but there’s just nothing available and since there’s big commercial value with airfare I figured it might be worth getting.

    Another one I got was AIRVENTURE.CO. The .Com is a Balloon ride company. I’m betting with all the possible air entertainment companies in the world, planes, hello’s, balloons, gliders, etc. At least one company would be willing to buy it. But maybe not.

  36. Tom said: “I’m betting…”

    Therein lies your poor choice in domain names. You are not investing in domain names; you are speculating in domain names.

    Again, hope is not reality. For much of your portfolio, you should be buying domain names that have immediate value in the marketplace TODAY. Before you buy the domain name, you should have a firm understanding of who will buy it from you immediately, why they will buy it from you with such haste, and how much cash they will likely be willing to pay you to compel you to transfer it to them.

    Yes, I too have some speculative domain names based on future trends (left of the dot, that is), but they are a small part of my small portfolio and they are only .com.

    For most lead gen, I rely on .us domain names because they are cheap, rank just as well as a .com with proper SEO, and at least an American will look at the URL in their browser window and see “us” and think, “Oh, OK, I recognize those letters as trustworthy, safe, and maybe even patriotic, so I’ll go ahead and fill out this form and click submit”. When they click submit, I get paid. And I do, every month.

  37. Nothing Robert Cline says has any merit it’s very evident that he is a domain extension prostitute. He is notorious for exaggerating the value of the .Co extension and has been doing so since the extension was made available to the public. Consider how he sidesteps the question of Why he hasn’t purchased the .Co to his Business.

    In regards to the .Co extension, I don’t think it will out due .com. That’s not going to happen anytime soon If ever but O.co can only benefit the extension, hopefully leading future businesses, most likely startups, to take a risk.

    The key is creating value, too many quality names are in the hands of speculators.

  38. Good points. Yeah, buying domains really isn’t my business. But .CO is basically all speculation right now. But .COM was the same in the beginning too. If one were willing to hold on to a few speculative domains for awhile they might someday pay off. Not saying they’ll do much in the short term though.

    So are you in the domain business? You seem to have a good understanding from what I’ve read. I understand most of the points you made even before I bought my domains, especially knowing who will want to buy the domain now. But I was willing to forgo selling short term and holding out for awhile, as long as I don’t have a large portfolio and can afford the renewal costs I think it might be ok for me.

    I’m just wondering because most people that I’ve heard talk about .CO that have a good deal of experience seem to regard it as a fad and compare it to .CM. I have to disagree that it’s just like .CM I really think there’s potential of it gaining a spot behind .NET and maybe above it. But I’m just not convinced on the numbers. I really thought they’d hit a million domains by now. But if the numbers are still at 600k then, maybe it’s time to dump them.

    I got two .US domains I think. One is CAPITALVENTURE.US, I also have the .CO. I’m really not sure about .US. I wanted something that was money related. But I don’t think I’m going to be buying any more domains. I’ll probably just sit on the ones I have and see what happens. If nothing comes then I’ll know domaining isn’t for me.

  39. @Logan Flatt- Great advice. Honest, to the point and professional- I like your style.

    @Tom- Quick question for you. Are you looking to monetize strictly by flipping domains? Would you go into the automotive industry to only sell new cars? Or would you create multiple revenue streams by offering lease options, used car sales, retail parts, service/repair, and the occasional car wash/detail?

    Domaining is no different. Ideally you should have your IM portfolio divided into short, mid and long term holds; passive income, lead gen sites, geo directory portals, paid membership, quick flips, etc. Keep in mind that this takes a tremendous amount of work and commitment.

    If your only objective is to flip domains then your safest bet is .com with out a doubt. You can accomplish this by acquiring domains off the aftermarket. Keep your IM portfolio focused, generic, local if possible and profitable.

    In my humble opinion if you choose to “dump” your .Co’s at least try to sell them for a reasonable price to recoup your loss– Reasonable meaning market value.

  40. Well, as I said, I’m new to this and just keeping it small. I don’t plan to buy hundreds of domains. I wouldn’t mind holding onto a dozen or so that have potential for long term return. As for short term it would be difficult for me as I don’t have the capital right now to invest. As you said the .COM is a safer bet but that would require dumping a few grand into each domain. Sounds like that could be a safe bet too, just not possible for me.

    I registered at Boxcar so I might try and sell a few .CO’s there to recoop like you said. But I’ve been watching some of the generic one word domains at sedo and some are only selling in the low XXX’s. Guess it depends on the domain, but most of my domains are two words like AIRVENTURE, so maybe right now isn’t the time to sell. I haven’t sold any domains at this point. Really I’m not trying to make a living on it or flip them quick.

    Besides that I’m thinking about developing at least one of the domains into a business. Surprisingly it’s the .CO because the .COM .NET and all the others are already taken. It gives me the shortest form and it would be a local venture, something I’ve been entertaining for awhile.

    I’m more into web developing and hosting and I enjoy making websites and designing so the cost would be low for me there. I suspect a very large percentage of .CO’s are just parked for the secondary market and really they just need to be developed or let them drop. If you purchase a .CO and the .COM, .NET and even the .ORG are sitting parked, what does that mean? I tried to stay away from those, but I guess it all depends.

    Capitalventure.com was parked but after inquiring they wanted 25k for it, so I snagged what was available. Not saying the .CO or the .US that I have is even a 1/10 of that or that even they’ll get that for the .COM. So I guess I’m just a speculator. It’s sort of like gambling in my opinion, unless you’re just really lucky or really good.

  41. haha let the .CO promoters do their thing in the blog comment section all they want, it won’t change anything. It’s so obvious that many of these comments are being made by the same person (same broken english) just under different names. Hilarious.

    They want to anger you so you respond, more comments, and more .CO exposure.

  42. @ Many.CO

    its very interesting you have .co domains for sale on your website which do not belong to you.

    I was very surprised when I discovered my domains there with prices.

    could you explain to me that?

  43. @peter – in response to your question… and for everyone else who may be interested…

    In addition to BenchMob.com redirecting to BenchMob.co, some of the others I have seen in my research are:

    AngelList.com redirecting to Angel.co (Read all the business press on Angel List – it’s pretty incredible!)

    ThirtyDayChallenge.com redirecting to Challenge.co (Check out the traffic stats for Challenge – not too shabby)

    How about this one – http://www.bmr-legroupe.com redirecting to BMR.co. Ummm, you’d better believe these guys are happy to have picked up their .CO domain!

    And here’s a story on DomainNameWire of a company choosing to launch their new startup on a .co when they already own the .com – and had paid like a million bucks for it…
    http://domainnamewire.com/2011/03/30/top10-co-explains-its-choice-of-co-for-new-web-site/

    —————

    A few minutes of research and you can find more cases like these. I go to site:.co to start…

    Open your eyes folks. Like it or not, good things are happening on
    .CO…

  44. @P

    Many.co is not my personal sites,it’s a public portfolio showcase and .co marketplace.We brokerage the .co domains for the owner,you can tell me and point out which is your domain listed on our site,and we will verify it.

    Thanks

  45. @tom

    It’s only a visualization error, the real logo [ ak2.ostkcdn.com/images/mxc/20110422-easter-logo-o-co-2.gif ] gets partially hidden, in particular the right half of the ‘m’ and the small (R) symbol.

  46. Investing vs. Speculation

    I know some folks here have said that you need to have a clear agenda when purchasing domains for the resale market, like purchasing domains with immediate need, etc. While I don’t disagree with that isn’t this business about 50% speculation anyway?

    What’s your strategy: 90/10, 80/20, 70/30?

    From what I’ve seen, .CO aside, the entire business appears to be speculation, even if you stick to what’s safe/secure. How do you really know that if you pay 5,000 or more for bookshops.com that you can sell it for more than if you bought bookshops.co for say 1500? Maybe it would be easier to resell the .CO in the short term.

    If you stick to .COM and pay hugh acquisition costs up front are you any more guaranteed to make a large profit margin in the short term? I and I’m sure a lot of other .CO folks only paid the 30.00/domain, if even one of those sells for 250-500 then the percentages look pretty good. If not then we’re stuck with renewing them. Glad I didn’t buy too many.

    Hey, maybe that can be the next topic, Investing Vs. Speculation.

  47. One more note while I’m thinking about it, has anyone used Boxcar.com to list domains? I signed last month for their $1 promo year membership. To the end of April it’s only $2/domain to register so I got some .COs listed. Setting the reserve low so I guess I’ll see what happens.

    I’m optimistic on Boxcar.com. I like their business model. Sedo, basically someone has to bid on your domain before it goes to auction, or you can feature it for $50/domain or something, quite costly. Plus Boxcar has no commission fees, just the annual membership and 5/domain. Plus eBay style listing features, up to 100 domains per lot. Not trying to give them advertising, but I’m surprised something like this hasn’t come around sooner.

    Anyway, just thought I’d ask. I think the site is kinda new.

  48. @Tom

    Quality is the key in this business: it’s much better to own 50 high-medium quality domains than 500 poor quality ones. You will have a more easily manageable portfolio with 1/10 renewal costs.

  49. @Tom – Joe is right. Listen to him. And, quality = .com because of the underlying strength of its demand in the marketplace. Having more prospective buyers is what gives a .com its higher quality over .co, .biz, .us, etc.

  50. I can appreciate that. If you had 500 .CO’s that’s 15000, ouch! vs 1500 for the good ones. But how much did you have to pay for the good ones and can you expect a return on it?

    If we’re talking .COM’s then a good two word domain that I already own in the .CO are about 2500-3500 each. It would run me easily 30-50 grand to buy up all the .COM’s to replace the .CO. Not that I wouldn’t be interested in doing that on a small scale.

    I learn best by experience. I’ve been reading what I can but it just doesn’t sink in like trial and error. I know a lot of folks that respond here have 5 to 10 years experience or more, so I definitely talk it to heart. I’m just going to keep it small and manageable and maybe try to get at least one or two .COMs.

    I read a post by Glen Woodfin on the best extension for SEO, and his experience was .COM was the best regardless of how much you develop it. His ranking was .COM .ORG .NET. Google just ranks them higher than anything else. He didn’t have anything nice to say about .CO, calling it a sales ploy. The rankings resulting down there with .BIZ .ME and such.

    The first site I developed last year, not for making money, just for kicks, pulls up on Google the first time, every time and it’s a .COM, so maybe there is some truth to it.

  51. @andrea

    Thank you. To be honest I knew about most.

    `A few minutes of research and you can find more cases like these` to be honest again I do not know quick way to do that.

    any idea?

    do you have .co`s ?
    I have some which not really I want to sell but would swap for others .co`s

  52. checkout RAYY.CO, are the .co prices there even remotely possible? A lot of trendy stuff, from what I can tell, 3D just about all..And RAYY isn’t exactly a great .CO for the main site. I have KNAB.CO which is the reverse of BANK and it sounds like nab.

  53. Ah stop that BS about redirections from .com to .co
    Reality is that thends are set by big companies with tons of traffic and those are not really supporting this extension.

    Just checked top 100 companies and what I see:

    apple.co -> apple.com
    godaddy.co -> godaddy.com
    o.co -> overstock.com
    dell.co -> dell.com
    samsung.co -> samsung.com
    ibm.co -> ibm.com
    twitter.co -> twitter.com
    microsoft.co -> microsoft.com
    disney.co -> disneyinternational.com
    hp.co -> hp.com
    louisvuitton.co -> louisvuitton.com
    google.co -> google.com
    nike.co -> nike.com
    nintendo.co -> nintendo.com
    nestle.co -> nestle.com
    adidas.co -> adidas.com
    rolex.co -> rolex.com
    starbucks.co -> starbucks.com

    some of them like Nivea, Colgate or Avon rediret their .co to Columbian .com.co

    And if you really believe in O.co brand… just keep in mind that Overstock registered O.biz and has big appetite for O.com

    Overstock is trying to aquire O.com and registered TM for that purpose:
    http://www.trademarkia.com/ocom-77286254.html

    What to you think? How long it will take for them to switch to O.com if they get it?

    • “How long it will take for them to switch to O.com if they get it?”

      @ Alex

      Likely very quickly, but if Verisign is to release/sell one letter domain names, they certainly wouldn’t do it just to give Overstock O.com for free. It will likely take many years for single letter .com names to come available, and nobody is going to sit idle while waiting for something that may or may not happen.

  54. Regardless of Verisign release of 1 letter domains…. it is obvious why O.co was registered šŸ™‚ ….rebranding – shmanding

    They try to gain advantage over other claims (for example possible claim from Oprah’s magazine “O”).

    And registration of O.com TM is nothing more than classic reverse domain name hijacking technique. I hope that ADR/USPTO will see it as it is.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recent Posts

Handoff to Dan on Imported Leads Can be Confusing

0
I've been using the lead import option at Dan.com more regularly. Although the 5% commission is not ideal, transactions tend to move more quickly...

ArtificialIntelligence.com Goes Up for Sale

7
I tried to buy the ArtificialIntelligence.com domain name multiple times over the last 10 years. The emails I sent to the registrant went unanswered,...

EU Gives More IP Protection to Food & Drink Producers

0
Did you know that some well-known food and drink varieties are protected intellectual property regulations? Popular types of drinks and foods that are protected...

Price Testing

1
In 2022, my wife and I decided our kids were ready for some big mountain skiing and we planned a trip to the Rocky...

GoDaddy Making You Sign in to See What You Renewed (Updated)

3
This morning, I noticed something different in a domain name renewal email from GoDaddy. Instead of telling me exactly what domain names I renewed...