Article highlights commercialization of two letter country code domains.
The New York Times published an article today about the commercialization of country code top level domain names.
Colombia’s .co will get major attention after a Go Daddy commercial plugs it today, and .co was front and center in the article.
.Co Internet CEO Juan Calle noted that Colombia gets 25% of revenue from sales of .co. This is the first time I’ve seen this number published.
.Co grossed $20 million last year thanks to higher prices for sunrise and premium domain names. Calle thinks the number will be $30 million this year. He hope to hit five million .co domain names within five years, according to the article.
Last month I somewhat humorously suggested that the new “south Sudan” could name itself for domain name profits. I was a bit surprised to get a note from someone working on the renaming the next week asking for my opinion.
Other popular commercialized ccTLDs include .tv (Tuvalu) and .me (Montenegro).
Louise says
That was interesting – thanx for highlighting the NY Times article. The first extension mentioned is .me – bodes well for .me!
Kevin Murphy broke news of three new extensions from the split of the Netherlands Antilles, including .sx! That ICANN is a sly one!
Rob Sequin says
I am looking forward to the .co registry posting the current number of .co registrations and the post-Super Bowl commercial number of registrations.
I don’t think there will be any “noticeable bump” in registrations. Call me crazy but this is my prediction.
And to say that .co will have five million registrations in five years is PURE hype by .co and they should be held accountable.
I would like to know the methodology for that prediction.
tricolorro says
Sad to see .US totally ignored in the article.
🙁
Rob Sequin says
Just for facts…
from cointernet.co press release of February 3:
“with well over 600,000 .CO domain names registered”
and press release dated September 15, 2010:
“taken registrations for more than a half a million .CO domain names”
END
So, that’s 100k+ registrations between September 15 and February 3. That’s about five months. Even if there are 650k .co registrations to date, that’s 30k registrations a month over the past five months.
Not too shabby but if you project out 30k registrations per month, that’s 145 months or 12 years to get to five million registrations… and that’s with 0 drops.
NOT five years so five million registrations in five years is pure HYPE and .co management should be asked for their methodology on that prediction.
Don’t buy into the hype people.
I’ll make two predictions:
1. The Super Bowl will not generate more than 50k new registrations in all of February.
2. .co will NEVER hit one million registrations.
3. HUGE drop of .co domains coming in 2011.
Seen it all before.
I say all this so people don’t piss away their hard earned money on HYPE.
Get in and get out but don’t fool yourself and think you are “investing” in .co domains.
The party is almost over and the lack of new registrations after this BIG Super Bowl commercial will prove that .co is dead.
Andrew Allemann says
@ tricolorro – that’s because .us hasn’t been commercialized.
Charles Thompson says
I’m sorry i think .co sucks they are over hyped I always instinctively add the m to the end and all the good names were STOLEN (they call it ‘reserved’) leaving nobody with any real investment opportunity. No thanks.. I invested in .COM instead and got some REAL domain names, not Columbian ones.
Mike Flynn says
The elephant in the room, alluded to in NYT article, .co is short for Colombia. Need I say more?
MS says
“operates the “.co” registry under license from the Colombian government. “To do that, we want to build massive awareness.”
Is this document public? Are any of the terms open? Length of it? Renewal options?
Naperville Wedding Photographer says
If for nothing else it’s one of the cheapest investments around. To secure a piece of internet real estate that could potentially (even if that potential is almost nothing) make you some money some day, especially now that GoDaddy has dropped the price to 11.99 is well worth it in a lot of peoples eyes. I for one plan to develop a couple of the names I’ve already picked up and I’m sure I’m not alone there.
Charles Thompson says
.CO leaves no real investment opportunity all the cool domains (cocaine.co, weed.com, drug names for example, even CALI.CO – a freaking hack domain of a cat, and any 3 letter .co – web.co, etc) are STOLEN and “Reserved” This is a hyped up for-profit launch that leaves no pioneer value at all. At least with .COM you could buy ‘sex.com’ and make lots and lots of money. Any ccTLD that does this I’m not interested in – I’m interested in making money – to make money with domain names you need an open field, not a rigged one. I understand it’s their choice and they are a 3rd world country that needs the money – but that still doesn’t force me to buy one, .COM reigns supreme. Whenever I type .co I instinctively add the letter ‘m’ to the end, it’s bound to cause a lot of customer confusion, just like a hyphenated domain name – traffic leakage.
Charles Thompson says
Notice i put weed.com instead of weed.co – my point exactly! .CO is Columbia, not company. I am mad because I wanted to buy .CO domains, I fell for the hype – and noticed all the good premium ones were “Reserved” so I reserved my money for .COM instead, and it was a good investment!
Prayer Requests says
Looking more and more like .co is a bust!
Boob Job Prices says
Still not convinced .co is going mainstream. I’m more likely to buy a .biz or .info at this point.