My Take on O.com….I Mean O.co, and Other New Extensions and Their Fate

Morning Folks!!


There’s a problem on the way to the wedding of new extensions and reality of profit making business. Branding costs a lot of money. Branding a new extension is harder than branding your product or company. It is a monumental undertaking.


I purposely did not read Sahar’s blog post on the subject until after I wrote this just to see how we each came at it. He has much more facts supporting his position but we are not so far apart at all.


O.com I mean O.co or Overstock.com has done one thing so far, caused confusion and they are likely pissing away a lot of money by not owning O.com which of course is associated with Oprah not Overstock. And right now neither of them has it. It does not resolve.


My point is this is a test. This is a canary in the mines. I don’t know which way it will go. But I do have a hunch it will be more difficult than they expect with a lot of blow back. So far, the winner on this one is the ad exec putting this grand experiment together. There will be a lot to learn here. Some you may want to copy and some you may want to avoid.


Is confusing your customer a good thing? I guess we will find out. The unknown is how many folks will go to O.com to find nothing and then just say what a bunch of idiots never to return. A real risk.


Now on to the other new extensions. They include .xxx , .me, .food and likely hundreds if not thousands of others. This is going to be fun. New ways to print old money. But knowing what we know now is the best way to exploit all the new extensions be investing in them or in an other capacity?


An extension could easily smother themselves with a wrong move. Could lose time thinking their premiums will go up. Probably won’t happen with .mobi. Timing IS everything.


You can’t play the new phase exactly like the past phase and expect to do well. It requires a fresh set of eyes and a fresh look. Forget what you know. Examine it like you never knew what a domain was. You just know what you know. Would you do it the same? Could you do it the same?


.travel has not exactly done well. Why would folks expect other extensions to do all that much better? Last count there were 28 choices of extensions at Direcnic.com. How many do you think the average guy on the street even knows about?? Hey I don’t have the answer. I just have the questions. .travel made some fatal mistakes early on and never recovered. Other have dome even worse.


.co made all the right moves early on and they have a shot. The best shot. But still nothing more than a canary in the mines. We'll know more in a few weeks after the Superbowl. That will determine many things that will happen this year. This is a grand experiment. We’ll see. I will pay attention to that more than anything else in the first 6 weeks of the year. And it may end up meaningless. Just confusion and if that is the grand plan, bring it on, they will always default to what they know. What is familiar. .Com will still rule except the value will be much more as many learn the lessons the hard way. Some will learn and move on and some will die in their tracks with little fanfare.


Will it cause confusion? It would have to do well to even get to the state of confusion. In my eyes, still a long shot. UDRP cases have not been kind to .co. So any .co that has a successful .com counterpart and you can expect to be challenged on that domain name. And be prepared to lose.


Been there, done that. Got the T-Shirt. Enjoy the parade. Participate in it if you like. There are still fortunes to be made in failure. Just make sure it is the others guys failure and not your own and you will do well. A failure here and you can expect the value of .com to rise once again along with skepticism with any and all other new extensions.


Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz




60 thoughts on “My Take on O.com….I Mean O.co, and Other New Extensions and Their Fate

  1. em

    Hey Rick. Nice post.
    I’m not convinced that people always go back to what they know. The biggest users on the Net are 18-36 year olds. Within this age category, there is much more experimentation going on and a lot more burgeoning, hungry entrepreneurs. i think with the young minds having the grasp of viral marketing better then their previous generations, it leads to a certain unpredictability, also in the domain game.
    If people are confused that easily about .co, maybe it just requires more education. To be honest, now that I am familiar with O.co, O.com looks kinda of out of place. Due to it’s unavailability, O.com’s clout has been somewhat diminished.
    I remember recently, 3 auto giants were on the brink of bankruptcy…what’s this? The unthinkable? The staples of our auto industry going down the tubes. Proof that nothing is so static, as you refer to .com. The tides will continue to change. And with the internet, they can change very rapidly.
    I also read Sahar’s blog. The points about the law of leadership can be applied in many different ways. One could argue that O.co demonstrates the law of leadership exactly. Overstock rebranded to be a market leader. It really is that simple.
    However, I do believe, as you say, that .com’s will steadily increase. The top 205 of .com prices will continue to skyrocket with .co but the other 80% of .com’s (ie low quality) will drastically diminish in price as new TLDs are introduced to the market and people are given a variety of choice. There is much to be said for choice and availability.

    Reply
  2. Lee

    Hi Rick,
    I think the .co registry are doing a great job of marketing the new TLD, I think I’ll save my cash for .com’s though. To participate in the L.co auction a $100,000 minimum promise was required and as I’m already regretting the $70 hand reg’s I did for generic .mobi’s, I’ll give this a miss!
    Another thing to consider, will Google consider .co as just another ccTLD, only giving it a higher weghting on google.co (which isn’t resolving for me atm!).
    I understand the appeal to reg .co as an investor at this time, with the marketing hype, but as someone who worked full time for an investor acquiring .eu names at the landrush, I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Save the money for the REAL gTLDs!

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  3. Joey Starkey

    I am just a new guy trying to find success like some of you guys (That would be you Rick) that found this little niche early. So every name I buy is very important to me.
    But until I see how the UDRP’s between the .com’s and the .co’s turn out. I will keep my $29.99 in my pocket and out of GoDaddy’s sticky little fingers.
    I only see this as a golden egg for those issuing the .co. I mean you have got to ask yourself what is the going rate for a commercial on the SuperBowl? I guess that is why you have to charge a $30 reg fee.
    Good luck to all some of you are gonna need it.

    Reply
  4. Edie

    Hi Rick,
    I’m just starting out in domain investment but speaking here as an end-user who has been buying online since Amazon was a shaky start-up, my take on it is that I welcome any short-cut that lets me get to a website faster on my smartphone.
    As a buyer, I care less about dot-extension than I do about dot-faster and .co saves me from typing the”m”.

    Reply
  5. Anthony

    Rick we have seen this movie many times before …
    sure the special effects get better and better …
    but the ending is ALWAYS the same :)

    Reply
  6. Chadi

    Hey Rick,
    Coming from an International Orientation, being in an area of the world stuck in the middle between continents and cultures, I can safely assume the .CO will make it; also, I can also safely say that .CO is not comparable to any other fairly new TLDS that came or to come like .mobi or .travel.
    If I were to put myself in the shoes and eyes of a fresh newcomer who knows nothing about TLDs, I cannot imagine a better choice than .CO (not even .com).
    Nothing is sacred ever, especially in this industry (my opinion). Short lived memory, no fidelity, low attention span, and one letter short of .com. The motto in this industry = shorter is better, smaller is more powerful etc…
    So, I see a very good case for the .co, regardless of the super bowl, and the Columbia factor is absurd.
    Everything must originate somewhere. One can’t say”I will not drink Vodka because its originally Russian.”
    Call me hasty, unexperienced, say”who is this newbie…”, whatever…
    I know I’m right about this one, and you are right about watching over it for the upcoming 6 months.
    As a proof of my strong belief, I bought a domain name recently for my newly launched Domain Name Network (the.com of it for 1k), and I forwarded it to the main page which is the .co, because I like the domain name in the .co extension better, and I cannot let go of my taste easily. However, understanding that I can loose traffic, I bought the .com (only to overcome the behavioral tendencies of internet users).
    Some domains are just better with a certain TLD than other, and it happens that all companies and ecommerce domain names are simply better as .co, which increase the chances of this TLD to make it.
    .com is like good wine, it’ll always increase in value with time. Not everyone can afford good wine. However .co could well be the second best drink to have, and alternatives sometimes rule.

    Reply
  7. Jeff Schneider

    Hello Rick,
    Some of the most engaging minds in our Industry have been pondering the contents of your post today.Your multi-dimensional views on things, are the reason why your Blog is the go-to Blog for the straight Stuff in our Industry.
    Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)

    Reply
  8. Rick Schwartz

    @Chadi,
    I think you just made my strongest point. You ALSO have the .com version. THAT is ok. That captures all and you can brand yourself. My point was that o.co without owning o.com made a huge gamble. It may or may not pay off.
    There are other pitfalls. rooting for something alone is just not enough. You have to have a balanced eye and search for the negative 10X stronger than searching for the positive. Many close their eyes to the bad stuff and then they paint an unrealistic picture.
    Shorter is better and .co has a chance. But it may denote some negatives and that is what you need to magnify to understand better.

    Reply
  9. Rick Schwartz

    There is not any comment here so far that is not true. How all things play out in concert will determine things. Content is more important with any other extension for the most part. Things are very fluid, behaviors are changing. A huge shift may or may not happen. The NUMBERS will decide things. Not anything else. And for those that don’t care about the numbers…..good luck.

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  10. Ad Exec

    .CO is the biggest scam we have seen yet. Nothing more than a hyped up typosquat extention. Unfortunately this time around domainers were coaxed into perpetuating the scam on behalf of the few (literally) that took advantage of the foolish speculators.
    Pump and dump, no different from the Wall Street scams we have all witnessed over the past decade.
    I encourage all to buy, develop, and advertise on .CO so I will get additional free traffic to my .coms. Any takers? Overstock.com will at least be sending the traffic to a dead page (o.com). Consistent with the poor decision making of the most hated stock on Wall Street. OSTK is an absolute turd that nobody dares to invest in, a $350M market cap with $1B in revenue (yes, a P/S ratio of .35) and 20% of the float is short. That is the posterchild for the adoption of .CO by corporate America?
    Does anyone really think that the corporate world spent hundreds of billions if not trillions over the past 15 years promoting their .com business only to revert to .co and cause massive consumer confusion and business disruption?
    Wake up and smell the scam, a super bowl GD commercial won’t change that and certainly OSTK won’t. Check back in a year peeps and we’ll see who is holding the bag.

    Reply
  11. Chadi

    Of course Rick, I did not mean to contradict your point on the necessity of overstock owning o.com.
    Actually, I do not think Overstock’s ownership of O.CO is truly representative of the real boost needed for the .CO TLD.
    It’ll require actual sites whose brands’ survival strategy is built around the .CO philosophy.
    However, what I needed to confirm is that .co deserves to be watched for the next 6 months. It also deserves to be owned; and its truly strange to me as I see some experts in the domain industry so willing to sell out on premium .Co(s) all too soon for too little. Sometimes, I thank God I entered into the domain industry late enough not to be too discouraged by previous TLD misfortunes to spot the uniqueness of TLDs like .CO.
    I meant to say exactly that .co is tasty enough to be built upon– tasty enough to tease a little the aristocracy of .com. It has some middle class quality about it which I’m yet not sure how to characterize it.
    Note, that I do not deny the role that .COM plays in boosting the charisma of .CO. However, sometimes, .CO makes me wonder why .COM existed to begin with. I then am doomed by the negative political and economic vibes which I’ve always felt the internet should be most immune against.
    and of course, one should never try to be smart enough not to care about numbers. However, one should be smart enough to invest in .co right before the numbers become The Issue. I’m sure this is not directed to you (its an opinion). People like you Rick are to learn from, and its specifically why your Blog is one of the very very very few blogs I personally respond to (probably the only nowadays), even though I know this is not smart of me if I am to think blogvertisement.
    You deserve a big thanks for inspiriting the world of domain names.

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  12. Yaron

    .co made all the right moves? maybe the right moves with domainers, but I’m not so sure about the public… and by the way, ,mobi did some good moves as well, but again, you cant build an extension only on domainers.
    If you really want to see a success story look at the .biz extension – domainers hate it, but who cares when so many small business and especially Affiliate marketer love it???

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  13. UFO

    Let’s face it. New extensions are IPOs. And nobody is acting as underwriter. Domainers definitely wont.
    On a cost benefit analysis .com always wins. Less risk and more saleable.
    The”penny dreadfuls” of the stockmarket are the new extensions on the internet. How many times can a dead horse be flogged? Given that the majority of domainers know these are fools gold, most extensions are sunk before they start.
    A domain is worth NOTHING unless the market has bought into it, and nothing will touch .com with its BILLIONS spent on marketing, nothing.

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  14. Rich

    chadi@
    i agree with everthing you said.
    1.premium .co domains auctioned to soon
    2.new generation dont have a problem with change
    3.”Nothing is sacred”
    4.”.co could well be the second best drink to have”
    I dont see o.co confusing,it even sounds right.Beeing one letter is refresh, so is.co.The hole fraze is fresh.The way i seeit people will type o.co

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  15. Lee

    One thought… as O.com is currently a reserved name, if it ever gets released maybe Overstock can stake a good claim to it during the sunrise period ;)

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  16. martin

    Interesting…
    Registrars here in Europe are still selling the .co as the Colombian TLD! So, who will register a .co here? NOBODY! Let’s accept it, the .CO is the Colombian Country Domain Name with a really good marketing behind.
    And the worst thing to do is owning the .co and not the.com for your business! That’s a big big mistake!
    Cheers!

    Reply
  17. KD

    The .Co reminds me of some rich kid saying I want to play the drums. His parents buy him a 10,000 dollar set of drums and he gets his first lesson and he tells the teacher.I want to learn Hot For Teacher by Van Halen by lunch.Then is dismay he pouts and goes crying back to daddy and says why, why, why won’t it work.just sayin.It will work but it will take alot of lessons and it will never be Alex Van Halen,I mean .com ;)

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  18. Alistair Banerjee

    Hi Rick,
    Nice post! When .co was released, I just bought one nnn.co just for the helluvit! I got into domaining through development and my views on this subject often differ from more hardcore domainers. Any new extension, from my standpoint, will never gain widespread acknowledgment unless the extension itself is HEAVILY promoted by its registry. Even many so-called tech savvy internet users in the US itself do not know that .us exists…let alone using it!
    Lately I noticed single dictionary word medium and some high CPC keyword .cos being sold in forums and aftermarket auctions at low to high $xx(…) .co, .cc or .cm will never become .com, in their use or popularity (even though I have sold some .ccs in the aftermarket and was happy with what the buyers paid for them!) I personally thought Overstock’s O.co acquisition was a silly move from the marketing point of view.
    If I had to predict based on my research, country first level extensions will gain more popularity in the future: .mx more than .co.mx for Mexico, .in more than .co.in for India…simply because it’s easier to remember single level extensions and they looks”cleaner” from a business standpoint.
    However, new extensions will gain popularity as domain hacks (specially in the social networking world with average success)…I believe it all originated from delicio.us…
    To all reading this post: Mind you, they also own delicious.com ;)
    Go Bears!

    Reply
  19. Gazzip

    “My point is this is a test. This is a canary in the mines.”
    That’s a great way to put it Rick, so far they spent $350,000 dollars on the CANARY and (wild guessing here) somewhere up near the million dollar range for the CAGE.
    I would imagine that for $400,000 to $1Million they could have bought an amazingly strong .com brand name or a generic.com with built in traffic.
    Its going to be a expensive test for overstock either way unless they pull in more customers for the re-branding.
    No one can deny that the marketing & release done by the .co team up to date has been far superior to launches of other extension so, hat’s of to them in that respect :)
    It will be very interesting to watch how this one plays out over time for Overstock, I mean O.com ;)…kidding!!
    All this .co is King, .com is Dead drivel is pure hype & premature speculation at the moment…but, time will tell.

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  20. Don

    Here is my take on this.
    The key here is godaddy pushing this name. They are going to make a ton of money if .co takes off. They are billion dollar company. And will probably be a 5 billion dollar company in 5 to 7 years.
    Godaddy is the key, and if this commercial they are talking about goes viral with .co attached with it it’s like getting 50 million in free advertising.
    I bought a one worded generic name .co for just under 1k last month. Honestly if .co takes off I could retire based upon this alone if .co pans out in 3 or 4 years.
    .co will sell and be on the market regardless for some time. Look at .mobi did not take off like people thought but even in south africa they are still being bought.
    It’s all fun and pretty cool business to be in. Will be for years to come. With .co just stick to generic names and not brand names and you won’t get in trouble.
    Donny1

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  21. Chadi

    “just stick to generic names and not brand names and you won’t get in trouble…”
    .CO = Brandability. From here, I disagree on stick to generics with .co specifically.
    Most companies around the world have a 4 – 5 letter meaningless names (either based on their extension or just the sonic value of the name) i.e. esto / bedo / geda / medo / … You name it, You Google it, you’ll find an empire attached to it somewhere in the world. Those meaningless words are like music. They’re Global, while generics are like lyrics, they’re language specific.
    Most of the time, a company like medi will naturally add the two letter co in abbreviation for company. So, you have thousands of companies around the world whose name or brand go as such:
    Ledico, Vorico, Necico, Medico, Gybsico, Metalcico, Estatico and you name it.
    The way I see it is:”Go by Rick’s advise…” Try to see things with brand new eyes to detect the opportunity.
    I see .CO beautiful with meaningless terms not with generics at all.
    Although it won’t hurt to own wine.co, but the minute a word becomes generic, .co looses much of its allure.
    There is a philosophy to every TLD, and .CO will be sought after by major companies around the world who have enough Ad money to spend not to care about the Generic=SearchEngineVisibility formula.
    .CO signals Prestige, Fashion, Brandability. Its like Armani as opposed to Gap. Gap is big in the U.S. mostly, but Armani is big all over the world.
    Ever wonder why .info is very hot in Germany? Yes, it is about the scarcity of .de, but .net or .org couldve been the second best. I believe it has something to do with the German character.
    .CO luckily has a piece to claim in every character around the world, which is why I believe its a Global TLD in every sense of the word.
    This is how I see things…

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  22. jy johnson

    What does it matter… Of course .com is king when it comes to flipping domains.. But the reality is you can build a great business or web company on a few memorable extensions such as the .me,.co,.biz,.org,.mobi and .net. If you develop an extension out and its a useful website or company the value of your domain with increase by 1000. The days of type in traffic are numbered, the internet is growing faster then we can imagine. Although nothing last forever .com will remain King far as domain flipping and first pick as an extension, but their will be tons of successful websites built on your .me,.co,.nets and orgs. In the near future some companies will pick the .me over the .com, such as forumspring.me,AOL’s about.me and threewords.me which was just purchased by Kevin ham. People hop out the box and stop acting like old school domainers…. LOL

    Reply
  23. BullSwebsites

    My take is pretty simple-any sites not dot com are pure BullSwebsites.
    KISS!!!
    If all of us just concentrate on dot com, I can guarantee you, your dot com portfolio will go up.

    Reply
  24. SkyDomains

    Until google rebrands to .co or a .co search engine surpasses google, .co is a fools paradise. While there is money to be made in .co however most of that money is made by the registry and those who were rich enough to buy top quality .co
    The fact that they are being sold off early tells you most experienced domainers do not want to be caught pants down. I do not own a single .co and I have no regrets. I have learn enough lessons from .biz, .mobi and .cc. Sure they are not .co but I still have picked up a lesson or two

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  25. jy johnson

    Any extension can be really valuable or turned into a million dollar business if developed into something great or useful to people… Stop focusing on buying domain and .cim’s just to flip them… Do something with the domain…

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  26. jy johnson

    Stop acting like an old school domainer and hop out the box..lol what u fail to realize is even if your .com’s get traffic from developed .co’s your bounce rate for that traffic will be extremely high. People will notice that their on the wrong website and go to the .co if that what they was looking for in the first place..

    Reply
  27. Michael Hallisey

    Now when I’m on my 4G iPhone their is a nifty little .com button I don’t have to type out the dot,C,O, or the M. The only way the .co will ever make it is if Steve Jobs decides that he likes .co
    Does anybody see that happening? and does the public even know there is a .co?
    If you dont have the Apple 4G iPhone you are not part of the cool kids club!

    Reply
  28. David L.G

    There is one thing, which disturbs me about .co, and I think it makes sense. People who will use this extension are the masses. This why some registrars push this extension as there is not much availability in .com.
    But there is one thing, which I believe. People do not like much .co. I will say even that it sounds insignificant for most of the people.
    Now there is a new generation coming and it maybe works in long term if they feed us well with. Co. A heavy marketing work well, this is why you can see people eating cheeseburger and coke in Asia.
    Intuitively, I feel .co is going to be the first bubble extension that will burst on day. All around this extension doesn’t sound natural.
    But it doesn’t mean you can make money, the question is how long …
    We are maybe beginning to enter in new market similar to stock market.
    .com is actually like the car you drive on Internet, the other extensions are like motorbikes or rollerbladings.
    We know it’s possible to create the market but my feeling still tell me that the .co extension is not well appreciated and this is outside the view of a domainer which try to find coherent and intelligible arguments.
    We have to not forget that our mind always manipulates ourselves and try to find reasons to make sure we are right. I maybe wrong and I will change my view by seeing number and the long term.
    The acquisition o.co have probably a lot of other reasons hidden that what people describe here. But yes if you have .co, there is a good chance you will need a .com. An if you sold .com, there is a good argument to the owner to sell the. co. It works fine for us. This only for our industry. We have to not forget that do not represent hundred millions of people who buy extensions.
    One last thing, if people and companies do not develop websites with .co, well we will be in bubble for sure. Great for speculation but it’s not long term …

    Reply
  29. Chadi

    What’s wrong with the”masses” David?
    “The masses” (in relativity to TLD awareness) are no one but me and you (at some point on our journey), and the masses are getting web-smart day after day.
    Soon, you will not find those masses even clicking on online Ads anymore. Ad Giants will have to contrive new more spam-like methods to get them to click.
    In any case, things will rearrange themselves automatically. So, I wouldn’t worry about the masses owning .co. I don’t believe many of”the masses” who own domains for profit purposes could resist below average, semi-compelling offers from serious end users.
    The issue is developing, and I don’t mean mass Robotic-Style auto-pilot development models that big portfolio domainers go for. I mean the average individuals who constitute”the masses” and the”good old passion” for building an online presence in some form.
    The masses (by the way) don’t care much about TLDs when they choose. They don’t even hate the dashes between words as much as you and me hate them.
    In my side of the earth, believe it or not, you won’t find one domain owned by a political party or an organization or a TV station without a dash separating between words.
    Why?
    Because they care about viewers being able to read their names quickly and easily without having to decipher.
    .COM will remain KING, not because the Elite like it, but because people usually remember the 1st best; they also remember the last as well.
    From my perspective, if .com is the 1st, then .co is truly the last. Between .com and .co, some TLDs might just get lost.
    Mark my words for it.
    The way I see .co: I see it as a one in a life time opportunity for company owners to acquire the neatest most expressive domain of their Company name or brand. This will never happen again, because companies globally have built around the CO philosophy long before the internet even was available for public use.
    The Columbia factor is an excuse for those who’ve had enough trouble with previous TLD adventures to pass on the .CO
    I don’t believe its a good one though. Being tired in the wrong means that you’re not built for the job.
    Otherwise, UnitedKingdom.co.uk = UnitedKingdom.Columbia.Uk
    This is absurd… Can anyone tell me what is the difference between the .CO here and the .CO there, if both show up Globally and equally on google’s search result pages?
    If you like .com for the right reasons, then you cannot but like .co. If you like .com because you’ve been brainwashed to like it, then you’re missing out on a great opportunity.

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  30. Kevin

    .COM has TRILLIONS of $$$$$ invested in Useage, Advertising, Marketing, and Branding via TV, Radio, Billboards, Signs, Magazines, Newspapers, the Net, PR, Movies, Music, and on and on.
    Nothing else comes close, nor ever will in our lifetime.
    End of story.

    Reply
  31. Anunt

    .co sucks (DotCoSucks.com is still available)
    Superbowl Ad for .co … is NOT going to make any difference!
    What works…and what doesn’t work???…you domainers and you nerds out there need to learn to STOP thinking like domainers and nerds….domainers and nerds love .co …but does the general public and your average Joe love or even heard of what a .co is?
    “When you see John Jones thru John Jones eyes, you will sell John Jones what John Jones buys”
    Just like Rick said…you will find out if .co is any good after couple of months thru actual results…”Numbers don’t lie, People do”
    .co sucks!

    Reply
  32. David L.G

    We are all part of the masses of course, include me.
    Domainers represent only a small part.
    What I mean is until there is no real .co developpement; you cannot consider .co as a long-term trend. When big companies start to develop website in a new extension, there is a signal. Advertising come so and this is the most important aspect.
    One more time,it doesn’t mean you cannot make money on .co, you can.
    I am talking about the “long term”. A such extension that will get so much value that you can lease it. An extension, which turn to a financial instrument. This is the future and it’s now.
    As I say, I am maybe wrong; we could begin to see a new market with appreciation and depreciation value. Remember my words.
    This is maybe not now but in the next few years coming. There is nothing is fixed, everything is live even prices.

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  33. t

    A good .co is better than a shitty .com
    More people will remember .co as .com minus the m rather than for co (company) That’s why it was chosen and that’s why they (Not just Overstock and GD) are going to push it hard. Overstock is not betting the bank on it since like rick says they still own overstock.com and the o doesn’t resolve. For them though I think o.co is a good move.
    Internet foremost is not about money, But control.
    People are always saying You can build a successful business from ANY extension ? That’s like someone saying you can change a tire with one hand, Yes you can,…

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  34. Clone

    What about .C ? This is short, sounds good …
    I understand people prefer rollerblades to a classic car. But honestly, road are quite dangerous nowadays, it’s better to get a good vehicle.

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  35. hubert farnsworth

    thought i would throw in 5c.
    Most of the minions do not know of any other extension besides .com , .net & .org.
    if your in a place like australia then chances of hearing about .co are next to none so ccTLDs frighten people and marketers run or put their hands over the ears.
    a good example of a very healthy ccTLD (.cc) would be to do a search for ‘favicon’ and look at number 1, so there is hope for any extension if you do it right.
    Anunt said it correctly ‘domainers and nerds love .co’
    mums and dads wouldnt even know it existed unless it is in 40ft text on some billboard every 2 feet ……..but when they get home they will type in .com due to familiarity.
    could be worse, you could own .com.au’s (dont do it even as a drunk dare….spend it on cheap lap dances as you will feel cleaner the next day)

    Reply
  36. dot gs

    @t
    That’s a dumb comparison. Buying a”shitty” dot com is not the only nor the first alternative to buying a”good dot co.” The only good dot co is something that works well for Columbia, like Noticias.co, which would make sense as a Columbia news site. If you can’t find anything but a shitty dot com, think harder.
    If I owned a business that needed a good domain name I would look to TLD’s that actually were appropriate, not some random country code. Can you immagine having to tell your customers over and over again”now that’s DumbAssDryCleaners.co folks, not dot com, you don’t type the m, it’s actually Columbia but I believed someone who told me it’s the new dot com…”
    At least you have a shot at getting someone to visit your site with dot biz, or a general tld that indicates your industry, or with dot pro, where tons of great names are still available.

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  37. SkyDomains

    @Jy Johnson.
    I do not believe in working 10X as hard to achieve the same result. 99% of my websites are built on .com (petmemorialDotCom) is just one of them. I have other extension like my name .Biz for emails and 3 mobis and about 5 .me The dotme’s were regged for some novel but local ideas. Will never serious money on a .co but that does not mean I will never by one.
    Most people defending .co are just hopping. I on the other hand am simply stating my believe and why I could care less. In about 4 to 5 years only the top names of the .co will be worth a second look. We have seen this movie played over so many times with different titles but always the same ending.

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  38. Steve Cheatham

    First thing I thought of when I saw .co was most people are going to put the ‘m’ on it.
    Too much trouble to keep saying”without the M”. They migh as well put that disclaimer on every ad that has a .co
    Bad marketing idea. Too much confusion with .com

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  39. ComputersSoftwares

    -Kevin said”.COM has TRILLIONS of $$$$$ invested in Useage, Advertising, Marketing, and Branding …Nothing else comes close, nor ever will in our lifetime”
    -SkyDomains Said,”Any extension can be really valuable or turned into a million dollar business if developed into something great or useful to people…”
    Seek more comments on this. Thanks.

    Reply
  40. Rick Schwartz

    -Kevin said”.COM has TRILLIONS of $$$$$ invested in Useage, Advertising, Marketing, and Branding …Nothing else comes close, nor ever will in our lifetime”
    -SkyDomains Said,”Any extension can be really valuable or turned into a million dollar business if developed into something great or useful to people…”
    Both could be accurate statements. It will be the idea and need that will brand another extension. When folks NEED what is somewhere else it won’t matter. With”overstock” there is no need and they have barely branded themselves. So .co or any extension needs much more than that.
    It’s a grand experiment that I would not participate in UNLESS I owned the .com. Then, knock your socks off. You can’t lose. Without the .com, just ain’t smart. And if you do hit it n=big on another extension, you will always be limited in your growth without the dot com. Always. Always. Always. So the earlier you OVERPAY, the cheaper it is in the long run.
    I used .co registrations to fortify what I already owned and to fill in where I was weakest. Time tells all and things are changing rapidly. Techies will get what is new but that does not necessarily intersect business.
    I think other extensions may be branded either way depending on .co results. If the guys that spend the trillions just redirect to their .com….all I can say is…..NEXT!
    Meanwhile there is opportunity in nearly every extension. But work smarter and you will make more money and do it quicker imo.
    This is a big and wide debate and the answer won’t be apparent for years. But it is changing daily. A lot of money going in. Tulips or something else?
    If .CO does 1 million registrations that have a $15-$20 million business going. Even if they lose 50% of those registrations they will have a success. From their end, it is a winner. From the investment end, we’ll all find out together. The bulk of the drops will be picked up and newbies have to start somewhere. So they can make their own market as others have done. Will end users show up? Who knows. That is what makes speculation so much fun. Drill deep or clear wide or both.
    Registrars love it because it is the most profitable thing they do. You can’t blame them. If somebody hands you a money printing press your job is to print money.

    Reply
  41. Bob Fontaine

    It would be quite a marketing coup for them to continue garnering notice, such as this, by notoriously failing to own O.com. Through all of time.
    Always the example as the years turned into decades. Used by scholars to show how the power of social media, legend, wasn’t always trumped by the value of a generic url.
    Of Course, Oprah and Overstcok could incorporate my ConDomains.com theory, and each purchase a 50% condo domain ownership interest in O.com, resulting in each of them enjoying 100% of the value they could expect from the url, for half the price.
    But I think that brings me back to the Delta Faucets or Delta Airlines query I used on myself when I started trying to understand what all of this meant.

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  42. Jason

    Actually, domainers hate .CO more than any other extension with all their anti-cybersquatting rules and rhetoric. If anything that’s what validates that they did”all the right things”.
    Domainers staying away from the .CO extension is the best thing that’s happened for that TLD.

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  43. dudeabides

    IMO, this has nothing to do with .co, and everything to do with establishing trademark claims toward o.com, if and when it becomes available.

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  44. emma

    Folks! don’t think that Rick is always right. Many times he talks nonsense. He bought flowers.mobi for $200k and ended up selling for $1500. I know he was lucky in the 90s when he bought many good dot com domains. He won’t have that luck again.

    Reply
  45. Most Expensive Domain

    Overstock currently 301 o.co to their main site for the time being so how is this causing confusion? For those who in the know, they understand it is like a change of address. For those who are not, they wouldn’t even notice the difference since they will not even look at the address bar.

    Reply
  46. Gazzip

    “.COM has TRILLIONS of $$$$$ invested in Useage, Advertising, Marketing, and Branding via TV, Radio, Billboards, Signs, Magazines, Newspapers, the Net, PR, Movies, Music, and on and on.”
    Exactly, half a dozen marketing guys operating in a very small window of chance before hundreds of more .whatevers are released is’nt anything to worry about for .coms future IMO.
    The fact the .co was very likely to perceived by many as a typo for .com increased their chances of quick success.
    The .co team will have made a nice profit which is the main aim of their game IMO ;)
    We’ve had .cm, now .co – next …om ?? and then hundreds of .whatevers

    Reply
  47. Gazzip

    “. He bought flowers.mobi for $200k and ended up selling for $1500.”
    Nobody is always right.
    That says far more about”new” extensions than it does about Rick, he can afford to gamble big and lose occasionally…can you?
    I can’t :)

    Reply
  48. AlanR

    Here’s how you can tell if an extension will takeoff on an international basis or not. If the end users get their hands on it first, then it will be a winner. If the speculators get to it first, then it will fizzle! Well, as we all know, dotcom got it’s start long before the speculation game ever caught on and with all the other extensions that were hyped to be the next dotcom through the years, without exception, each and every one of them were bought up by speculators which in turn was a turnoff for the end users since all the good domains were gone. So this caused the extension to never be accepted with the general public which in turn was more or less a failure for these extensions.
    The only extensions other than dotcom that do well are .net, .org and the cctld’s that deal with their local markets. In Columbia, .co probably does well there but internationally, it has no chance. I wonder how many times does history need to repeat itself before the speculators finally give up their hunt for the next dotcom? There will never be another dotcom or anything that comes close and with all the new extensions planned to be released, most likely, those same speculators will buy into the hype and start all over again if they haven’t gone broke yet. The only extension other than dotcom that I will buy into is one that can do things that a dotcom can’t do and I don’t see that happening anytime in the near future.
    And with the popularity of apps these days, you don’t even need a good domain or a dotcom for that matter to be in business. You could even do well with just an IP address but then, you are totally dependent on the success of that app to stay in business but with a good branded dotcom, then you can survive without that app. Most apps have a short shelf life and will come and go like the next hot new smart phone but a good type-in or branded dotcom will just keep on ticking throughout time. I think brand will be more important than ever in this ever increasing marketplace where you need to stand out among the millions of competitors sharing the same marketplace which we call the internet and having a dotcom makes you more unique among all the other extensions that only confuse the masses!

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  49. D.L.G.

    There is no choice to do between .com or .co. The .co appears as a new possibility and it’s a good thing for people who want develop a website with nice address.
    There will be new extensions that will come and will be competitive.
    Next auction .co will do good and all this year .co registrations will grow. The only thing is no one can confirm if .co will be a “long term” trend. Does big companies will develop websites? Does advertisers will put money on it? The future will tell us …

    Reply
  50. SkyDomains

    I DID NOT say this;
    “Any extension can be really valuable or turned into a million dollar business if developed into something great or useful to people…”
    On the contrary I said this in reply to someone who said the statement you attributed to me;
    “I do not believe in working 10X as hard to achieve the same result. 99% of my websites are built on .com”

    Reply
  51. Stephen Douglas

    Hi Rick,
    First of all,”THE DUDE ABIDES” is copying my handle, although it’s all in the ether… lol. I AM THE DUDE! And of course, I abide.
    Back to what you’re saying… it’s simply this, and I think we all can understand:
    Thousands of DOTCOM Premium domains are still sitting pretty, waiting to be purchased by endusers. These are killer domains, many of which a lot of us own. The majority of the public/business crowd embrace that DOTCOM extension.
    Still, the endusers who absolutely NEED these domains, haven’t figured it out yet that they do, and it’s better for them to invest thousands in the domains than it is to invest thousands in magazine ad for a month. I’m sure thousands of companies have figured out they needed a certain domain when their competitors bought it.
    So, when people spout”new” extensions to me, I simply ask them”What about the same domains in the top extension there is, DOTCOM, that haven’t sold yet?”
    Here’s their response:”well… ummm… .co is a new extension… ummm… promotions for the extension are heavy… ummm, cheaper purchase price… well… ummm… I’m not sure the public will remember to NOT TYPE IN THAT last”M” at the end of the .CO domains…”
    Get my drift? If there is still ONE premium DOTCOM domain left unpurchased by an enduser, all other extensions are just taildraggers… I would be honored to have an agreement from the Domain King on this…

    Reply
  52. Computerssoftwares

    Hi Rick,
    Thanks for your valuable time and detailed comments.
    Emma said,”He bought flowers.mobi for $200k and ended up selling for $1500.”
    is it a true statment? Who bought that name? We see the URL link under Anunt in your blog. How did he get its acquisition? It means .Co will suffer the same fate. I better concentrate on .com. B.Regds,

    Reply
  53. ScottM

    .co the jury is still out I guess but to me at least the .tv and .me domains are definitely hanging in there after being released for 2-4 years now. I got Promo.me last year and I am not unhappy that Promo.com does not resolve, my business partner and I are getting inquiries and orders for our electronic premium items with Promo.me, as our company is called Promotek and we own PromoStore.me, PromoStore.tv and Promotek.co too so we have as many bases covered as were available.
    Last year’s movie Despicable Me came out and now the Hollywood studio is using Despicable.me for Blu Ray DVD. .me especially lends itself to branding and clever-cutesy ad slogans. FB.me was grabbed up and so was WP.me, perfect for social networking. Also the .me registry is still holding back thousands of preimum .me’s plus the obvious adult and expletive .me’s. While .tv and .me might not be as good as .com version for traffic you could make an argument that for Madison Avenue and ad tags they work just fine. Plenty of commercials now are using .tv domains and they do get people to go to their websites.

    Reply
  54. Larry

    IMHO new gTLDs will shine as single user extensions, such as .ford, .dell etc etc.
    But not as sub-domain plays.
    So no they won’t catch on in the traditional sense, as suggested, but they’ll rock the pecking order amongst top commercial names I think, and might unfortunately operate as a notional cap on some values, because you wont pay >200k+- for a name when you can get the extension instead.
    On a more subtle level they will still however get people thinking to the right of the dot and that slowly opens up the namespace. And that’s a direct shot against .com really.
    ICANN = the UN, the goal is weakening the grip of US interests..

    Reply
  55. jayjay

    Of the recent ccTLd’s the dot co seems to be ‘hotstuff’ though for the long run I don’t think so, (dot mobi 2.0 personal belief). A lot of online enterprises, including influential domain registers are pushing this extension too.
    Generic dot co’s maybe profitable for some in the game but I think this ‘trend’ is only a short lived one, for example the dot biz as low as it is right now is probably going to passively rise as the ‘sleeper’ in the lower order, more so than these new xxx, co, types and it’s probably wise to stick to the known extensions that have been around for a while as a safe domain investment.

    Reply
  56. Jeff Schneider

    Hello Rick,

    So many misinformed marketers assume that the gTLDs, brands included, will be widely used and more eventfull than using them as more effective subdomains in unison with .COMs. There are no fundamental comparisons to support these views.
    Our view is that the usage of the gTLDs will never gain traction. We are convinced this whole expensive experiments only economic impact will be negative. The only winners will be the Ad companies whose, short lived , support will be needed to prop up this seriously flawed Online Marketing Ploy. Economic Fundamental support for gTLDS is seriously in question,and we believe they are already an obsolesced marketing strategy.
    Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)

    Reply

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