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Investing in .CO Domain Names: My Current Thoughts and Outlook

Elliot Silver
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.CO Domain NamesI am writing much more about .CO domain names than I ever did about .MOBI or .EU or any other new domain extension. I want to make a few things very clear about my feelings on .CO, and you can take it for what its worth knowing the .CO Registry is an advertiser and that I own less than 10 .CO domain names.

With Google’s consideration that .CO is an international domain extension rather than another ccTLD (despite the fact that it is actually Colombia’s ccTLD), I believe .CO domain names have the ability to perform well as websites in any country. I believe that this will mean businesses will be able to successfully build on .CO domain names.

I can only assume that companies like Go Daddy and the .CO Registry will continue to market .CO domain names, targeting consumers and small businesses alike. To my knowledge, this type of mass awareness campaign has not been done before for other extensions, and I think consumer awareness is key to .CO domain values.

I believe that because Google announced it will index these domain names like other extensions combined with the awareness campaign undertaken by the world’s largest domain registrar, .CO will become a widely used domain  extension… in the future. In addition, with gTLDs expected to be released in the future, consumers will slowly adjust to extensions other than .com. It may not be quick, but I do think it will happen.

Personally, I do not believe .CO domain investments are a wise short term play. If you buy a name to flip it this week, month, or year, you could be out of luck.

My domain investment business model primarily revolves around quickly flipping domain names. It’s a cash flow business for me. As a result, I am not investing a whole lot in .CO domain names right now.  Simply put, I don’t have $xxx,xxx in liquid capital that I would use to invest in .CO domain names (to put on the sideline) for a long term investment of potentially several years. There may end up being some great buys in the big Sedo ,CO auction, but we probably won’t know for some time.

If you do make .CO domain name investments, you should do your due diligence. I don’t see a big aftermarket for them amongst domain investors right now, although that could conceivably change after the Super Bowl. Without that, there is limited liquidity. For instance, if I pay $25,000 for a city .com name, I am generally fairly positive I could sell it at wholesale for $20,000+, and that can’t be said about .CO at the moment.

I think it’s actually a good thing that we aren’t seeing huge sales that would encourage others to spend more than they should. It doesn’t appear that there is a bubble forming, which is a very good thing, because bubbles in the domain space aren’t good for the majority of us. When they burst, values plunge as the liquidity is not there to support the valuation.

Some of the comments I hear is that Go Daddy and the .CO Registry are simply hyping this extension and it’s going to end up costing domain investors a lot of money. The irony of this is that every business needs to do marketing for consumer awareness, and it’s the consumer awareness that will help make .CO domain names valuable. Without it, consumers and businesses wouldn’t buy the names, and without that, domain investors wouldn’t make much money unless they developed them.

The bottom line from my perspective is that .CO domain names may turn out to be a fantastic investment in the future. For now, I think it’s great to see the Registry and its registrar partners focusing on a gigantic awareness campaign. I am happy with my current investments, and if I see good names at good prices, I will invest for the longterm.

Domainer Mardi Gras on Hiatus for 2011

Elliot Silver
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A college friend emailed me on Sunday to see if we could get a group of us to hit up Mardi Gras this year, and I realized that I hadn’t received any emails or heard anything about Domainer Mardi Gras this year.

I assumed it might have been cancelled or postponed in light of the heavy load of conferences in the beginning of the year, so I reached out to Michael Ward, Director of Marketing for Parked.com. Sure enough, Domainer Mardi Gras is on hiatus for 2011.

According to Michael, due to the Domain Roundtable conference  “in the Bahamas, along with ICANN SF taking place also in  March, we decided to not host DMG this year.” This is a bummer. Last year, I was scheduled to go but got snowed in, and the prior year I also had a conflict.

IMO, it’s a smart move to postpone it though, rather than compete with the other conferences. Michael hinted that the show  or a meet up of some sort could happen next year, and it’s possible that it might take place during Jazz Fest, another fun annual event in New Orleans. I love Mardi Gras, but Jazz Fest would be just as fun.

Who I Don’t Think the Go Daddy .CO Girl Is

Elliot Silver
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GoDaddy's .CO GirlEarlier today, Kevin Murphy posted the teaser photo released by Go Daddy with the back side of the new Go Daddy .CO girl who will be revealed in the Super Bowl commercial.

A couple weeks back, Mike Berkens speculated that it could be the very sexy Colombia-native Sofia Vergara, who stars in one of my wife’s favorite shows, Modern Family. This would seem like a good tie in since .CO is the Colombia ccTLD.

I have spent a lot of time reviewing this picture and inspecting similar pictures of Vergara. Anatomically, it looks like it could be her or perhaps even Shakira.

I am going to speculate that it won’t be Vergara or even Shakira, another famous Colombia-bred beauty. In my opinion, Go Daddy and the .CO Registry will not want to emphasize the Colombia connection to .CO and if anything, they may wish to de-emphasize it when selling it to the US public.

Colombia is a beautiful country with very welcoming people. But I don’t think the general US population will necessarily want to buy “Colombia domain names.” Much like the .TV extension likes to emphasize that it’s about “television” rather than Tuvulu, I think Go Daddy will probably de-emphasize the fact that it’s a country code TLD and prefer to emphasize that it’s an alternative to .com.

With a Colombian spokesmodel as the .CO girl, it will only play up its Colombia connection. It’s not a bad thing mind you, but you don’t really see .ME showing off it’s Montenegro roots. You can already see how Sedo is marketing its big .CO auction.

Women in Domaining Party During DomainFest

Elliot Silver
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Despite the reputation as a male dominated business, there are many highly successful women domain investors and executives in the domain industry.  During the DomainFest conference in Santa Monica next week, there is going to be a special event for women only: the  Women in Domaining Party.

This year, Oversee is inviting women in our industry to share ideas, meet new contacts and have a chance to network with leading women executives. This year’s party will be held on Thursday, February 3rd from 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM at the Malibu Cabana near the Pool at the Fairmont Miramar  Hotel.

No RSVP is necessary to attend. For more information about this event, please contact Oversee’s Lisa Box (lbox@oversee.net) with any questions.

GoDaddy: “New .COMs and .COs $11.99”

Elliot Silver
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Godaddy

I assume this is a pre-Super Bowl test, since the .CO offer ends on January 26, 2011, but Go Daddy has an interesting special offer splashed across its homepage right now: “New .COMs and .COs $11.99”

Instead of its frothy $29.99 price per domain name, Go Daddy is selling .CO domain names for $11.99/year for the first year only. If you opt to register a new domain name for longer than the first year, the regular price kicks back in after year one.

Perhaps more interesting than the price is the grouping of .COM and .CO together. Some people have shown concern that there could be confusion if people “accidentally” purchase a .CO instead of .COM, which is what was discussed when Go Daddy made .CO a default in a previous test.

Now with the price being the same and .COM the default, Go Daddy will be able to see how amenable customers are to choosing .CO as an alternative to .COM if the .COM of their choice is unavailable.

This price change will also allow GoDaddy to see how price sensitive its customers are when it comes to .CO domain names.

With the company spending millions of dollars on a .CO Super Bowl commercial, it’s a very smart idea to do user testing prior to the game to ensure a smooth experience and help eliminate confusion and an influx of customer service calls.

Thanks to  Giuseppe Biundo for the tip.

Daily Deals Site Coming to Sold.com

Elliot Silver
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I was doing some research today, and I saw a Google Adsense banner that caught my attention.  Generally, an ad for a daily deals website wouldn’t receive any attention from me, but the name of this new website is what caught my eye: Sold.com.

Sold.com is owned by a company called Dominion Enterprises, which operates a number of websites in many verticals (see list of businesses here). Some of these businesses operate on great descriptive domain names, like Homes.com, Boats.com, Parenthood.com, HotelCoupons.com, and a few others.

Previously, based on cached pages indexed in Google, it appears that Sold.com was a real estate website, working in conjunction with two Dominion Enterprises websites,  Homes.com and ForRent.com.

In my opinion, the daily deals vertical seems to be a fairly saturated market with companies like Groupon operating and marketing heavily. With very limited barriers to entry though, it seems pretty easy for a company to open up shop, and owning a fantastic domain name like Sold.com can only help the company.

If you are interested in learning more about what Sold.com will offer or when it will launch, the website encourages people to follow its Facebook page.

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