This isn’t really breaking news considering the previous reports about Overstock’s rebranding of its international sites as O.CO, but I think it’s pretty interesting for some of the naysayers to see.
In the opinion of some, the O.CO acquisition for $350,000 was simply an anticipatory investment to help the company acquire the highly prized O.com domain name when (and if) it eventually becomes available. The company filed for a trademark in that respect, and owning O.CO might be one way to reaffirm it’s rights in the “O” brand.
As someone commented in a previous article, Overstock has unveiled a new logo for its international division. There’s no longer any speculation about the brand – they are now fully known as O.CO internationally.
Perhaps this is because the term “overstock” doesn’t translate well in other languages, but the company still wanted to retain a similar branding. Maybe they wanted a unified international brand no matter which market their buyers are in?
Whatever the case is, the O.CO brand is here to stay, and I think this will help reinforce that .CO domain names are mainstream. Incidentally, there will be an auction for i.CO at Sedo Snapnames in the next few weeks.
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.
Prediction:
Two years from today, there will be more .TV domains registered than .CO domains.
– TBC
My disclaimer:
Our company owns five .co domains: SandCastle.co, WineMarket.co, DarkCastle.co, Broadscape.co, BeachMarket.co (the last three were defensive reg’s for our .com’s).
Our company owns several fine .TV domains, such as: Cheeseburger, d8.tv, 5D.TV, Together.TV, Soc.TV, Silly.TV, Broadscape.TV, BeachMarket.TV, MemphisHomes.TV, and many others.
The next decade+ will be all about Social-Mobile-Video…I recommend you all plan accordingly 😉
– TBC
We have got…
http://VegasJobs.co
http://ChangeJobs.co
http://VegasFlights.co
http://VacationSearch.co
@ Robbie
I know… you mentioned that in practically every .CO post.
If this were a post on rick’s blog the headline would have been BREAKING!!!
@Elliot,
Did I mention we have Cheeseburger.TV 🙂
– TBC
@Elliot
Glad you wrote this post upon my comment. Nice article.
I interviewed Lori Anne Wardi for a piece on my blog last week and as part of the research she sent me to a couple of dozen working end-user sites that were very impressive. Mostly people launching new businesses and new ideas on .co- others like a big beer company using it for a call-to-action ad splash page. I think this extension will be very different and very successful. They have a really smart and energized team behind them too.
@ The Big Cheese
Elliot should charge you a advertisement fee,
your Shameless listings of your misguided
efforts are killing off the topic every time!!!
@ landon white
Yup. Everytime I see TBC, I just keep on scrolling. It’s like a bad infomercial.
wrong information
action will not be at sedo but powered by Moniker and Snapenames
I think it is awesome that O.co is going mainstream. Once the superbowl ads show I think our .co’s will be getting alot more offers.
We have developed breakingnews.co. Getting 100+ hits per day already. Before development it was getting about 5 hits per day.
David
Hi,
I’ve seen many beautiful .co sites. Now that it’s mainstream, will be interesting to see how far it goes.
.co = .com misspell
.co = .confusion
.co = .con
@ Steve
I respectfully disagree.
I am still not convinced about this .Co Business, it just seems like a big marketing ploy to me. Even the purchase of O.Co seem to coincide to neatly with the re-branding of this extension.
I have yet to see a single Google search query return .Co result? If your a high profile company like O, you could basically go with any extension O.Pro, O.Me, could work just as well.
So Elliot, whatever became of the .Co Bahamas site, perhaps you could update us as to the progress of the site, maybe throw in some stats for good measure. Let some of us “naysayers” see some statistics.
Elliot, I realized it was an unfair advantage on my part to put you on the spot with my last post. Your merely stating your point of view, and that is your prerogative. Please disregard the last paragraph of my comment.
Respectfully,
Dean
@ Dean
Like my other sites (blog included), I am not going to publish statistics or revenue. The one exception has been DogWalker.com, although I don’t believe I’ve ever posted stats or exact revenue numbers… it’s one of the benefits of being private.
.CO has been around for less than a year, and I think it will end up being a good investment.
@ Elliot
I relaize that keeping stats private is a big deal. The only reason why I posted mine is that it has been steadily growing since I developed it. Breakingnews.co now has over 300 twitter followers and the hits are increasing every day. I just want to give an example that .co’s seem to be as big as most people are saying. I own over 250 (not so good .com’s) that dont get nearly the hits my 50 or so .co’s get. 🙂
David
@ Dean
Save your breath they wont listen ….
they just “wanna dream” about pie in the sky
MAYBE! ….
BUNCH OF WANKERS!
Back to the O.co logo, I think it is very poorly designed.
The .co part is just regular font, and the tilted O in the bottom left of a red square is not very creative.
Any designers out there care to comment?
Every week .CO is becoming more and more legit.
I foresee a time in the near future when .CO and .COM will be virtually on equal footing and then the tide will turn and .CO will be valued even more since it is shorter and faster.
One thing is for sure. Every single person that has invested in a .CO domain is looking smarter everyday.
And everyone that poo-pooed are, well, out in the cold sort of speak.
@ Robert cline
“Every single person that has invested in a .CO domain is looking smarter everyday.”
I don’t agree with that. There are a lot of crappy hand registered .CO domain names out there.
I only own 6 .co domains. I elected to invest more into .com domains than spend $25 to acquire .co domains.
If I was looking to develop my domains and to make a long term invest, .co would be the way to go.
@The Big Cheese: Not kosher 😛 do you think that was relevant to the subject? grow up and strop trolling. 😛
@Steve M
I think you forgot few words on your list: COnnect, COmmunication, COmpany, COrporation and COmmerce.
@Dean
What’s wrong with a good marketing strategy? Isn’t that how we ended up on earth when Satan “market” the apple to Eve? 🙂
.co is short and sweet! I’m glad I jumped into the .co bus last year even I was kind of disappointed when some of my pre-orders never made it. Now, I’m feeling better and happy with the few names I got: bocaraton.co, nls.co, marrakech.co, caribbeandeals.co, cheapnames.co, 3dcable.co, zawaj.co (marriage in Arabic) and few more.
Personally speaking, I dont like .co’s simply because of the increased probability of error, although there are always people who benefit from error – in general it is quite regressive for the bigger picture. Of course there is nothing wrong with the extension itself, and if it happens to fit or ‘co’ is a relevent keyword then great. I feel that o.co is one of those exceptions in domaining that arent useful in gauging a trend.
Face it – *lots* of fraudulent sites are and will be built on .co’s – to cash in on error, and to steal TM kudos. Im not saying anyone here will do that of course, but believe me lots of people will. That in itself is what makes .co ‘a bit dodgy’ imo. It will probably improve over time but tbh I really dont see the fuss being made over .co . Its true I said that about .tv before now, but thats before the notion of tv bit of a .tv domain as a keyword idea clicked with me, Im slow I know. Thankfully not the slowest. I dont see this happening with .co unless you happen to own the Seb Coe Cocoa Co (.co) 🙂
@LindaM
“Personally speaking, I dont like .co’s simply because of the increased probability of error”
I think as the extension becomes more and more popular, obviously the error rate will decrease accordingly. The confusion comes mainly from the TLD not being known yet. Consider that in everyday life the same thing occurs with any new thing, not only a TLD.
“Face it – *lots* of fraudulent sites are and will be built on .co’s – to cash in on error, and to steal TM kudos.”
You’re absolutely right, that’s what happened with .cm and obviously the risk with .co would have been even bigger. But do you really think the team the operates the .CO registry would let this happen after all the efforts they made in the launch of the TLD? In their faq it’s written the following: “Rapid Takedown Process: We have a process in place to rapidly take down any website in cases where phishing, pharming, malware, or other significant security threats have been identified. We are also putting in place policies to quickly suspend domains in instances where serial cyber-squatting can be established.”
@Elliot
You said it. Crappy domains will be just that in any TLD.
.CC is a more memorable & more brandable domain extension than .Co – we’re now picking up select one-word .CC domains for future development.
Some of you people will be crying rivers of tears once aggregate price discovery in the average .Co occurs – which can only begin to happen after the masses dip their collective toe into the .Co-pool (this should start after the SB commercial).
– TBC
“.CC is a more memorable & more brandable domain extension than .Co”
I wholeheartedly disagree with you on that count. I don’t see many .CC names sell, and I wouldn’t expect to see any kind of resurgence. Consumers have no reason to even know what .CC is, and without them, you make no revenue. Caveat being that if you develop a groundbreaking product or service on ANY domain name, you can give that domain name some value.
You are free to spend you money as you wish, and I am sure the .CC registry would be happy to take it from you.
@Elliot,
We’re picking up short, one-word city names in .CC, for various uses. Granted, .CC fell by the wayside, but it is THE easiest extension to type in – two letters, one key (C). I see it coming back, SEVERAL years down the road to be ranked up there with .com, .org, & .tv.
Don’t worry, we won’t go broke on our small .CC investments 🙂
If .Co takes off like some here have proclaimed, I will be amazed and will admit misjudgement on my part, but I feel pretty confident that I’m right in this particular case – for various reasons.
– TBC
@ TBC
You are more than welcome to buy whatever domain names you think will have value… btw, I am sure you can buy some land in the middle of North Dakota or Wyoming for the anticipated population boom in a couple generations 😉
This thread, like so many others about .co and .tv, has gone off topic, so let’s bring it back to the actual topic please. I am sure one of the domain forums has a .cc subforum you can use 😀
FWIW, I got an email this morning from a vendor-friend who just got back from Vegas (CES) last night. Buzz on the floor was that even though nobody had anything to exhibit, 3D Holo TV’s are definitely coming, maybe even next year. Once they come out, every TV will be standardized with “HD”, so that will be dropped from the TV-manufacturing-lexicon.
The buzz-term than was being thrown around, off the record, was “3DH” for “3D Holo”. You can dismiss or do whatever you want with this info. I for one will not be running around buying 3D Holo domains 🙂
– TBC
@ TBC
This article was from 2007: “TechnoBuzz: PS3 comin’ down + 3DH on the rise”
http://www.boxofmystery.com/?p=84
@Elliot,
Yeah, I know – I remember reading this stuff a couple years ago. My point was, “3DH” was actively being talked about on the CES floor as a product that was just-around-the-corner, as in 1-2 years.
3DH is something I could get excited about; however, I doubt I’ll want to shell out the $10K+ for the first models 🙂
– TBC
ADK.co
and ABT.co
are being used an end user. These domains were purchased in December on Sedo.
@Gnanes
There are lots of .CO domains being acquired developed by end-users. Just to stay in the LLL.co namespace, BMR.co is a very large established hardware chain with 180 stores in Eastern Canada.
@The Big Cheese
Could we please focus on the topic? I’m not saying .CC aren’t of any interest, just think that for someone who wants to stay on-topic, it’s quite frustrating to receive notification emails of comments regarding another TLD. Thanks.
@Joe
I wasn’t aware of BMR.co – it’s a great use a LLL.co.
A few months ago I came across SNSCO, an investment and financial advisory firm that’s using SNSCO.co. They originally had the .NET (which now redirects to the .CO).
The O.CO news is interesting, but the logo’s not that great, and I still think it’s a weird move. They still require a tagline saying “Also known as Overstock.com,” and maybe it’s just because of familiarity, but frankly I think “Overstock dot com” sounds better.
I’m not against .CO, though. I have way too many at this point, including Audiobook.co, Cubicle.co, Efficiency.co, HealthProducts.co, Internships.co, and CloudComputer.co.
@Gnanes
How much were:
ADK.co
and ABT.co
sold for?
@Joe
Is BMR.co the one that was sold for $15,000 ?
I have BMK.co Is this worth $15,000 also ? Thanks in advance for your opinions.
I was looking at sales from December. BMR is a nice site. .Co registry should be showcasing these sites.
@Nadia
puah! boom. right there that tells the whole story.
.CO is superior to .NET
when you have companies redirecting .NET sites redirecting to .CO sites that explains everything, right there. Checkmate.
Can’t argue with that.
SNSCO.COmpany sounds so right.
I just had a revelation.
You know most small, medium size companies which make up the bulk of all economies would way prefer a .CO
Just think about it.
myhot.CO
.CO is going to soar in value. And I think registration prices will come down to be the same as .COm to compete with it and get to 100,000,000 registration.
Against my better judgment, I hand-reg’d two .CO’s today at my business-partner’s request:
SiouxCity.co
Siouxland.co
We have business interests in that area, so I suppose it’s not a total loss – I would have rather had those two in .tv though 🙂
– TBC
Unbelievable, even the strong holdouts are capitulating to what has been obvious to so many that there is no stoping to .CO coming dominance.
As I have always said, like everything in life, out goes the old, and in comes the new fresh .CO
hail to the new king.
Thank’s “big cheese” i just register “3dh.co” I guess your Insanity drove me to my this one.
@ Robert
Same nonsense as before. Slot.co didn’t sell in the 6-7 figures as you suggested. You think .co will replace .com.
You’re seriously misinformed. It will take the general public 10-20 years to to even trust the extension.
You’re somehow affiliated with the extension. Still trying to convince people. Not worth investing $25 into an extension that will take years to appreciate. People are going to want the keywords already sold in auctions for insane prices.
.co will never replace .com.
@ Jason
You are speaking your opinion as well, not fact. 10-20 years is pure speculation on your part.
@ Robert
You sound like someone who is on the Yahoo Finance message boards pumping stocks. It’s getting annoying.
Most small companies are too cheap to even invest $25 into a domain. I have proof of this claim. They make up excuses that the economy is struggling and they don’t get much traffic.
These are the same companies that pay high prices for less appealing domains. .co will not reach 100 million registrations. Millions of bad .com are registered. People can’t afford to waste money on bad .co names. Too much to risk. I can flip a .com. It will take years to convince an end-user to buy a .co.
One past poster on my blog that has a relationship with .co noted the the price is high to reduce cyber squatting.
I only own six .co domains. I don’t plan to purchase another .co. The .com extension will always be the King.
Until another domain investor writes a post on flipping .co domains, I don’t believe the extension can surpass .com. I want to see a flip above $1K for a new name.
@Rich,
I’m glad my info could help someone out. I do think the 3D-Holo-TV’s (3DH) will be huge, way bigger than smart TV’s. You see, within a few years, every TV will be both “smart” & “hd”, so once those features are standard, the “smart” & “hd” will be dropped…brevity, baby.
However, not all TV’s will be 3D or 3DH, so those are two buzz-terms that will likely be around for a long time.
I did pick up one (JUST ONE) holo related domain, reg’d it for 10 years and we’ll see what happens: 3DH.TV 🙂
– TBC
@Elliot
Thanks. In my opinion, it might take 10-20 years to convince the public to religiously use the .co.
@Robert
Not every person watches the Superbowl. Most people, even my dad, use Google and .com.
A commercial is not enough to change traditional standards. Many end-users are too cheap to get listed on a web directory.
You tried to convince domain investors on this blog in the past. You believed slots.co would sell for 6-7 figures. Didn’t happen. A few notable .co domains hold good resell value: Mesothelioma.co, Resume.co, Resumes.co, CollegeDegree.co and a few others.
In my opinion, the push to promote the .co will cost a ton of money. The extension has a good future, but it is more of a long-term invest. You’re not get instant traffic without spending money or having a good marketing plan.
In my opinion, it will probably take 10-20 years for the public to trust the extension (to religiously type-in the extension). What Im suggesting is people are skeptic. They’re not an informed as people in the domain industry. Will people choose efficiency over credibility? Robert preached people like the shorter extension, which is reason he believes 1 less letter will save time.
.co has good long-term value. It really depends on aftermarket sales, marketing plans, .co sites, and consistent advertising costs, and market success. Many companies want their generic .com, but some owners are unwilling to sell the domains.
Maybe Overstock will go after generic product domains featured on their website. I’m sure they have many. However, people don’t always like to search for specific products.
In my opion, .co will not reach 100 million in registrations. It will take a severe price reduction to $8-10 to stimulate the extension to reach half of that success.
If I attempted to sell a .co, I would have less luck than I do with flipping .com domains.
In my opinion, the push to promote the .co will cost a ton of money. The extension has a good future, but it is more of a long-term invest. You’re not get instant traffic without spending money or having a good marketing plan.
In my opinion, it will probably take 10-20 years for the public to trust the extension (to religiously type-in the extension). What Im suggesting is people are skeptic. They’re not an informed as people in the domain industry. Will people choose efficiency over credibility? Robert preached people like the shorter extension, which is reason he believes 1 less letter will save time.
.co has good long-term value. It really depends on aftermarket sales, marketing plans, .co sites, and consistent advertising costs, and market success. Many companies want their generic .com, but some owners are unwilling to sell the domains.
Maybe Overstock will go after generic product domains featured on their website. I’m sure they have many. However, people don’t always like to search for specific products.
In my opinion, .co will not reach 100 million in total registration. in order to capture half of that projection, it will take a massive price reduction to $8-10 to stimulate the extension.
If I attempted to sell a .co, I would have less luck than I do with flipping .net domains.
Excuse some of my posting errors in missing a few words. I tend to use my IPhone to rest my computer. Thanks.
This code save me 27% today on ANY renewal at Godaddy (includes even .CO :):
GDZ138BC
– TBC
@J
No one is going to read all your post.
I fell asleep reading the first couple.
Yawn boring.
quality, not quantity
do not post again.
@ Robert
“do not post again.”
Same for you 😉
@Robert
You’re still drinking the spiked punch. You’re slots.co prediction never amounted to anything. Your posts sound like cheesy infommercials.
Domain investors don’t need you to make a buying decision. In my opinion, .co will never reach 100 million in total registration. Yours embarassing yourself trying to promote .co. The extension needs time to grow. I don’t have anything against the extension. I own 6 .co. Price is the determining factor.
@Elliot
Are you the same as the owner of this site?
@J
Of course .CO can’t get millions of registration at price of $29.95
That is why I am saying the price will have to come down to get into the millions of registration.
There are novelty domains that can price at $30 because they know that not many people are going to register in their extension anyways.
But to get the masses of people .CO will need to eventually and will eventually lower the price to successfully compete against .com
There is a difference between posting 3 posts and posting 30 posts in a row.
@ Robert
Let’s remain civil here.
Nobody should be telling anyone else not to post their opinions on someone else’s website.
Have a good weekend.
@Robert
And your posts are quality. 🙂 If I were searching for information on the .co, and found your comments, I would not buy another .co based on your poor assessment. Your posts are embarrassing.
Why don’t you over invest into .co? You seem to be confident about the .co outlook. Let domain investors make their own decision to purchase the extension.
In my opinion, .co will not reach 100 million in total registration, even at $8-10. Why? There are many protected names. The general public is used to .com sites. Essentially, they are familiar with the extension.
.co has to gain mass appeal to increase in value and total registration. It will not surpass 100 million. You try too hard to push the extension. You rarely discuss anything other than the .co.
Need to follow this thread. Funny shit and .co hype
Who Will Buy i.Co? Will Apple Really Allow Someone Else To Own It?
2011 JANUARY 8
47 COMMENTS
by MHB
Yesterday the .Co registry sent out its first press release of the year, reminding everyone that The time to pre-qualify for the i.Co is coming to a close in just a couple of weeks (the press release is on the bottom of this post).
The domain name itself, i.Co already is getting close to 10,000 visitors a month, according to Compete, which tends to under report traffic. The domain also has an Alexa Ranking under 500,000.
So thought it might be fun to figure out who the most likely buyers of this domain are or at least should be:
Apple
They created the “i” brand and it seems like a no brainier for them to lock this domain up.
From the iPhone, to the iPod to the iPad and even the itouch its a “i” world thanks to Apple, will they let someone else buy this?
IBM
There was a time when IBM was it in the computer world.
So when it comes to the computer industry IBM would have to a strong choice of the companies that might logically want i.Co
Intuit
From Quicken to Quickbooks to Mint.com, Intuit has created some great brands and i.Co would seem to perfect fit for a tech company whose brands are better know than the company itself.
Microsoft
For years Microsoft had to endure all of those attack ads by Apple saying how great Apple was and how poorly Vista Performed.
Now Microsoft has the opportunity to snatch i.Co and the “i” brand away from Apple itself, with tens of billions in the bank will Microsoft sit by and miss the chance to win one from Apple for what amounts to chump change for it?
Google
Likewise Google which has tens of million in the bank might be smart to grab this domain and use it to promote its Android smart phones and Tablets that will be coming out to compete with Apple’s iPhone and iPad.
Intel
Another high tech company that has spent hundreds of millions branding itself and could pick up i.Co especially for use in the non-US market much like Overstock is doing with o.Co.
Yahoo.com
Anytime you mention Apple, Microsoft and Google you also have to mention Yahoo as a possible player.
QuinStreet
The public company spend over $100 Million to buy insure.com, carinsurance.com and insurance.com. While approaching a $1 Billion dollar valuation on the market its a brand that is not widely known.
i.Co would seem a natural fit for the company and a great chance to brand itself on the net.
ICO Companies
There are several companies known by the name ICO.
On the New York Stock exchange, International Coal Group goes by the ticket symbol ICO.
Currently the company uses a pretty bad domain intlcoal.com and doesn’t own the domain with the natural spelling, InternationalCoal.com, which is plenty long anyway.
With a market cap of $1.75 Billion this is another company that could rebrand itself for what amounts to chump change for them.
Another ICO company is ICO Global Communications Holdings whose stock symbol is ICOG, and which owns Ico.Com
Although this company is not as big as any of the other companies mentioned here, it’s market cap is still almost $500 Million.
ico.com only gets 50 visitors a month according to Compete so the domain i.co would drive a lot of traffic and attention to this company.
The International Coffee Association which uses ico.org as its site and calls themselves ICO, should want i.Co especially being a worldwide organization and of course much of the worlds coffee comes out of Colombia.
Others
Some off line brands might also have interest including the clothing retailer Intermix. Izod is another clothing line that would seem to be a natural fit for i.Co
Any insurance company that wants to key in on the letter “i” for insurance.
Citibank could easily brand something around the ‘I’ since Citi basically did this long ago rather than calling itself Citybank.
GE who has used the phrase “imagination at work” for a long time could key in the letter ‘i”
iVillage, yes they are still around and certainly cold use a brand makeover.
iNewswire the press release service which uses the domain, http://www.i-newswire.com, could certainly use a better domain, especially since they don’t own inewswire.com. Also i.Co would also be a great shortener for them and their clients.
IKEA, talk about a global brand that could benefit from a short i.Co for use around the world.
INGdirect which uses Ing.us and Ingdirect.com as its websites, is a HUGE public company that spends tens of millions a year on ads including TV ads and i.Co is a hell of lot easier to remember than ingdirect.com
A few others possibilities;
IGN Gaming
Indeed
ioffer
Inc.
So the question is who is the company that’s going to wind up getting this domain when the auction is held in February?
It will be interesting.
As promised, here is the press release send out by the .Co registry yesterday:
“””Happy 2011! To start the New Year off with a Bang – the .CO Registry will be auctioning off the domain name i.CO in the coming weeks. The letter “i” is the shortest and most often-used word in the entire English language. And with the popular .CO domain to the right of the dot, i.CO is the shortest web address in the world — with the potential to create one of the most meaningful, memorable Internet brands in history.””
The auction will be privately held and only qualified bidders will be eligible to participate. Bidder qualification will commence immediately and will end on January 21st, 2011. As such, time is of the essence to make your business case, get your budget approved — and prepare yourself to win the domain name destined to become the “next big thing” online!
What makes i.CO so compelling?
“i is interactive. i.CO embodies the fastest growing activities done on the internet today from social, entertainment and news media to mobile services and devices – any and all things interactive.
“i is impactful.”
“There are only a few one letter .CO domain names that have ever been made publicly available.”
“Twitter is leveraging t.CO its official URL shortener; and Overstock is rebranding all of its international sites from Overstock.com to o.CO”
“Now, i.CO gives YOU the rare chance to be an industry thought leader — one of the first and only to leverage a one letter, iconic domain name — and world class brand.”
“i is for … the innovative, inspirational, insights and ideas, of the billions of individuals interconnected on the Internet!”
“For more information regarding this truly one-of-a-kind premium domain name auction, please visit http://i.co – and fill out the short form. Someone will get back to you as soon as possible to answer your questions.”
Best Regards,
The .CO Team “”
@Robert
You have no respect for this blog. You can easily use a link to direct people to the press release. Instead, you fill the blog up with information we can all read from the site you took it from.
@Robert
You could have provided the link to The Domains. At least I prepare my own content. You think my posts lack quality because you are too close-minded on the fact that .co may not be as successful as you anticipate.
Other than the o/i.co style trophy names, .co’s are junk. Everyone who doesnt have a kickback/affiliate link to the .co registry or some other skin in the game knows it. Maybe youve spent/wasted a bunch of money on .co’s and now your only hope is to try pump the value on blogs. Im not saying that wont work in the short term, but its pretty low down the list of market manipulation methods imo.
I also think its fair enough that some domain investors diversify a tiny percentage of their portfolio into .co too – but I think it would be a mistake to see that as any indication of value really, after all they are just covering all the bases, and can afford to take losses with no harm done. Im sure when pushed, most would agree that their .co holdings were towards the highly speculative end of their diverse strategy.
The way I see it is that if you have say $25 to buy a .co with – why?? Thats several .com hand regs that are almost certainly a higher return with imo lower risk of losing the whole purchase price. I guess what Im saying is why play keno when the blackjack table is free.
To a certain extent, what we think about .co is irrelevant. What is important is what the search engines (in particular, Google) think, and it is pretty clear to me that .co domains not only rank worse in search than .com but also worse than some of the more obscure tlds – .net, .info etc.
I do not know of any .co domains that rank well for search terms. I would love to be proven wrong here, as I have a developed .co domain, and also some other .cos that I would love to use if I didn’t think it would be a waste of time.
In my opinion .CO domains will success unless ICANN releases new TLDs. Even though ccTLD will not affect .CO domains, I think new international TLDs could hurt the development of .CO
Around 5 months ago I looked up what was available to register within .CO and I was surprised to find a few interesting web sites. Here are a few I got:
ADONAI.CO
BANKCREDITCARDS.CO
BESTCARDS.CO
COLORADODUI.CO
DEPORTATION.CO
HOUSEMATES.CO
MENSEX.CO
NOSEJOBS.CO
ROCKPOP.CO
ROCKROLL.CO
SPORTSCASINO.CO
TRANSGENDERS.CO
VEGASTIME.CO
WORKINJURIES.CO
What do you think about these ones? Do you think they will be valuable?
@AlexKearns
“I do not know of any .co domains that rank well for search terms”
The most important factor to Google is content, so if you have a website built on a .CO domain whose content is considered by Google to be more relevant than the .com’s, it will have no problem in ranking your .CO higher than the .com – here’s a couple of examples:
Search for ‘BMR’ – http://x.co/Li00
Search for ‘Charlotte Church’ – http://x.co/Li03
One thing .CO taught me was that if I am not willing to register a .com for 3 years, I don’t gamble the $8 on what is likely worthless.
The 3 domains I have registered this year to flip, I have already sold for $$$.
Just reg’d another .co as a defensive registration for the .com we already have:
Thictionary.co
This is the LAST .co we’ll be buying 😉
– TBC
Well, for me, I have seen the top 3 registrars suggest very nice .CO domains as alternate .com names that were no longer available.
Have sold 3 .CO domains so far.
Got a nice $2000 offer over the phone.
Boys and girls, what are you going to do when all the .com s are taken ???
I received a nice $xx,xxx offer few days ago.
Offers only? No sales. Easy to talk about offers. Not easy to make sales.
Indeed I believe that .CO will be great, I have no doubts; however, I am thinking of registering a few new domains
I found that the following ones are still available
robertclineisannoying.co
robertknockitoff.co
robertisrepetitive.co
Anyway, lets forger about what I have just said, I wanted to ask Ellio, do you think the domains I bought ?(the ones from my last message) will be valuable if .CO becomes somehow succesfully?
@J
Actually I am waiting for $xxx,xxx type of offer. You would be surprised if I told you what it is.
But I just love this domain so I am going to develop it.
Booyah!
I have a few .co names and have received a few offers over the last 2 months
Las-Vegas.co
3DGaming.co
CheapAutos.co
CheapVacation.co
ComputerGame.co
FlashGame.co
VegasCasinos.co
I only invested in about 6/7 names during landrush and focused mainly on highly-searched keywords
Will be interesting to see how it develops over the next few years
Had a few nice offers on my 3D/Holo names as well, it certainly is a niche that is picking up speed at a rapid pace. I am getting offers on about 6 of my 3D names on a regular basis now, but nothing worth selling for.
Good luck to you all in 2011
@ Giles,
Yes, 3DH-TV technology is the future of in-home entertainment. Good luck with you domains 🙂
– TBC
.co = .com misspell
.co = .confusion
.co = .con
@ Mike
Wow. Creative.
@Mike
what ?
misery loves company. It just won’t be me.
When I look at my LLL.CO domains, they look pretty.
I plan on developing them.
Take a look at some:
http://www.wiw.co/
I’m glad .co diverted attention away from the .com. Less competition for me to acquire good .com names and flip them.
J
@ J
Nice… what are some of the names you’ve been able to flip as a result of diverted attention?
@Elliot
I flipped a resume related .com last week. I can’t name the domain or company because they don’t want any publicity and probably want to remain private.
I sold a few job .com, as well as a dozen .us job domains. In a few months, I will definitely push several more resume related .com. I see many sharing names, but I think it’s better to remain private. I used to discuss names regularly, but now I’m more reserved. I just focus on developing a strong sales technique that helpa me to be an effective seller.
The sales are .com job domains and a resume related .com
name. I stocked up on these names while everyone went out and
purchased .co. I have education names too. It’s going to be a good year. Thanks.
J
@Elliot,
The .com sales are job and resume related. The company and another buyer are not looking for any publicity. I think it’s best to remain private about the these names. These are actual sales, and not offers as many tend to comment on.
When I sell domains I can share, I will definitely reveal them. My .com are heavily concentrated in resume and education. I have a few dozen job domains. I still continue to find names even to this very day.
I stocked up on education and resume related beginning in July. I look to make many more sales in the niches mentioned above. Thanks.
J
@J & @Elliot,
It is interesting that you mention this.
I was in this morning looking for some decent dropped .com
and when I looked at them, my desire to buy any of them was not there.
compare to any of my LLL.CO domains that I have, none of the .com’s were worth buying.
How interesting is that.
I looked at my LLL.CO’s and thought to myself I want to develop these out instead of buying something like somethingstupid.com
My LLL.CO’s looked so much better than any .com that I didn’t even bother going through the list.
Guys I love how this is getting a ton of attention. It seems like the haters are coming out because they didnt grab the .co’s when it was cheap. I personally registered about 50 .co’s nad have now sold 4 of them totalling about $2,000.
igen.co – $500
ESV.co – $500
WomensJeans.co – $500
StockMarketQuatoes.co – $350
here are my golden jewels that I am waiting to sell:
BreakingNews.co – Developed
MP3s’co
Redundant.co – May be in the sedo auction coming up for .co’s
EIA.co – VVV.co
I own about 25 LLL.co’s anyone know what to do with them? they are listed below:
brk.co
eia.co
exm.co
fiu.co
fmf.co
fwb.co
gir.co
glw.co
gmu.co
gza.co
hbk.co
igen.co
nko.co
nlt.co
odp.co
omb.co
pbk.co
rdn.co
tgim.co
vmw.co
vpl.co
@David,
Very nice LLL.CO’s
You have FLU.CO, lucky dog
Don’t sell yourself short,
remember BRK.CO was sold for $15,000
GoDaddy DID leave behind some teasers. According to Bob Parsons, he won’t reveal who she is, but he says
she’s a “well-known, edgy, racy iconic actress. And she’s our first blonde.”
SCARLETT JOHANSSON
or
Bar Refaeli
@Robert Cline
Thank you…
I dont have fiu.co – FIU.co
I have BRK.co Not sure where you got it sold for $15,000. Were you meaning BRK.com sold for $15,000? Do you know anyone who would buy any of these lol.
David
@David,
I got it, it was BMR.CO that sold for $15,000
to a Canadian hardware company.
Don’t sell yourself short.
There will be a lot of mid size companies that want these 3 Letter domains for their business.
They are jewels.
@Domaining
– – –
The .com sales are job and resume related. The company and another buyer are not looking for any publicity. I think it’s best to remain private about the these names. These are actual sales, and not offers as many tend to comment on.
– – –
Okay, but you do realize that without a proof anyone can state whatever they wish, don’t you? Especially in a heated discussion like one about .CO.
@Joe,
These sales took place. I have enough integrity to keep them private. Sure, I would like to mention them to demonstrate that my ability to forecast a niche has already rewarded me.
I get what you’re saying regarding sharing the domain names. I will be selling to them again, so I don’t think it will be wise to mention the names that recently sold. I have many more .com. I bought them when everyone concentrated on the .co.
I could have purchase 20 3 character .co, but only registered 1. I don’t mind because I invested more into three niches which I consider marketable. If I made any sales to any other, I would disclose the domains that sold. Thanks.
J