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$6 million wasted on .CO registrations.
I am somewhat surprised at the level of interest in .co over the last couple of days, from bloggers claiming it is now in the "top 4 extensions" and being worth 10% of a .com to others talking about developing these names and other madness.
A few comments about .co,
1. In my view the main appeal with this extension is typo traffic. Having said that, looking at some Alexa rankings, compete scores and Google Adwords data I would say only the very best generic .co's are going to get much traffic. The registry made a calculated decision when deciding to go public. The main area is likely to be ™ names (registry passes the buck). Even then it seems the registry has done a good job connecting with big sites. Still I think the ™ typo area is the main opportunity.
2. Considering point one, that these names are totally confusing, how does it makes sense to consider developing these names names.
Would you develop a misspell?
Would you develop a .cm?
Then why would you develop a .co?
The extension is going to be totally confusing for the average person on the street. .biz would be a better choice for development.
3. Reg fees - they aren't cheap and it is going to suck out a lot of the profitability from these names. Whatever value was there is 25% of that with reg fees 4 times higher than other extensions.
4. It's different this time! Isn't it?
.ws, .cc, .tv, .biz, .info, .us, .eu, .mobi, .tel, .me.
Supposedly with every new extension it is going to be different. There is always some compelling reason or argument as to why the latest extension will succeed where other have failed. People will debate it for the next year or two.
In reality it never is different. People get excited for a few months. .co is cool and new, and the fact that nobody actuallly uses it isn't that important yet, after all there is time for growth. Then interest wanes, things turn out not quite as planned. A year later everyone is dropping. People then get angry with the registry saying a lot was promised and not delivered.
Why do the same mistakes keep getting repeated? The registry is setting people up for today, the day when they part with their money and register 200,000 .co names. Most of the money goes into the launch and promoting premium auctions. Afterwards doesn't matter much. Get ready to be strung along a lot.
6. Staged sales/usage: You've been sold to!
disrupt.co, no_url_shorteners, o.co
There is not much genuine news in this. Disrupt.co was part of an advertising deal. Did you really think techcrunch just chose to use that name? o.co, a sale that appeared a few hours before the launch, the registry is pouring some fuel on the fire here. They want to get you excited for today.
7. Who is even using this extension?
This is .mobi all over again, instead of the big backers who weren't really backing (Google, Microsoft etc) we've got 3 well known sites supposedly adopting .co (Twitter, Overstock, Techcrunch), do you think these people will be anywhere near the extension in 12 months time? How significant is this usage anyway, a url shortener? Overstock doing a url redirect to their main site? Techcrunch promoting a site for a week or so?
I am somewhat surprised at the level of interest in .co over the last couple of days, from bloggers claiming it is now in the "top 4 extensions" and being worth 10% of a .com to others talking about developing these names and other madness.
A few comments about .co,
1. In my view the main appeal with this extension is typo traffic. Having said that, looking at some Alexa rankings, compete scores and Google Adwords data I would say only the very best generic .co's are going to get much traffic. The registry made a calculated decision when deciding to go public. The main area is likely to be ™ names (registry passes the buck). Even then it seems the registry has done a good job connecting with big sites. Still I think the ™ typo area is the main opportunity.
2. Considering point one, that these names are totally confusing, how does it makes sense to consider developing these names names.
Would you develop a misspell?
Would you develop a .cm?
Then why would you develop a .co?
The extension is going to be totally confusing for the average person on the street. .biz would be a better choice for development.
3. Reg fees - they aren't cheap and it is going to suck out a lot of the profitability from these names. Whatever value was there is 25% of that with reg fees 4 times higher than other extensions.
4. It's different this time! Isn't it?
.ws, .cc, .tv, .biz, .info, .us, .eu, .mobi, .tel, .me.
Supposedly with every new extension it is going to be different. There is always some compelling reason or argument as to why the latest extension will succeed where other have failed. People will debate it for the next year or two.
In reality it never is different. People get excited for a few months. .co is cool and new, and the fact that nobody actuallly uses it isn't that important yet, after all there is time for growth. Then interest wanes, things turn out not quite as planned. A year later everyone is dropping. People then get angry with the registry saying a lot was promised and not delivered.
Why do the same mistakes keep getting repeated? The registry is setting people up for today, the day when they part with their money and register 200,000 .co names. Most of the money goes into the launch and promoting premium auctions. Afterwards doesn't matter much. Get ready to be strung along a lot.
6. Staged sales/usage: You've been sold to!
disrupt.co, no_url_shorteners, o.co
There is not much genuine news in this. Disrupt.co was part of an advertising deal. Did you really think techcrunch just chose to use that name? o.co, a sale that appeared a few hours before the launch, the registry is pouring some fuel on the fire here. They want to get you excited for today.
7. Who is even using this extension?
This is .mobi all over again, instead of the big backers who weren't really backing (Google, Microsoft etc) we've got 3 well known sites supposedly adopting .co (Twitter, Overstock, Techcrunch), do you think these people will be anywhere near the extension in 12 months time? How significant is this usage anyway, a url shortener? Overstock doing a url redirect to their main site? Techcrunch promoting a site for a week or so?
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