.co .CO - The Discussion, Showcase and Sales Report Thread

the_poet said:

All 17K+ Combinations Of Three Letter .Co Domains Now All Registered

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Nope these are available to hand register

puq.co
qfb.co
qwj.co
vgq.co
vgq.co
xpw.co
yuq.co
zuj.co

bmugford said:

it worked terribly for people who were not familiar with us.

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Proof that .co is confusing for consumers. Had they used another extension they wouldn't have leaked so much traffic.
It's now established that .co is even worse than .biz.

The Overstock saga will remain a case study of how not to rebrand yourself in another extension.
It is also a cautionary tale to the right of the dot gurus.

bmugford said:

This type of story is far more relevant to .CO and the future than a LLL sellout.

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Amen :great:

richface said:

Nope these are available to hand register

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Not anymore. Congratulations to the loser(s)

Didn't someone say "blip on the radar"? Exactly...

Who cares what Byrne says. He made a mistake, that's it. Dwelling on things helps nothing. It's only for chickens who always want to say "I told you so". Who really cares. It appears no one told Byrne that there would be spillage to .com. Education takes time to proliferate. .co takes time to blossom, that's how business runs. Anyone who has built their own business from scratch knows this.

Hey Buddy,

Without promotion, there is no market at all...get it? .co is being promoted properly and thus the rarity factor comes into play. .us, .biz etc, useless extensions, no promotion and therefore no ubiquity. No dough, no go...get it?

These arguments are SO boring. Over and over and over. I don't even think some people know that they are saying the same thing over and over. Does anyone have something to say that is informative and not deprecatory?

bmugford said:

O.co loses 61% of its traffic to O.com

Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne said the following -

There were some bad decisions for which I take responsibility in marketing O.co. O.co was odd and then it worked at one level. It did get out there into people’s heads, but what we discovered, and we turned it up slowly and we actually had nice adoption from the beginning of last year, gradually people shifting to O.co and then, but we got into the Christmas season and it worked terribly for people who were not familiar with us. There was a tremendous amount of traffic diverting to O.com and I think we’ve figured out that it was about eight out of 13 people who were trying to visit us through O.co, eight were typing O.com. Now some of them may have come, trying anyway.

There you have it directly from the most well known .CO end user, that actually made an effort to rebrand on .CO.

O.co was heavily promoted by the registry and .CO proponents while their PR was positive.

This type of story is far more relevant to .CO and the future than a LLL sellout.

Brad

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---------- Post added at 06:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:27 AM ----------

All registered.

richface said:

Nope these are available to hand register

puq.co
qfb.co
qwj.co
vgq.co
vgq.co
xpw.co
yuq.co
zuj.co

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---------- Post added at 06:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:30 AM ----------

There is no cautionary tale here. Education takes time. .CO registry has the money to get .co out there. It is a major success in terms of non-com extensions. A MAJOR success.

The whole of all these discussions is fruitless because the premise has no legs. And what is that premise? Comparing .com to .co. All wrong right from the beginning. It's a false premise that mono-investors are using to indulge their own portfolios. Who really cares when it comes down to it? Each domain name is an individual entity and that's where it's all at. If someone wants to pay $450000 for meet.me, that is their choice. It will resolve just as well as any .com.

BTW, diversification is fun. Yes, even if sometimes you lose money. That's part of the game.

Conservative mono-investing = boring and dull.

sdsinc said:

Proof that .co is confusing for consumers. Had they used another extension they wouldn't have leaked so much traffic.
It's now established that .co is even worse than .biz.

The Overstock saga will remain a case study of how not to rebrand yourself in another extension.
It is also a cautionary tale to the right of the dot gurus.

Amen :great:


Not anymore. Congratulations to the loser(s)

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emjohn said:

Education takes time to proliferate. .co takes time to blossom, that's how business runs.

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And who will foot the bill for that 'education' ?

emjohn said:

Anyone who has built their own business from scratch knows this.

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I know, that's why I use .com or the ccTLD. When you're starting out, you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot.

emjohn said:

These arguments are SO boring. Over and over and over. I don't even think some people know that they are saying the same thing over and over. Does anyone have something to say that is informative and not deprecatory?

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I don't know, why not ask the registry if they have anything left to keep us excited ?

sdsinc said:

I don't know, why not ask the registry if they have anything left to keep us excited ?

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Funny you say that.

I emailed Lori Anne this morning on a matter related to .com actually. Of course I asked if we should expect anything exciting from .co in the near future too

Are you serious? Who has to foot the bill? Of course the person who makes the mistake! But that also is just part of the game and the education. If someone told you to buy .com and you did, this doesn't make you an entrepreneur or innovator, it just makes a person a second-hand invester. Learn by making mistakes. Every inventer will tell you the same. That's about it.

The mistake for Byrne was one of scope, not of quality. Unreasonable expectations can lead to disillusionment. However, this "13" number given out in the release is somewhat suspect.

I think there is no need for excitement. .CO has done more than any other start-up TLD to date. What more can someone ask for?

sdsinc said:

And who will foot the bill for that 'education' ?

I know, that's why I use .com or the ccTLD. When you're starting out, you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot.


I don't know, why not ask the registry if they have anything left to keep us excited ?

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Are you suggesting actually using a .co domain was the 'mistake' ?

Originally Posted by emjohn
These arguments are SO boring. Over and over and over. I don't even think some people know that they are saying the same thing over and over.

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So...so...SO..true.

No, I'm not suggesting that. I'm suggesting HOW they used it was a mistake. The implementation was too fast. They could have used more of a drip method. I think that's clear. They could have experimented with it a little more.

But at the end of the day, most people still type in or link to "Overstock.com". I think single letters, in any case, are way overrated.

sdsinc said:

Are you suggesting actually using a .co domain was the 'mistake' ?

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hawkeye said:

So...so...SO..true.

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Nice that we can finally agree on something...

emjohn said:

No, I'm not suggesting that. I'm suggesting HOW they used it was a mistake. The implementation was too fast. They could have used more of a drip method. I think that's clear. They could have experimented with it a little more.

But at the end of the day, most people still type in or link to "Overstock.com". I think single letters, in any case, are way overrated.



---------- Post added at 10:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 AM ----------



Nice that we can finally agree on something...

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Some recent news on that:

"Patrick Byrne told financial analysts yesterday that “O.co was my bad call” and that “about eight out of 13 people who were trying to visit us through O.co, eight were typing O.com”

It’s not clear what the source of the data is, or why the measurement given was out of 13, but it works out to 61%."

http://domainincite.com/o-co-loses-61-of-its-traffic-to-o-com/

61% .com leak.

emjohn said:

No, I'm not suggesting that. I'm suggesting HOW they used it was a mistake. The implementation was too fast. They could have used more of a drip method. I think that's clear. They could have experimented with it a little more.

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Drip method.
That's interesting.
But it's not very clear to me.
If you had a chance to advise Overstock on their online strategy how exactly would you go about implementing that drip method ?
Do you mean they should have advertised it less ? Whatever they do a significant portion of the traffic leaks to o.com that doesn't exist and cannot resolve :red:

Hey all, I just heard from Lori Anne.

A couple things that may be of interest to some here...next week .co will be at SxSW promoting the extention. Quite a diverse crowd there! Sedo has also indicated that .co is one of the top selling extentions on the entire platform.

I've suggested that Lori drop in every now and then to give updates to the .co investors here. Maybe she will, maybe she won't but I'll check in with her periodically and report back

sdsinc said:

Drip method.

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When rebranding I think you have two choices.

Slow transition. I think O.CO was this - they didn't rebrand, they added O.CO, slipped it into advertising, made it a shortcut, added benefits (free shipping). All done alongside the existing brand Overstock.com. I thought Overstock did too much hedging for what people claimed O.Co was - they didn't commit to re-branding, they committed to using O.CO as a shortcut - until you tell the SEC and the street that you've re-branded, you haven't. By re-branding I also mean renaming.

Fast transition. Make the decision and go for it. You leave overstock there as the site and drive everything to your new name. Much more risk but at least it's not a hedge and you take on the risk.

Problem was that O.CO is not a brand. It's not a meaningful name. The failure wasn't in the method of rebranding it was in the choice of rebranding:

Think of it this way - and I want everyone to be honest:

You have a NEW business. You have 100 million investment capital. You are given the domain O.CO. What domain/name do YOU go with? Me? I might try to find a name where O.CO would be a shortcut or meaningful advertising gimmick. I would not call my company O.CO.

So there you have it. I thought the approach was not too bad - it was just a poor decision to begin with.

//Don't try to write decent posts while watching United v Spurs... they come out messy like this one. Also not once did I say that .CO was the bad choice.... I said O.CO was a bad choice. O.COM wouldn't have been much better, imho.

There are many different"transitions" that can be made. I can think of ten off the top of my head. Fast and slow is pretty basic. IMO, drip would be the best.Slow, periodic movement toward one sector of the company.

O.co makes no difference in the long-term. Daily sales are what count.

I agree with your point about O.com. Wouldn't have been much better. "Overstock.com" is still the best.

defaultuser said:

When rebranding I think you have two choices.

Slow transition. I think O.CO was this - they didn't rebrand, they added O.CO, slipped it into advertising, made it a shortcut, added benefits (free shipping). All done alongside the existing brand Overstock.com. I thought Overstock did too much hedging for what people claimed O.Co was - they didn't commit to re-branding, they committed to using O.CO as a shortcut - until you tell the SEC and the street that you've re-branded, you haven't. By re-branding I also mean renaming.

Fast transition. Make the decision and go for it. You leave overstock there as the site and drive everything to your new name. Much more risk but at least it's not a hedge and you take on the risk.

Problem was that O.CO is not a brand. It's not a meaningful name. The failure wasn't in the method of rebranding it was in the choice of rebranding:

Think of it this way - and I want everyone to be honest:

You have a NEW business. You have 100 million investment capital. You are given the domain O.CO. What domain/name do YOU go with? Me? I might try to find a name where O.CO would be a shortcut or meaningful advertising gimmick. I would not call my company O.CO.

So there you have it. I thought the approach was not too bad - it was just a poor decision to begin with.

//Don't try to write decent posts while watching United v Spurs... they come out messy like this one. Also not once did I say that .CO was the bad choice.... I said O.CO was a bad choice. O.COM wouldn't have been much better, imho.

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I was just looking at the list of lll.co sales on namebio...not an extensive list.

I just won an expiring lll .co on tdnam for $27 and then I had to pay the $30 renewal fee...having buyer's regret. Actually, no, it will make a great url shortener.

As for O.co, I perfectly agree with Morgan:

Right now the team is getting ready to head-off to SXSW and meet with lots of awesome startups building their brands on .CO. Please note that .CO is not sponsor of this blog at the moment so I am not being paid to say this. I know there has been a lot of controversy lately over the Overstock discussion of O.co. I don’t want to gloss over this, but at the same time this is just one example and I can tell you there are some kick-ass startups building kick-ass brands on .CO, period.

I don’t see many other TLD owners getting out in front of the startup community, encouraging growth, and making an impact. With the startup world growing like crazy I see .CO in a great place, I don’t think it’s a domain investor’s paradise though. This really isn’t the TLD that you want to own tons of domains in, there just isn’t the demand. This is a great TLD if you are a startup that doesn’t have a six or seven-figure budget but does want to brand around their first choice name.

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This isn't a TLD for domainers, where one hoards hundreds or thousands of domains. It's ok if you want to invest in it, but I think the old adage 'quality over quantity' proves itself true for .CO more than the more established TLDs. Anyway it seems that, even though this golden rule of domaining may appear obvious to many of us, many others (both experienced and starters) don't seem to get it, including mr. Domain King™ who, in his latest blog post, writes about how bad is .CO, while someone, in the comments, reminds him that, as a "visionary", he had bought 2,500 .COs. Of course some of them had to be nice names, but, statistically, we just can imagine how much crap had to be in there.

the_poet said:

This isn't a TLD for domainers, where one hoards hundreds or thousands of domains. It's ok if you want to invest in it, but I think the old adage 'quality over quantity' proves itself true for .CO more than the more established tlds

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Domainers, investors...same thing. I see a handful of these types who own all the best .co domains. Oh you don't know who? Just ask and I'll provide.

Quality vs quantity...this is true for any investment made where domains are concerned. It's certainly not tld specific :imho:

Keith said:

Domainers, investors...same thing. I see a handful of these types who own all the best .co domains. Oh you don't know who? Just ask and I'll provide.

Quality vs quantity...this is true for any investment made where domains are concerned. It's certainly not tld specific :imho:

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I'm not necessarily referring to the superpremium domains (owned by, well, we know who ), just the best domains one can afford, with quality being given absolute priority over quantity. True, domainers and investors (and hoarders) are the same thing, so I'll specify "wise" investors.

Ok, I have just registered my first an only co domain as i was very surprised it was available:

SpicyFood.co

Seems pretty nice for 10$(godaddy). Only 4,400 exact searches for the term but it's pretty narrowed and highly product related (just my opinion).

So taking this into consideration, is it a good reg?(would you have regged it)

I forgot to mention at the time, but a couple of months ago, I met a furniture-store owner in D.C., and we started talking about website-related things. I asked him about his domain (which has a hyphen), and he said "A few years back, I tried buying the non-hyphenated version, and last year I got the .CO, too."

My jaw dropped. "You know about .CO?!" I was so excited that anyone outside of this thread had even heard of it.

I asked him why he got it, and it was a defensive reg. When I asked how he knew about it, he mentioned O.CO.

He was a nice guy. He ended up not buying the non-hyphen .com because the person wanted $16k for it. He said they later kept emailing him and coming down in price. To him, it wasn't worth it.

Clearly, this supports the argument that .COs are seen as defensive regs by (SOME) business owners with established sites. There would be no reason for him to change what's already working. However, I thought it was cool that he'd heard of it and that I was able to talk domains with someone offline for several minutes.

Here is another domain that's available Yhf.co
if you fancy it.

Regards

Rich

STP said:

Ok, I have just registered my first an only co domain as i was very surprised it was available:

SpicyFood.co

Seems pretty nice for 10$(godaddy). Only 4,400 exact searches for the term but it's pretty narrowed and highly product related (just my opinion).

So taking this into consideration, is it a good reg?(would you have regged it)

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authentic.co

just sold Authentic.co for $3250 on Sedo

divamsharma said:

just sold Authentic.co for $3250 on Sedo

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Congrats divansharma, really nice sale (and ROI, assuming you were the original $30 registrant)!

Congrats! Thats good news.

Congrats on the sale! Sedo seems to sell names better than godaddy?

I registered the dot co for hugs, quads, upset, feathers, climbers, vials, veils, spiced, brats, catwoman, loanmanagement, cashmanagement, inning, kidding, achy, danes, dogged, ereading, laced, mohs, spoofs, pores, pushy, spraypaint, tradingtools, and babycrib. They are currenly at godaddy but I am thinking of transfering to sedo. Suggestions?