“What Do You Think of .CO”?

I just got back home on a red eye after a ski weekend in Breckenridge, Colorado. I highly recommend a trip out there if you ski… Conditions were great and the weather was perfect, with snow for two of the three days. (Tip: if you drive from Denver to Breck, make sure you rent a SUV or mid-size care with all wheel drive – we lucked out!)

After skiing on the last day, we went to a friend’s house for some drinks and some hot tub rehab. A friend of a friend who we met last year was at the house, and after saying hi and catching up for a minute, he asked me a surprising question, knowing that I am a domain investor:

“What do you think about .CO?”

This person is not in the domain name business, although he does work as a graphic designer. He didn’t know anything about the new gTLDs that are likely coming (.XXX for instance), but he did know about .CO.

I should have asked him his thoughts on .CO, as well as how he learned about it, because that would have been more interesting to know, but I was on vacation and didn’t want to upset my wife by talking business. Anyway, it looks like the .CO advertising and marketing campaign is paying off.

***********

Please help me raise funds for the  Ronald McDonald House

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

106 COMMENTS

  1. I was asked a similar question by a computer repair and technical guy when he found out I was a domain investor. This gentleman is also not in the domain name business. It surprised me for sure, and what surprised me even more was when he showed a couple .co keyword names that he purchased to redirect to his .com site. He said he knew .co was for Colombia but chose .co because it’s the abbreviation of Colorado (where we reside). I believe he learned of .co when the registries started placing them in favorable positions when searching for available domains, but pulled the trigger on buying a couple after mass marketing gave him more confidence they were more than a fad. I didn’t want to tell him that redirecting .co names aren’t going to do much for his business right now, however, I have plans to consult him on a development plan for them, so they can actually start benefiting his business.

  2. Last month .co has gone back in sedo auction. It doesn’t mean it has fallen permanently. It means it is ready to LAUNCH like a rocket.

    It is same as NEWTON’s 3rd Law:

    It every action (may be +ve or -ve) there is EQUAL and OPPOSITE REACTION….

  3. .CO has got a huge amount of marketing traction, not surprising considering the ad blitz and the favourable reviews and some pumping by big domain investors.

    But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, or in development, even the .co ceo said so, just in different words.

    The real test for speculators though will come renewal time, lets see whether people looking for quick profits renew or not, $30 per domain isn’t exactly cheap and whether registrations go up or backwards for the extension beyond that.

  4. I was asked a similar question by a friend who needed to setup a website for his project and found that .net and .CO were the only available TLDs. He fell in love with .CO but thought it wouldn’t have the benefits of a gTLD from a ranking point of view. When I told him he could use Webmaster Tools to make it behave like a gTLD in Google’s eyes, he immediately registered it.

  5. Elliot, you should have talk to the guy more about .co, it’s always an oportunity to know what othr (non-domainers) have behind their minds even if I know that you were in family vacation. Well, dot co have a lot of potential and the buzz around this TLD really worked with their marketing campaing.
    I know that LLL.co (3 letter dot co) have been one as the most seeking .co domains by companies who wish to get a shorter URL without spending huge money on the .com or it was already taken long time ago by established business.

    But for me like someone said above, it’s more as a redirect than pure website development.

    Do .co keywords have any success? Less than LLL.co for end users because they don’t really see their company name for example “jefferson peperroni pizza” spending over $10000 to buy pizza.co but rather have an affordable short jpp.co for some thousand or less (depends on the seller of course).

  6. – – –
    Elliot, you should have talk to the guy more about .co, it’s always an oportunity to know what othr (non-domainers) have behind their minds even if I know that you were in family vacation.
    – – –

    I agree with HED.co. Now that you’re back from vacation, you might contact him by email/phone if you can.

  7. Sedo ran some .co radio ads geared toward businesses owners in Colorado during our .co auction last month (you can hear them at Sedo.com/Facebook). We are glad the business owners in CO are seeing the potential behind the extension! We’d like to think our ads got their attention 🙂

  8. The only people who are excited about .CO are domainers and registrars.

    .COM is King.

    .ORG and .NET are the Queen and the Prince.

    .DE, .FR, .CO.UK, .COM.AU, etc.. are all lesser royalty, but still royalty.

    With a few exceptions, all the others are nobodies.

    This is just my opinion.

  9. @hal

    sure .com is king but none of those extensions you mentioned are easily remembered by the average non domainer.
    None of those extensions were highly marketed either.

    another benefit is that CO domains are globally marketed as opposed to a .DE FR etc etc

    All it takes are afew more decent sales and i think this extension will quickly gain in popularity

  10. “”All it takes are afew more decent sales and i think this extension will quickly gain in popularity””

    @chris
    Some of the top tier domain keywords were just offered at the .co auction, on Sedo (btw), and not only didn’t sell, but other than ‘under reserve’ token bids, didn’t sell or even get bids. So when, and what types of, ‘decent sales’ should we be waiting for??

  11. “I should have asked him his thoughts on .CO, as well as how he learned about it,”

    Does’nt your friend watch SuperBowl 😉

  12. “All it takes are a few more decent sales and i think this extension will quickly gain in popularity”

    You mean with domainers?

    They would be more popular if they were available to end-users for reg fee 🙂

  13. The whole “Colorado connection” amuses the heck out of me. Do we see similar interest from businesses in Minnesota for .MN domains? Are businesses in Indiana rushing to build their presence on .IN? Billboards littering South Carolina advertising local businesses on the Seychelles ccTLD? Maryland defining itself with .MD? These TLDs have been available for quite some time, yet virtually no one in these states cared. So, why is it ‘different this time’?

    Definitely give .co credit for marketing itself, but I’m of the opinion the only thing the promotion accomplishes is removing the most standard, baked-in excuse all new TLD speculators cite when things don’t quite live up to their delusional expectations.

  14. I think .co will be popular in near future. Although the auction result is low at the moment, but will go up eventually.

    Selling love.co for $20000 is better than nothing, and it’s still some make money for the seller.

  15. It’s nice to see non-domainers picking up on things.
    I think that’s probably the starting point – once non domainers hear about an extension and are interested, then things will start to pick up. A bit late for some people, as most of the good domains are taken, but there are plenty left…
    I personally pre-ordered 3 LLL.co’s for myself, mostly because they were relevant to my business, and also convinced a friend to buy a LLL.co that was relevant to his business.
    I am using one of them, and plan on using the rest, so I’m not really looking to sell them, and therefore it doesn’t really matter to me how popular .CO is in terms of making money (though I hope the one I’m using will become popular in its own right, because it’s a 3 letter name, and pronounceable), but it’s nice to see that my instincts in the beginning by the launch weren’t wrong.

  16. @ Eliot Silver

    So, if we were to round up all the websites being used by business interests in LA (either Los Angeles or Louisiana), what would the ratio be of those that use c/n/o versus those that use .la?

    There’s always going to be some isolated anecdote , but isolated anecdotes do not drive value. If repurposed ccTLDs were going to blow-up as ‘unofficial State TLDs”, we would’ve certainly seen it by now.

  17. Uh, Robert, or whatever alias you’re using today, that is the same list that was ‘deleted’ at NamePros because it had a bunch of park pages and redirects in it.

    Just don’t understand why some waste others blog space with long deceiving lists, just to try to convince ‘themselves’ of their choices?? You look the worst for it.

  18. “. Do we see similar interest from businesses in Minnesota for .MN domains? Are businesses in Indiana rushing to build their presence on .IN? Billboards littering South Carolina advertising local businesses on the Seychelles ccTLD? Maryland defining itself with .MD? These TLDs have been available for quite some time, yet virtually no one in these states cared. So, why is it ‘different this time’?”

    @ LS Morgan

    You asked a question and I gave an example.

  19. @Kevin

    There are zero redirects and zero park pages on the list. I have checked myself.

    NamePros sucks. That is why I am thinking of boycotting them. I posted a great post last night and they deleted it for no fricken reason. The list is updated with new LLL.CO s recently developed.

  20. Ive been asked the same thing by more than 1 person. Only time will tell is my answer but I say itis a good sign that you are asking. Personally I don’t feel like waiting. I’ve got a handful of single word .co’s I’m looking to part with for close to Reg fee. If this is something you want then contact me.

  21. Hilarious

    You Mention .CO

    and out from under there rock appears all the nobody dumb and gullible wannabe domainers..

    Raman
    (Elliot Banned Big Cheese) (still laughing@your porofolio,lol)

    Robert Cline (real name James Kim)
    (making up fake data numbers as usual)

    Mike Law and his stupid picture in a suit, (and his contrived story
    about a imaginary friend)-

    Joe this clown is one of the others?

    The same crew of SPAMMERS!

    WANNBE Fools your resellers commisions are over!!
    (go back under your rock wannabe domainers)

    the Sedo auction PROVED .Co is a Lemon

    Its Over!

  22. LOL what a joke, nothing has changed with .CO, it’s going nowhere, no matter how many times a few of the same people post fake comments praising it- 20 years of .COM/.NET/.ORG becoming established on the web….. NO SHOT a random ccTLD is coming anywhere close to those in terms of ranking capability, no matter how many times you quote a random article about “Google Webmaster Tools.” A billion dollar business speaks for itself.

    But I don’t blame you for continually posting about .CO, Elliot. It’s your blog and your goal is to get traffic- and all of your .CO blog posts get 30, 50, or more comments. But lets not go too far.

  23. I for one would have absolutely no problem discussing .CO while on vacation, I think having a good old laugh is important, especially on holiday.
    Good to see .LA mentioned, I bought one of these the other day, was super hassle to get but worth it, IVF.LA heh.

    Statements like “.CO is the new king…” , ” Without a .CO your not even a real company…” etc etc should give great hope to .co investors who realise their mistake and want out, maybe its not too late to cash out because it shows there is still huge irrationality in the market, and clearly no shortage of greater fools.

    The fact is these will never be able to standalone as brands. Most people will wonder if its a .com with the m mistakenly omitted, I find here in UK that a .co looks like a .co.uk OR a .com error, Ive not seen a single one marketed WITHOUT THE COMPANY ALSO OWNING THE .COM/.CO.UK etc.
    To the people who actually *know* this stuff is junk but pump it anyway to boost your affiliate revenue, Im sorry for you, hopefully you can find some warmth in your otherwise wellfunded life 🙂

  24. @ LindaM

    Please do not write rubbish and offend people.
    Do something more femmine….

    Legendary Rick Schwarts who made millions has almost 2500 .co`s . Under his name and email I see about 6000 domains so .co make big part of his portfolio. I do not think he is fool.
    Also many other big domain investors has many .co`s

    I do not like listen mediocre people they know nothing and talk thing which make bigger idiots of them

    `The fact is these will never be able to standalone as brands`

    How do you know that? are you clairvoyant?

    Maybe its time to do something more femmine ?.

  25. @ LindaM

    Please do not write rubbish and offend people.

    Legendary Rick Schwarts who made millions has almost 2500 .co`s . Under his name and email I see about 6000 domains so .co makes big part of his portfolio. I do not think he is a fool.
    Also many other big domain investors has many .co`s

    I do not like listen mediocre people they know nothing and talk thing which make bigger idiots of them

    `The fact is these will never be able to standalone as brands`

    How do you know that? are you clairvoyant?

    Maybe its time to do something more femmine ?.

  26. The .co subject seems to have polarised so many people.

    .co isn’t .com and calling it the “new king” is rather over the top. The clients I advise simply can not afford quality .com domain names.

    The opportunity that .co gives them is fantastic.

    My clients are given various options that ‘include’ buying a long winded .com domain that’s hard to remember or a short name and remember the .co.

    On top of this the majority of traffic arrives via search engines, where it is better to have good keyword domain names. (.co performs just as well as .com in Google)

    Yes over time the value of .co will increase, but at the moment there is opportunity to get hold of good domains, that will add value to your business.

    LindaM, yes .co does look like .co.uk or .com, but this means the customer has familiarity with similar extensions. – This is a good thing. I believe .co will eventually be more popular in the UK, than other counties because of this.

    End user will have to get used to varying extension over the next few year as more TLD are released. .co is position very well.

  27. I am sure .co will have a place sometime in the future… to say that this will never take off is short sighted…in my very humble opinion….to make an analogy, 20 years ago no-one thought the web would be what it is today and mobile phones were a brick of 10 kg…look at them today…..did you ever think that .com.au would ever make a splash?…. well even that did and therefore, I am sure that .co will get it’s chance as well…

    I hope so anyway, because I also bought a few .co as well as a few .mobi

  28. Dont you just love it when people go ‘Don’t write rubbish and offend people’ and then get right on with talking rubbish and offending people. – I mean ‘I do not like listen mediocre people they know nothing and talk thing which make bigger idiots of them’ and ‘Do something more femmine….’ – you’ve got to be kidding me right?
    Perhaps when you can string together a sentence, or spell the ‘legendary’ one’s name right even, maybe you could be taken seriously.
    No – I am not clairvoyant, I just know that for something to be a good brand it needs to have an element of uniqueness. Its true that if .co was the first tld then today it would be .com playing catchup, that isnt the reality tho. The fact is that all .co names are hobbled from the start with confusion and leakage, its nothing to do with whether they will rank or not. This effect does not exist so much with other cctld’s because they are sufficiently different and will find their niche.
    o.co aside, the only niche (outside of Colombia) I can see .co being relevent to is the typosquatting, copycat, pirate site niche. Just my opinion, but put it this way – it will be a while till you find me putting my credit card number into a .co site.
    OK I’ll go finish the dishes now.

  29. Well, .CO needs only to be made known to be available. I said it before and I do so again, as a two-letter extension referring to company, corporation etc… .CO is beyond the need for major convincing to buy into.
    I’m not surprised that it clings to people’s mind. If it existed before .COM as a TLD, I wouldn’t hesitate for a sec to choose it and the hell then with .COM.
    One thing I’m sure of is that if this was the case, much less advertising dollar would’ve been spent for much better results, because .CO had been around Globally as an extension way before the internet itself.

  30. You just have to wonder what happens when GoDaddy stops spending big bucks to advertise the .co extension.

    Oh yeah at $30 a pop they still have plenty of inventory and are making big bucks.

    I don’t own any .co and have no plans to at the moment.

    Like they say it takes money to make money, Domainers like Rick Swartz have the money to tie up and take the risk.

    But I see it as a big risk.

    Time will tell.

  31. @ Piotr

    Exactly. Hit the nail on the head. Here we have some of the biggest domain investors in the world investing in .CO and then a whole bunch of cynics armchair quarterbacking. It’s hilarious. Rick Schwartz has b**ls and puts his money where his mouth is. Can the rest of the anti-everythingers say the same?

    And spare us (naysayers), don’t chalk what you do up to prudence. Fiscal prudence has its place but free enterprise requires a degree of calculated risk. Isn’t that clear by now?

  32. Well, Pitor, I believe you got things in reverse logic.
    Rick Schwartz do not need the opportunity that .CO presents. Rick Schwartz is yet smart enough not to miss on on such opportunity.
    .CO opportunity is like time is going backwards to the advantage of those who came late into the TLD game. You and I can afford to invest in .CO much better than we can in .COM, and the investment you make in .CO has more likelihood to return results better than any other TLD. So, in case you haven’t noticed yet, .CO has what it takes to be truly an affordable opportunity by every meaning of the term.

  33. @Elliot
    Vacation or not, I would never miss an opinion about domain names from an unconnected person.

    @Ken T
    I also think .CO will do well in UK and India as well. I got some good Indian city names which I am developing as COmmunity and COmmercial portals. I already did a phone test and a domain recall test – there was zero% confusion among .COM, .CO.IN or .CO.

    @All
    No need to put .CO on a high pedestal or deride it either. It all depends on how well .CO domains are available and developed. It sure is a developers extension not a resellers!

  34. Sounds like .mobi all over again. .co will fair slightly better over the long haul than .mobi but not much. They will have a reasonable business but prices will never be .com prices, usage will never be .com usage. They have done the best job of launching an extension though of any of them. Good job and good luck.

  35. As much as I really like the people involved with .co like Lori-Ann Wardi and they’re marketing has been a study in what other TLDs should have done (.info), I honestly think .co is pure crap.

    Anyone investing in it other than for a quick flip is very short-sighted IMHO.

    I’ve talked to plenty of non-domainers about .co and it is always seen as a typo of .com, nothing more. The non-internet savvy people I’ve spoken with see it as a phishing-type scam.

    The team has done a great job, it’s just a terrible TLD. Too bad they didn’t get invloved with .info early on before it’s reputation was wrecked with .99¢ registrations.

  36. @Landon

    You write:

    “Hilarious

    You Mention .CO

    and out from under there rock appears all the nobody dumb and gullible wannabe domainers..

    Raman
    (Elliot Banned Big Cheese) (still laughing@your porofolio,lol)

    Robert Cline (real name James Kim)
    (making up fake data numbers as usual)

    Mike Law and his stupid picture in a suit, (and his contrived story about a imaginary friend)

    Joe this clown is one of the others?

    The same crew of SPAMMERS!….”

    Your making enemies with people you know nothing about, not a good idea. I have no reason to make up stories about .co – I commented here to share a real story and give people reading this post a perspective. Do you think Elliot is making up the story about being asked about .co during his trip to Colorado?

    I have no vested interest in the success or failure of .co. I own one .co and it serves its purpose. Have you visited my blog? (yes I left a link, unlike you who hides behind an alias). Do you see .co banners anywhere, posts about how great .co names are?

    You got me troll, now I’ve wasted enough time responding to someone who acts like a child. Still, I wonder where all your anger and hate for .co (and its investors) comes from?

  37. Flash in the pan.
    Sell now while there is interest.
    NO-ONE is going to develop a dot co without owning the matching dotcom
    (loss of traffic / potential litigation)
    Look at sales trends for past hot new extensions
    Sell now!
    Imo.

  38. Int the reason most people are buying .co is because its a common mistype of .com?

    And the best Godaddy could do is get Joan Rivers as their Godaddy .co girl? I thought it was a joke. haha

    .co is the new .web or .mobi
    Just another win for .com

    Food for thought.

  39. I work in the internet marketing business 50 to 60 hours per week and nary a colleague nor a client has ever uttered .co to me.

    We have discussed .us as an acceptable alternative to .com at times, however.

  40. Hi Folks,

    You’re talking about .CO in English!

    And the question is rather “What do you think of .CO for my business in English?”

    As for myself I invested on two names in Spanish : encuentros (dating or meetings) and timbres.co (ringtones)

    Den

  41. try googling:
    site:co
    – that gives 80mil+ results

    whilst:
    site:tv
    – gives 182mil results

    .tv gets my vote – for the right business model / video centric websites

    .co is fine when you consider how much a new company entering the internet should actually rely on SEM…

    How much business does anyone genuinely expect to get just from organic listings? Any business that wants to be serious and scalable has to have ‘paid for’ ads, on Google, FaceBook, Ad Networks, etc – so the extension matters far less than the name looking credible…

    saying that, I haven’t regged any – far too many other opportunities 🙂

  42. It’s much more likely people are going to ask in public forums, where they can get opinions from dozens of other people, rather than a real life friend.

  43. @ LindaM
    OK I’ll go finish the dishes now.
    —–
    LOL, That was good, soon the idiots with a diff screen name
    every other post will go back under
    there sliny rock again as typosquater .Co withers away
    more and more every day!

    @ Mike Law

    Your blog sucks, as phony as you in your cheap suit!
    (YOUR so called phony friend story was so badly written,
    a child must have wrote it, your not elliot, dork)
    —–

    @ LindaM
    OK I’ll go finish the dishes now.
    —–
    LOL, That was good, soon the idiots with a diff screen name
    every other post will go back under
    there sliny rock again as typosquater .Co withers away
    more and more every day!

    NEWBIES: Just say NO to .Co … ( if your not a fool! )

  44. @ Erika Knight

    Flash in the pan.
    Sell now while there is interest.

    Sell Now!
    ______

    You cant, no aftermarket no one ….
    (except the hand full of above
    dumb doamainer wannabees, WANT THE CRAP!

  45. .co has CLEARLY proven it is an extension to be desired! The sales speak for themselves! I heard from various non-domainers who seen the godaddy.com .co Super Bowl Commercials and were intrigued!

    Anyone indicating .co isn’t a GREAT extension is because their heads are where the sun don’t shine and/or they missed the GREAT opportunity to get there .co domains!

    I have received 3 different offers at around $10,000 usd for them an have many other .co common terms which WILL sell for five figures plus in near future! Paid $22 for them and selling for $10k isn’t a GREAT deal!

    DUH! Only a FOOL DUMMY would claim .co is nothing much when there are MEGA 5 digit sales and 6 which happened and MANY more to come! Sucks for the dummies who missed out!!! REMEMBER those who snooze or drink too much booze LOOOOOOSE! HAHA!

  46. @ Micheal S (stupid)

    Your pep talk lies mean nothing,
    your nothing more then a cheerleader girlie

    RAH,RAH, You still own SHIT!

  47. I wonder if these .CO comment spammers are merely poor souls who invested heavily in the .CO garbage, or are actually somehow connected to the .CO registry……

    Anyway, which world would you rather be in:

    World 1: .CO – a ccTLD, released 8 months ago, represents one country called COLOMBIA, the vast majority of domains held by DOMAINERS who create for the most part small blogs, minisites, affiliate sites, or nothing at all with the hopes of selling it. Costs $30/month. The largest sale was like $10,000 to $20,000 for the premium of premium names. And even these names are most likely held by more super-speculative domainers and who knows if they’ll even be developed

    World 2: .COM (and .NET/.ORG), actual TLD’s that rank at the tippy top naturally, represent COMMERCIAL and COMPANIES around the WORLD, Google and Bing don’t need you to check off any ridiculous box in “Webmaster Tools” that may or may not do anything, they have been around for 15 + years and represent 99% of developed websites that do billions of $$$ in business, and they only cost about $10 or less a pop, thousands of these domains sell every week and total in the millions and millions of dollars.

    Really tough choice here ……. To the spammers, we know you are somehow connected to the .CO people or are heavily invested in .CO, but stop fooling innocent domainers that don’t know better. It’s wrong.

  48. Michael S,

    But they paid $10k for a name… Ummm.. Anyone here old enough to remember the dope who paid $1 million for Beauty.cc ?

    Sell them quick… .CO is sinking into the ocean faster than the Tuvalu Isslands are. (.tv)

  49. and I was so good to wait to the 60+ comment to post 🙂

    Anyway…

    “I bet they do reach 1,000,000 and I bet it’s before the summer.”

    sounds like a friendly challenge.

    Tell you what…

    June 21, 2011 is the first day of summer.

    If you want to put money on it, I will donate $100 to your Ronald McDonald charity link right now (the donation will stay, no chargeback or anything).

    Then, come June 21 if .co is at 1,000,000 registrations, I will donate $200 more.

    If .co is not at 1,000,000 registrations, you have to donate the $200.

    Bet?

  50. @ Rob

    You have a deal with one change. Since I am already donating to RMDH anyhow, if I am correct and they have 1,000,000 registrations by Hune 21, I will donate $200 to a non-profit organization of your choice.

    BTW, I don’t have insider knowledge about the # of registrations.

  51. @ Rob

    You have a deal with one change. Since I am already donating to RMDH anyhow, if I am correct and they have 1,000,000 registrations by June 21, I will donate $200 to a non-profit organization of your choice.

    BTW, I don’t have insider knowledge about the # of registrations.

  52. .co is one thing , the question is what do you think of this?? http://tuprimer.com.co/ , linked from the .co registry homepage.
    I cant be entirely sure whats going on there because I dont speak spanish all that well and the translator is broken, but it would appear that some bright spark is now selling “.com.co” domains.
    GENIUS. I mean seriously, you couldnt make it up. Im wondering if the ones already so far into .co that they cant get out will find themselves registering .com.co too. I guess its only a matter of time till .co.co is launched onto the enthralled .com dumpers as they stare up in wonder on Times Sq heh
    When con.co hits the scene will we know for sure it was all a joke from the start 🙂
    I agree with a previous poster that the marketing for this has been tremendous and the people behind it do know how to make a lot of noise. Im sure they will be snapped up by others in no time because they are clearly very good.
    Elliot, Rob, interesting wager heh Where does the .co reg publish the stats for total regged?

    .com.co omg i mean come on!! lol im still actually laughing at this, seriously that cannot be for real. Anyone with good spanish care to take a look and see?

  53. @ Elliot

    Rob is right ….

    i am losing respect for your opinion the more you DENY
    that .Co is not dead and will end up a phishing,typo extension.

    You need to tell Juan to stick his affiliates up his butt …
    i do realize his comm’s are tempting but you cant buy back
    ALL the people who listen to you after you have lost there trust.

  54. @ Landon

    What are some of your domain names and what’s your background? I find it amusing that someone who may be anonymously posting is questioning my integrity. I’ve never heard of you outside of your frequent commentary on various domain blogs, and I’ve never even seen your name on a Whois look up.

    I am giving my opinion, and as I’ve stated MANY times, .CO is NOT an affiliate advertiser, and I get paid no more or less for any articles I write. As I also mentioned, I have already been paid in full for advertising for .CO through the end of the year. I do not make a single penny more for articles or my opinion, and I could not post a single article about anything .CO and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. As you can clearly see, it’s an interesting, if not polarizing topic, that is heavily discussed and debated by people who read my blog.

    I own around 10-12 .CO names (like Torah.CO, Elliot.CO, Bahamas.CO and a few others). I have nothing really to gain by writing articles, and your negative posting all over the place is getting annoying.

  55. Elliot’s going to lose $200 to charity. What a good sport.

    We’ve been at 600,000 for a few months now.

    Question is – will be be at 500,000 come August 🙂

  56. @Linda.

    COM.CO has been the commercial TLD for Colombia for a long time.
    You’ll find every real, commercial CO entity there.

    imo it’s what allowed .CO to exist in the first place. Anyone who held COM.CO had first dibs at the .CO (Mr Mann was obviously aware of this early on as he got in first). It’s why I now think that .CO won’t work very well even in Colombia because any self serving business will stick with the .COM.CO.

    .CO has become the de-facto defensive backup – shortcut domain. Lots of LLL.co and not much else. Of course just imo.

  57. My disbelief lies with the decision makers that decided these roots would be GOOD FOR COLOMBIA, which after all is the point of cctlds, repurposed or not is irrelevent.
    I might be wrong but I believe having such similar root names to the global standards is probably highly detrimental to local colombian business. Using these typofodder roots is basically just handing all your domestic demand to international business, while sidelining the businesses that should be benefitting from local traffic.
    Noone in germany accidentally types .com instead of .de, so german business gets german traffic on .de.
    Colombian business is not so lucky, since its key tld decision makers have taken another path, and ICANN has in my opinion mistakenly allowed it.

  58. Yes, your Higness,

    I am going to be the HONEST guy that points out lies

    and deception when it is shown to be present on a blog,

    and yours quiet frankly regarding .Co is appalling …

    I see now that the Big Cheese and all the others are part of

    your Marketing team and are still present,( alias) despite your denial.

    Your trust worthiness from now on is ZILCH.

  59. @ Landon

    You are as bad as all those people you call out. I am an open book. I’ve shared my domain holdings, my projects, and just about everything else I do in this business. You are just an anonymous troll.

    Why not make like The Big Cheese and not come back here?

    BTW, please show me ANY lie I’ve ever posted on here. You won’t find any. I don’t lie. The only thing a person has in this small industry is credibility, and you, as an anonymous troll, have absolutely none. I am very open in my business – probably more than I should be.

  60. I think thats real harsh. Elliot has been pretty consistently from what I can tell ‘on the fence’ on .co, he;s backed his tm’s and geos or whatever, as have I and most sensible .com people, but otherwise not particularly invested in .co or have much riding on it. He;s also declared interests far more openly than almost anyone else in the business. Elliot has been offering discourse and bandwidth and whatnot to .co but I wouldnt term any of it pumping. In fact I recall somewhere in a post that he says .co was indeed speculative, couldnt be written off, and could be a good 3-5 year investment, or something like that. Thats not a pump, thats a balanced opinion. I happen to disagree with it, but Elliot is probably more likely the one who is correct!

  61. “I see now that the Big Cheese and all the others are part of

    your Marketing team and are still present,( alias) despite your denial.”

    @ Landon

    If you really think I am associated in a capacity (other than blog reader) with The Big Cheese (or just about anyone else), you aren’t very smart.

    Why not go back and look up some of the dumb comments he made, and you can see how things progressed.

    His IP is now blocked – the first time I ever had to do that to anyone, hence his not returning. I hope I don’t have to do that again, but his comments were beyond annoying, self promoting, and frustrating to me.

  62. Well, self important person,

    YOU LIE EVERY TIME YOU SUPPORT .Co
    —-

    “YOU KNOW BETTER, MAYBE YOU DON’T? …

    IN THAT CASE YOUR OPINION ON ANY DOMAIN

    ISSUE IS ZILCH.

    MAKE THAT DOUBLE ZILCH!

  63. @Elliot
    This is your blog and you don’t have to defend against faceless and shameless TROLLS who don’t contribute anything to the discussion.

    Why don’t you just delete their comments?

  64. I don’t even try to sell domains anymore, I just try to make websites on them and make them earn their keep.

    That said, I got 2 .co’s and one of them is Amish.co. I am proud of it cause I used to be Amish, and the name I had before was “examish.com” (and few different spellings like ex-amish, formeramish). I changed my logo on the site with the Amish.co too.

    Also since there are a lot of programmers out here on this site, I have a programming job that I am looking to have done, I get 500 hits a day on this website called “subback”, and the site is not finished, so I am looking for someone to help me with it…

  65. I think much of the opinions expressed so far against the .CO TLD project an image as though the corner of earth lies somewhere on the Texan Mexican border.
    I cannot claim I’ve been a domainer long enough to state my opinion without perhaps being ridiculed by those who live in the bubble referred to as Domaining;
    For, if you do not live in such bubble, then your comments should reflect the opinion of the average Global person who knows little about the game of TLDs and still cares about how his company name will sound like online with this TLD vs. that, which when truly reflects his company, which when is shorter and more memorable, which when truly looks neat on the browser etc…
    You know domains TLDs are not just letters advertised to success or failure, they are and if not (they should be) an agency that adds or subtract character from a name (whether generic or brand).
    For example, I would much rather own the domain name SocialNetwork.net than SocialNetwork.com.
    I would much prefer the domain name HeartDisease.info than HeartDisease.com. Similarly, if I have a company already names Medco, Redco, Nedco, Liceco, (you name any company around the world or corporation you’ll find the CO letter extension attached to it), I would much rather have the domain Medco.co than Medco.com and similarly if I have gala as my brand, gala.co sounds 100 times better than gala.com…
    With everything moving towards organizing the zoo that the internet has become, and this is much reflected in the behavior of giants like Google (in constantly defining what the internet experience should be like through their algorithm), I believe eventually, TLDs will be a great tool of organization to start with, because they can be like country extensions to a domain name or brand.
    From here, personally, I believe .CO has innate immunity that will keep it famous and growing for longer time than expected by you guys who are mocking it just because you’ve been either disappointed by previous TLDs like mobi, or haven’t caught up with the .CO rush, or just enjoy being Domainers for the sake of acting like Domainers.
    Coming from an international orientation (with all due modesty) I can tell you that .CO (once its availability hits the average Global Potential Domain Buyer) is most likely yo be the choice, because as a 2 letter extension its been around long before the internet itself, and it make me wonder why .com ever existed to begin with.
    Its a beautiful TLD and highly brandable too.
    I did not think much before I invested in .CO, and I thank God I did not arrive early enough into this domain industry to have been too discouraged or disappointed by previous failures to recognize the opportunity that .CO represents. I thank God I still have my own taste and it hasn’t been damaged yet by this crap I believe Domaining has become.
    Domaining if to ever become anything to learn from – a school – it will need to be freed first from the ego of some domainers and domain wannabees who think they’re innovative and cool for being involved in such circle, but really they are as traditional and block minded as you can imagine – otherwise they would not sound like grandma in her antique saloon every time they praise .COM religiously over any other TLD.
    Nothing is religious or sacred… You’ll see…

  66. @Ken T

    I totally agree with you
    if we look at new tld we can find some abbreviation e.g. eco
    (by the way I am sure they release more, for obvious reason)
    .Co for many means company (I know it was mentioned many times, but its big plus)

    I do not think most people (exl. domain investor) will recognise in the future what is cc or what is new tld.
    This is reason while Mr Cale said that new TLD would help .CO

    I personally think People will be more flexible to choose different extensions (unlee new tld goes flat) which mean something to their business.

    We all know that word` company` is associated with money and most expensive premium domains go to companies.

  67. For me,

    a first rate .Co doesn’t feel second rate to any other extension.

    An extension that can provide that is ….

    Here is to everyone who finds a domain in any extension that they feel is first rate. That feeling will inspire development.

  68. @Rob and Elliot. Interesting wager. The good thing about 1mil is that we can sure the registry will be shouting it from the rooftops, changing their banners etc so we’ll all know 🙂

    @Chadi. Good perspective in your post. I fear that with most domainer’s trade likely being primarily with other domainers, the fact that they are both uncertain about this is having an affect on how they perceive this young domain.

    @LindaM. I disagree totally and think that the existence of .co.uk will enforce the popularity of .Co over here; its business sense that if you cant get your name/idea, get the NEAREST cheapest alternative.

    I suspect that many intelligent people posting here are coming down on the wrong side of .co at the moment because it seems like a too-good-to-be-true scenario:

    “Hold on, you’re telling me that I can get top-notch domain that ranks as well as .com and sounds catchy AND is shorter? I don’t believe you. Something of that value cannot be free-for-all to register. There’s a catch, there HAS to be catch”

    It has only just occurred to me how offensive actually is. You have many a person who has put lots of money and toiled many hours, and marketed in many places their .coms

    Along comes this domain ext with a 10month-5year value for any old Joe Bloggs to register and rank amazingly with his developed exact one-word match. *I* would take offence and don’t blame some of the comments.

    How many of us with .Co when registering came across one or two more good available names and thought “Okay well, I have enough for the moment. Let’s not spend too much. Just in case”?

    I willing to bet all of us have. Buying something now with a low but growing value requires courage and faith.

  69. @Richards

    Nice post. I really can’t understand why there are people writing against .CO that express anger and hatred in their posts. I’ve not been in domaining for long enough to remember launches of .biz and .info, but I don’t think they inspired the same feelings in certain people. Why it happens with .CO is really beyond me. Maybe because for the first time some see a new extension as a serious competitor of .com? I have some news for you: you’ve nothing to worry about.

  70. @Richards

    “me that I can get top-notch domain that ranks as well as .com and sounds catchy AND is shorter?”

    You mean like .cc, .me, and .biz (which meets except on size). Not sure why .co crowd are size obsessed.

    @Joe

    “I’ve not been in domaining for long enough to remember launches of .biz and .info…. ”

    Way to answer your own question 🙂

  71. @JC

    Seriously, if you or someone else could provide a reasonable answer to why I see a lot of angry and awful comments against .CO and its supporters, I’d be thankful.

  72. @JC

    .me has its place: Personal pages and blogs. .cc seems rather more complicated audibly than .com Thus .biz is, i suppose, the only realistic of those you mentioned for a business to adopt. But its more restricted than .com. One would never have had youtube.biz

    Even the die hard .com supporters are agreeing that if released at the same time, .Co would have taken the spotlight. Thus, we now need to wait to see if it will play ‘catch-up’ well enough.

    …and it’s not doing too badly so far…

    p.s. shorter is better.

  73. @Richards

    i bought 1500 COs i’m looking every day for more good .co and if i will find one more or 100 i will buyit.Last good one i bought a week ago” officialwebsite.co “the difference is,some of us saw an opportunity and we tookit.
    We saw it, it was an opportunity that comes once in a life time an some of you mist it.you got to live with it.
    @joe
    Some of the early domaniners bought .mobi,.biz,etc…they did’t do so well, now they mist the boaut.When you check if a .co is availlable you see that is taken and the same word in info,me,tv,asia,ws,us,even org are still available.What is that telling you,automatically .co is more powerfull then the rest,were all this folks have invested.
    @rob
    @landon
    i bet what ever elliot is betting that you will lose..CO will have 1mil by june21.I’m betting the 200$ against you two morans, not to blog on elliot’s blog anymore.Personaly i had enough of you two.Reason:NO RESPECT

  74. There are winners and there are losers.

    @rob
    @lanndon

    both big time losers. Don’t know why they invest so much time and energy here trying to throw mud on .CO

    get a life. move on. to something else. Life is too short to have so much envy and jealousy. It is sad but will probably has caused much stress for these people.

    Anyways more good news for .CO

    It has been officially selected as the domain name of the year.

    Congrats.

    .CO is simply the hottest thing going on the Internet today. If it doesn’t include .CO I’m not interested.

    And I am not alone.

    You only need to look at this forum.

    .CO is the only story that matters. It always, always gets 100+ postings whereas any other story, you would be hard pressed to pass 20 postings.

    .CO is simply .CO OL, .CO mpany, .CO operation, .CO rporation, .CO mpany, .CO mmercial, .CO should have been my first born child.

  75. Google is now buying up a lot of .CO s.

    I went to try and register

    blogspot.co

    and to my surprise Google registered it on Sept 16 th.

    If Google is buying premium .CO names you know

    .CO

    is something special.

  76. @Joe

    Takes two to tango. Takes two to fight. Dancing I get. Violence I don’t.

    @Richards

    Shorter is better is one of the more ridiculous arguments unless you’re a URL shortener (been done and WORST innovation ever).
    If .co works for company – then so be it. Company is an English representation of a corporation. It is different in other countries (Should Germans love .ARgentina? Should Colombian companies wait for .SA (Saudia Arabia to release).

    .me ? I though this was for Maine?!

    @James aka Robert

    Google is buying lots of CO like blogspot because douchebags keep trying to profit from their trademarks and old traffic. Did they register Blogger.co too? My God they did! What about YouTube.co?

  77. @Rich

    I stand corrected.

    As with many things, there are different opinions even on the same side. I am quite confident of .CO’s success. All indicators are pointing in one direction and I applaud your vision in the investment of 1500 .COs

    I feel that in a few years time I will probably regret not taking a bigger bite whilst the fruit was fresh.

  78. They will reach 1 million registrations by numbers.

    The top guys in this business registered thousands of .co domain names. It’s called insurance, just in case .co really takes off. I think it could be a number 2 extension in 5 years.

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