My Take on O.co Revisited as They go back to the Future! .COM 1 .CO ZERO

Evening Folks!!


Less than a year ago I said this about Overstock.com and O.com and the confusion that would happen.


'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.'


http://www.ricksblog.com/2011/01/my-take-on-ocomi-mean-oco-and-other-new-extensions-and-their-fate.html


Today they said: 'Confused? So were customers. Mr. Johnson said customers responded well to the O.co advertising, but after watching the spots, 'a good portion' of those who sought out the website went to O.com, instead of O.co.


Is there an ECHO here??


http://adage.com/article/news/o-overstock-backs-o-change/230983/


Rick Schwartz




14 thoughts on “My Take on O.co Revisited as They go back to the Future! .COM 1 .CO ZERO

  1. Coder

    Or how to burn few millions on nothing. Pro domainers saw that coming. You had to be blind not to.

    Reply
  2. Christopher Bon

    It was a (re)branding mistake. It doesn’t have any bearing on the future of .co. Sales are moving along nicely, thank you very much. People are always talking shit about it but my ROI is stellar. It seems that most of the detractors don’t have any .co so they don’t really know how much end user interest there is. There are sub $2k sales happening daily but they aren’t done through Sedo. They are largely unreported.

    Reply
  3. Rick Schwartz

    “It doesn’t have any bearing on the future of .co”
    Oh Really?? Read my post tomorrow when I talk about what it means. This was the canary in the coal mine and the canary DIED!

    Reply
  4. Rick Schwartz

    And the aftermarket for .co is not far behind with this news. The takeaway. If you own a .co without owning the .com and think you can brand it and not lose, think again.

    Reply
  5. Anthony

    Too bad they spend millions on O.com…I mean O.co coliseum. With that money they burned away they probably could have bought O.com if Verisign ever offered it up for sale.

    Reply
  6. jrb

    How is this different than using a .me domain?
    Are you saying if you brand with a .co, people will mistype it as .com?
    With .me, it’s so different people probably wouldn’t make a mistake.

    Reply
  7. Domains, Oil, Gold, Land, and Food

    @jbr….”How is this different than using a .me domain?” It’s different b/c there is no established .met extension that is popular where traffic leakage will end up at. There is a .com for .com.
    From AdAge:
    I’m paraphrasing, but he said”we are not flip-flopping, were refocusing”.
    How funny!!!

    Reply
  8. Domains, Oil, Gold, Land, and Food

    LOL….I said”there is no .com for .com” see what just happened. Should of been .com for .co .
    That was 100% totally unintentional mistake.
    I love this biz….hilarious!

    Reply

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