.Co will be in your face at SXSW interactive.
Say what you will about .co (and I know a lot of you will), but you have to give the TLD credit for doing more than anyone else to create a brand around a TLD. It’s a model for anyone who wants to launch a new top level domain next year.
Case in point: the company’s presence at SXSW later this week.
SXSW Interactive is the perfect venue for a company trying to court startups, entrepreneurs, and tech companies.
And the company is going to SXSW in a big way. You can see its calendar of events here. (All of these programs are open to SXSWi badge holders).
250,000 people are expected in Austin over the entire SXSW festival (which includes education, interactive, film, and music). Interactive is actually the biggest show of the four, so .co will hit a lot of these people with its sponsorship.
The company is also giving the royal treatment to companies in the startup ecosystem using the .co brand. The company has highlighted over a dozen of them on its blog. .Co will be helping these companies make connections and do business during the event.
Today the company also launched StartupLife.co.
JSP says
Didn’t wardi previously work for GS?
Shouldn’t be too surprising .co is pounding away with propaganda.
And these poor .co startup saps that happen to see some light with their biz model will be forced to pay major bucks for the .com if ever become successful.
I guess in the end the .co ecosystem ultimately feeds into being eaten alive by the .com owner.
Not too different from the greek debt situation, goldman bought the greek gov a couple of years through manipulation and then it was back to reality. .co might buy the owner a year or two before reality hits that 1/2 the traffic ultimately leaks to the .com
Goldmanites/ex-goldmanites often think alike – dont really care about the client or end user, only about making their money.
If you were being paid as a consultant to a startup would you recommend using a .co address??? I rest my case.
Joe says
They’ve been doing an amazing job promoting the extension and, according to Lori, there’s much more to come.
I remember, when .CO launched, many were sure the extension would die within the first couple of months (6 months at best) and they usually linked to your popular article on the lifecycle of a TLD fanboy 🙂
Kevin Murphy says
.co sucks! .com is king!
😉
adam says
“I remember, when .CO launched, many were sure the extension would die within the first couple of months..”
They spent a lot of money on marketing that`s why this crappy extension is still around.
But you cannot change shi. into gold does not matter how much money you spend.
Joe says
@Kevin Murphy
I strongly agree with the second half of your comment, but disagree with the other 😉
Joe says
@adam
“They spent a lot of money on marketing that`s why this crappy extension is still around.”
So do you think they would have achieved the same results if their extension were .mobi or .XXX?
Jacek says
There will be an alternative created to .com someday as people are really fed up with these ridiculously long .com names. If it is not .co what’s better?
Juan says
.com is king! KING I SAY!
🙂
Leonard Britt says
Last year at SXSW Moniker had a .TV auction. Some registry-held LL names sold but the few .TV domainers with keyword domains being auctioned probably weren’t thrilled with the overall result.
rs says
If I were going I cannot imagine thinking about country code domains. Some alternative suggestions of more interesting things to do:
http://sxsw.com/node/10598
http://sxsw.com/node/10193
Steve Jones says
Honestly, they have nothing better to do. What they’re doing marketing-wise is the least that TLDs seeking widespread use SHOULD be doing. I don’t think anyone who dislikes .co can dislike the registry. Their success hasn’t really changed the fact that .co is far inferior to other options (especially .com of course) and will soon have potentially hundreds of other competitors for “.com alternative”, but that shouldn’t really be the .co registry’s concern because they can’t really affect that. Things are what they are, and all they can do is increase the exposure of their extension, and they have done well at that.
Rory says
The .com extension is the most familiar to everyone, including myself. I think one of these other extensions just need a break through. Google etc need to give way to this. .Co is actually an excellent extension..Com is King and i love .com, but every King has his end. You can keep buying 50 character, misspelled,dash dash, and all manner of crumbs .com left for you to eat or you can stop babbling about .com is king and support something new that makes sense. If you .co gets more support and you typed in cars- cars.com and cars.co shows up at the top of search engines- I think people would click on the .co too. Once it’s visible and recognised- it comes down to what content your website has and what you offer. The people at .Co just need to keep pushing it and pushing it- because you cant just walk into a strongs mans house (.com) and expect to share or steal his goods without first putting up a real fight. Familiarity is all it is with .com. people are used to it. When i first typedin a .co domain name- i was tempted to add a “m” after the co, but after a while it became normal as .com. Being new can be an advantage- just like politics, you just have to market it well and have perseverance.
GarotoK says
I give the .co registry credit, but they could take all of Carlos Slim’s billions and market .co and it would still be a failure.
You can’t beat a dead horse and make it do something when it was dead to begin with.
Here’s the math formula:
O.co = O.com
O.com gets almost all the glory from O.co advertising. It’s now proven.
Joe says
“.Co and the Changing Domain Strategy of Startups”
DNFblog.com/co-and-the-changing-domain-strategy-of-startups/
Pio says
Since Overstock`s announcement regarding 61% leak. I noticed that many blogs try to put .co in good light. I guess because .CO paid them.
Those blogs owners do not realize that People are nor stupid and they are just loosing respect.
My advice if you see .co ad banner on any domain blog do not pay much attention what blog owner writes.
Rich says
Pio@
How did you contribute to the domain society to give advice?
What are your accomplishments?
Pio says
@Rich
Do you really want to know?
Rich says
Yes pio i reeeeeeeeeally wanna know…
Steve M says
Yes; the .co folks are doing a good job marketing this extension.
The problem is that it’s akin to applying layer after layer of red lipstick to a pig.
It’s still a pig.
Meaning that any companies foolish enough to apply this lipstick to their startups are …
Pio says
@ Rich
Since I do not respect cyber-squatters as they give bad reputation to other, honest domain investors and you are definitely cyber-squatter also you want some contribution from me I give one.
Rich email address is magnumdomains at gmail dot com
Rich is guy who registered many global brands Fortune 500 AND OTHERS
Few examples his .co`s on .com you find golbal brands, Frotune 500
e.g. level3, ferro, bokf, pssd, csx, mdu, vig, caci and many, many more.
Rich this is just matter of time when you have big problems.
Do you want more contribution from me?
Pio says
@ Rich
Since I do not respect cyber-squatters as they give bad reputation to other, honest domain investors and you are definitely cyber-squatter also you want some contribution from me I give one.
Pio says
When Andrew approves the rest of my comment you will see.
Rich says
Pio@
Bravo,bravo, so far you proved that you can Goole.Going back to the subject
WHAT IS YOUR CONTRIBUTION IN THE DOMAIN INDUSTRY?
Rich says
that was Google