I want to share a press release I read this morning announcing that a yacht company has acquired the Y.CO domain name from the .CO Registry. The company previously operated on ycoyacht.com, so this seems to be a major upgrade for them.
I believe it is the first non-Internet company to own a single letter .CO domain name, and the company stated that it is “the first luxury brand to migrate to a single letter domain” and they made the acquisition because it “reinforces the company’s position as an industry leader in digital marketing and innovation.”
The terms of the deal were not announced, although Juan Diego Calle of the .CO Registry had stated at one point that single letter .CO domain names cost over $1.5 million.
Here is a list of who owns (or operates) single letter .CO domain names, not including those that are still owned by the .CO Registry and remain unused:
- A.CO – Amazon
- E.CO – Someone in China
- G.CO – Google
- K.CO – Amazon
- O.CO – Overstock
- S.CO – Startup America
- T.CO – Twitter
- X.CO – Go Daddy
- Y.CO – Y.CO Yacht Company
- Z.CO – Amazon
Press release:
Y.CO announces its new single letter web address –y.co – today, as the 2013 Monaco Yacht Show gets underway. The purchase of y.co from .CO Internet S.A.S sees the superyacht brokerage and management company become the first luxury brand to migrate to a single letter domain and further reinforces the company’s position as an industry leader in digital marketing and innovation.
Joining the ranks of Amazon, Twitter and Google, Y.CO is one of only a select group of companies in the world to have successfully acquired a single letter .CO domain. The new web address is expected to enhance Y.CO’s brand recognition and allow the company to connect and engage with their consumers more effectively. To better communicate with mobile and socially connected consumers, Y.CO is today also launching its new iPad app.
Charlie Birkett, Founding Partner and CEO at Y.CO comments “To engage with a client base that includes some of the biggest names in the tech world, it is essential for Y.CO communications to be at the forefront of technology. Our website is our most important communication channel and we are proud to be one of the first and only companies to have a web address that exactly matches our brand name. The launch of our iPad app, allowing offline access to our yachts, compliments this perfectly. These are the investments that cement our position as an innovative, forward thinking company offering a truly global service to owners and charterers of superyachts worldwide.”
Juan Diego Calle, Founder and CEO of .CO comments, “Just as in the world of boating, there are yachts and there are super yachts; in the digital world there are domain names, and there are super domain names. By changing its digital brand from ycoyacht.com to the eponymous Y.CO url, one of the shortest and most valuable pieces of digital real estate in the world, Y.CO joins the ranks of a handful of the world’s leading tech titans, including Google (g.co), Twitter (t.co) and Amazon (a.co), each of which has previously acquired a .CO single letter domain name to further their own online branding initiatives.”
About Y.CO
Founded in Monaco in 2003, Y.CO is a different kind of yacht company – its founders and senior management have come from yachting backgrounds with decades of experience working on some of the largest yachts in the world. Y.CO offers clients services in sale, purchase, charter, management and construction of the world’s most exclusive vessels, starting from 28m (80ft) in length to 130m (430ft). The company has become renowned for its pioneering approach to every aspect of yachting – including the development of its own groundbreaking yacht management software – and is proud to include among its clients and brand ambassadors some of the most influential business people and experienced yachtsmen in the world. Y.CO’s headquarters are in Monaco with offices in London, Doha, Newport, Fort Lauderdale and Antibes.
About .CO
With more than 1.5 million web addresses registered by individuals and businesses in over 200 countries, the .CO domain has become one of the most successful top-level domain extensions in history. From start-ups and small businesses to big brands and multinational corporations, .CO is increasingly becoming the domain of choice for innovators and entrepreneurs the world over. For more information about .CO domains, please visit http://www.go.co.
I think for companies that want to do offline marketing this could be an interesting approach to create a unique brand, especially if their other brand is so vague like this ycoyacht name, not sure it worked for overstock though
Amazon: Web Domains and Top Level Domain Names http://www.amazon.com/gp/collections/PCxlcwcv7R0pomL_5ITLwIerA
Do you have any idea about the price?
As a frequent visitor to the fantastic marine weather website passageweather.com I first noted the excellent Y.co domain over a year ago as one of the banner advertisers on that website and a check on archive.org shows their oldest record of a Y.co advert as being 18 Dec 2011, a little over 21 months ago:
http://web.archive.org/web/20111218235423/http://passageweather.com/
Maybe in that period up to now the yacht firm was trying out the domain name prior to buying it from the .co registry? Whatever the case, the superyacht brokerage timed the PR release nicely to gain good exposure at the start of the Monaco Yacht Show.