Boulder.co Hits Over $10K In Bidding
2010 August 23
The first major Colorado city being auctioned off in the Land Rush .CO auctions is Boulder.co and with a day to go, bidding has topped the $10K mark.
The current high bid on Boulder.co is currently $10,150.
Bidding will get extended by 24 hours if there is a bid in the last day which beats the previously high bid.
Auctions for Vail.co, Aspen.co and Denver.co are yet to start
We are in this auction and will let you know how it turns out.
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What’s the highest paid price in these private auctions so far? do you know?
That’s one of the best .co applications I’ve seen.
Owen
So how much do you think its worth?
Wasn’t Boulder.com offered for sale in the $200K range a year or two ago?
What is a .co worth compared to a .com?
1%, 5%, 10% or more?
WOW the GNSO may have to launch a PDP to have the ccNSO look into the status of the ccTLD .CO and have WIPO declare a world-wide UDRP as the IANA turns to the IESG to have the IAB consider the wide-spread implications of geo-centric domains in a borderless Internet where the free market public decides they like .CO for COlorado domains. How can the free market and the public know more than “THE Community”. Has anyone seen “THE Community” lately ?
Jeff
Michael is fine. Mr. Berkens, well I’m not that old yet.
So here are the two questions I have for you.
1. Is the .co version of a .com worth 5% of its value?
2. Are you in the auction for boulder.co and if not why?
too low price
boulder.co is one of the rare case of a .co domain that has more meaning (and more value) of its .com version
http://www.valuate.com/
Boulder.COM —> $516,000
Boulder.CO —–> $25
To TheBigLieSociety:
Since the bidding at Boulder.Co has exceeded 10,000.00, it exposes valuate as a ‘political’ evaluation machine?
Truth is that certain .CO are going to be more valuable than their .COM counterparts soon. I like both .CO and .COM, but certain small minded monopolists and self-interested individuals dominate this industry and are no good for the rest of us. They have been making money at the expense of everybody else. They know who they are. They can keep trying to keep .CO out of the game, but it’s not going to work.
I was going to add that, it takes a certain type of sickness to ‘evaluate’ a domain such as Boulder.CO at $25? I mean, to register the damn thing even at regular price is $29! Tsk Tsk
Thanks for keeping us up to date on this particular auction.
Glad to see .CO’s putting up solid numbers and creating a foundation for future geo .CO domain sales.
Good luck to all!
Ok so let me ask this question – Lets say someone reading this is willing to pay $25,000 for boulder.co whats the upside when you can get the .com for $150,000???
Will .co ever sell for more than the .com when the .com is available to buy – no …
Is there a fool out there to pay 2x times your price — sure, put maybe 1. Lots of better ways to double your money in times with a lot less risk.
If you plan on developing it then sure – sky is the limit to your business plan – but if you are like 99% of domainers who just buy to park and sell where’s the big upside here?
at 10k maybe .. which I still think is very overpriced for any .co to be quiet honest. Although .co did a great job marketing all the hype for every other alternative extension has came and went so buying any name over 10k is a pretty big risk and when the .com is available for a very fair price what upside do you expect?
I just dont see this name worth anything more than the current bid at all.
In fact boulder.org is available for sale which who knows the guy may probably sell for less than the bid of boulder.co right now
Has anybody even asked about it or are most just following the herd again?
I would bet out of the 100 bidders or whatever the count is in this auction not a single person emailed the .org owner but hey thats just me putting some logic to the while equation here and yes I know … logic and domainers dont really mix. My bad.
Alan,
True, a .CO is not a .COM, and no other extension is; for the fact that the debate is even going on is a plus for this ccTLD.
I remember not many years ago, people castigated .NET and the rest as untouchables. Even tho those ‘inferior’ domains are not raking in millions like .COM. they are holding their own. The difference between 516,000 for Boulder.COM and $25 for BOULDER.CO has got to be artificial. There’s only one BOULDER.COM, therefore the runner ups cannot do too badly. If the .CO is successful in branding their extension as a COMPANY extension, it wont be long before hundreds of countries that regard .CO as abbrev. for COMPANY begin the mad rush for these things. If you think about it, United Kingdom, to South Africa all prefer their .CO.UK, or .CO.ZA etc… so eventually, they will regard .CO as a short hand… at least we hope so.
Highly doubtful but even with that comparison – boulder is a us city. Most likely another somewhere in the world but the US will never change from .com to .co so the country code theory used in your argument doesn’t apply here.
Have no idea what you are talking about $25 … all automated appraisals are worth crap. The value is in the data not the “appraised value” – I said this years ago and will say it again – trying to find value from an automated tool is fools good. There is no conspiracy as you eluded to above – its just an impossible mathematical formula due to all the different intangible factors and lack of a liquid marketplace for domains. I wont even comment on appraised values anymore as they are all ridiculous.
Good luck all the same if you’re bidding.
“Wasn’t Boulder.com offered for sale in the $200K range a year or two ago?
What is a .co worth compared to a .com?”
Some are missing the point:
Boulder is in Colorado.
Colorado has .co as its abbreviation.
EVERYONE in COlorado knows what Boulder.co means and probably everyone seeking to visit them knows to. It’s Boulder in Colorado. Look at your mail, or any address; it’s …..Miami, FL – Boulder, Co – Philly, PA etc. People see this several times a day so it becomes second nature.
Boston.ma is another good one. As cities get their .nyc style tlds this will be worth a lot more.
.co is worth 100,000+ times less then .com
1/2500 traffic? how much money is lost there. no familiarity with public. seo disadvantages++
another very overrated extension where a couple people will get rich off of and 1000 suckers will lose money on.
timeline of a new extension goes pop, down, down, down, down
“1/2500 traffic? how much money is lost there. no familiarity with public. seo disadvantages++”
Huh? Google “Boulder Co” for a second and see how popular co is for Colorado
. Here’s a hint: as popular as NY is for New York
The official site is ci.boulder.co.us too
Einstein,
I get your point but unless an end user buys this who has the money to brand the domain and development skills to put it to use with more than a mini site then you are left with nothing more than a cute name and the same story most domainers have about “oh what a good domain this could be”
The lines between investment and dreaming often overlaps most domainers so if you are an investor who ends up paying 25k or whatever this ends up and plan to park the page then you are doing nothing to build value so you have to sell the dream – whereas with a .com there is no dream selling required
Could this name be great – sure, if you have a few hundred k and a solid plan but if your plan is to park the name its a pretty dumb investment given other opportunites available in the marketplace and is a very high risk bet
How about date.me or others that all make sense and are pretty cute – they were all bought and paid high for but due to the lack of development almost all became rather worthless overnight
We have seen this story many times over
Well, Einstein”s got a point there. Boulder.co is essentially a hack for city-state so to say it is worth 1-3 percent of the .com I think is undervaluing it. In this special case, I would say 15-20% of .com would be accurate. If it were missouri.co , yeah, I would say 5% of the .com.
EM,
But if you are not going to develop it then why even bid at this level? Lets say the .com is available for around 150k – which it is as indicated above.
Using your math the .co is worth 30k or less and yes I understand these all imaginary numbers but my point is an investor you are now paying full market value on a domain for an extension that has not proved itself – has nothing more than a lunch menu of recorded sales and is still not even sure how it will show up in search rankings.
As a developer hell pay as much as you like but as investor you have to look at the risk and reward. The chances of you ever selling this name for more than 100k are pretty slim – 50k is 100% an end-user pricing and 25k is quite likely the same.
At a 10k bid you already entered a range where maintaining the liquidity of this name (liquidity defined as a price most other domain investors would pay) is doubtful after the NameJet auction ends. I’ve seen it a thousand times – auction mentality is entirely different than aftermarket sales so the price you pay here is in no way guaranteed after the auction ends.
As an investor do you want to bank 5 digits on a domain like this?
As a developer sure but as an investor… you are a gambler or simply have enough room in your pie to gamble every now and then.
There is no need in this marketplace to gamble like the 1990′s with domains. Sure, some people like it and it works for some from time to time but they always have more losses than wins. The thing here is the odds for a big win are sooo against you since the .com and .org are available which are proven authoritative extensions already.
Domain investments should be treated just like stocks. Never fall in love with one because its cute – understand the dynamics involved, not the dream.
Alan, I follow your logic, and more importantly, I read your site, and I see your emphasis on Development, as opposed to parking; all that is proper and sound. I concur.
However, you seem to have a scientific mind and apply it to domain name valuations. In your lexicon, there is a pecking order set in stone when it comes to TLDs. In essence, once the .COM (and the .NET), and the .ORG are available, there is no need to buy any other TLD or ccTLD, regardless of how much the former are going for. I disagree. All Domains should be developed, and are worth less undeveloped, true, but that applies to all. If one spends 516,000 purchasing BOULDER.COM, the only way they would recoup their investment is either thru development, or selling it later at a higher price. That also applies to the other extensions. So, I agree in part and disagree in part, with your over all assertions.
But, to the core issue of how much a domain should be valued? In the case of BOULDER.CO, it is no longer academic; the valuation is going on right now, someone has valued at over $10,000.00, and he/she is doing it with what counts most: MONEY! So, like they say, money talks and I forgot what takes a walk.
Alan, I agree that going deep into 5 figures is very risky *for investors* but we dont; know who’s bidding. Maybe it’s the .com guy.
However, if Boulder.com sold for $150K, and assuming it’s worth that much, I’d easily pay $50K and maybe more for Boulder.co (if Colorado was my area and I was a developer.) I own a few top .usstate names and I can tell you that, right now at least ,I even get credit for the .extension as many people search for city, state code.
Let’s not forget that one does not need to be #1 to make a lot money.
Alan is pretty much clearing the point for Boulder.co !
For Domainers with plan A) Buy , Park and hope to sell with good profit. Bad investment at the moment! Domain is worth reg fee.
For Domainers with plan B) Buy and develop with a full blown Business plan, like selling real estate or lead generation for businesses in Boulder etc.? The name is worth 6 digits and more!
Just my 2 cents
http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/at-large/2010q3/006848.html
“The reality is that the folks buying .CO domains are not confused children”
“As for why .CO domain names are priced at a premium to .COM, the answer is
twofold. First, we wanted to create a disincentive to mass speculation.”
===
Note: The people behind .CO run .US. They were “groomed” into the domain industry. Anyone that thinks that .COM and .CO are not co-ordinated is a
“confused child”.
Update regarding Valuate.com/Estibot.com and the valuation of .CO:
When I launched Flipping.CO I asked Estibot who powers the appraisals of Valuate.com to serve .CO that made sense!
The response was basically “Estibot is based on past sales so today we cannot appraise .CO domains seriously” so today Estibot and Valuate do NOT appraise .CO domains!!!
What I have do for Flipping.CO is according my experience and the few first sales I seen appraise .CO submitted domains to 4% of the .COM value.
Some say it’s still too much and that the best value should be 1%.
At the begining I ever thought about update Valuate.com to also serve 4% of the .COM for .CO appraisals but this will have created a breach, we absolutely must serve the SAME appraisals as Estibot.com. The suggestion I got was to show a message “we don’t valuate .CO while there is not enough sales”, but I admit I did not coded as I did not did with new extensions like .ME for example, … Just be patient or do like me, valuate.com and apply a 4% to the result (or the ratio you estimate is the most accurate).
On flipping.CO for the moment many hundred dollars sales but none over $1,000
Now, we did not had the chance to have premium domains submitted like the ones you are talking here.
.CO Valuations are going to be very difficult…
A .CO and .COM pair may be worth more than the sum of the individual domains.
Migrations from CO.UK and CO.NZ add to the .CO potential.
.CO is more “natural sounding” when included with the Brand or Trademark (example CostCO vs CostCOM) [Many ads and commercials place the .COM a long way from the brand… { “Expedia…….Dot COM” } is an example
As people have discovered, all of the .COlorado names are taken. Surprised ?
What about the counties ? and the generics ? RockyMountainAnything.CO
The artificial .CO Registry cost (which should be 50 cents) could soon have a reverse impact on .COM. How long will .COM be restrained to “under $10″ by the U.S. Government ? Will court cases now drive the .COM Registry to be private and de-regulated ?…with no price cap ?… or will .CO magically adopt the Registry pricing of .COM ?…or will Registrars appear who always sell .CO and .COM as a locked pair ?…masking the true Registry cost of each…
The .CO Tsunami may end up as huge waves that continue to wash back and forth for years, benefiting some and drowning others…
Uzoma
“In essence, once the .COM (and the .NET), and the .ORG are available, there is no need to buy any other TLD or ccTLD, regardless of how much the former are going for”
Actually thats not what I said. Anyone who the money and talent to develop a name can pay a billion dollars for a .crazy as long as the name and value justify the asking price but these prices are not comparables for the industry – they simply represent the largest intangible factor which leads to the impossible task of ever having an automated formula provide reasonable and consistent value output. These types of buys are never based on consistent data but a number which only has value to the buyer and this value can not be correlated to a database.
I never question why developers buy a name for XX amount – what I do question is when the .com is available for a comparable price why anyone would want to.
My comments here are not about valuating .co’s per say but asking with all the opportunities available in this market for more well known extensions why anyone would risk $10,000 for a domain which has an extremely limited upside? Sure its catchy but part of an unproven extension. If other opportunities did not exist sure – but plenty do.
My comments are never directed for the people who know what they are doing because these people understand all these new extensions are gambles. I try to chime in every now and then when I see articles which can pose new investors to think the whole world is full of gold again whenever a new extension is launched. It never has been and quite possibly never will but with headlines like $10,000 for boulder.co I’m sure Mike has some new blood here thinking about putting money in domains. Sorry but I don’t care much about the hype in this industry so for newbies think about what I said in terms of the upside and what s a better investment.
I’m happy with people spending money on .co’s. I hope 30 new extensions come out and everyone gets hyped up again and again as the fewer eyes on .com the better for people who stick to the proven markets.
I’m also very happy to be proven wrong and see people make a few bucks where I lost out but what I don’t want to happen is some new person read articles like this and never get a realty check about the risks of these extensions.
Last comment but something for everyone to reflect on
Maybe I’m starting to have my mid life crisis but at the end of the day I want assets which sell themselves and not have an asset where I have to convince someone its worth more than I paid and that’s the hidden element for all new extensions
Quality sells itself otherwise we will all never stop sounding like car salesman
There is no “formula” for assigning appraisal value of any tld based on the .com. Valuation is complex for premium domains. And more defensible for lower quality, commodity domains.
What does all this LosAngeles.ca worth for all you experts ?
What happens when the .colorado .california and all the states are offered ?
Does Boulder.co.us exist ?
Sorry friends – i see a bunch of hype from good salesman manufactured for suckers
“What does all this LosAngeles.ca worth for all you experts ?”
Some claim .LA has it’s own TLD already.
http://www.LA
If the Spin.Machine and Manipulation.Machine proceed as predicted… there will be a NEW .CA IDN ccTLD and the 2-Letter ASCII .CA TLD will become more available for .CAlifornia
What is the market for the .CA **IDN** ccTLD ?
Have you looked at what it takes to make an IDN work ?
They should develop it right away and avdertise it.
(The owner of the .com salivates)
Or did a domainer buy it?
All I know as a local native, boulder.com does NOTHING to capture the vibe of the city.
Boulder.co developed with the city vibe in mind and marketed with strong local traditional advertising, would do extremely well.
The people around these parts would never confuse the websites as they would most definitely go to the site that captures the vibe of the city best.
Those who have been to boulder know it is a unique city with a distinct vibe.
and Ghetto caveman …. “Boulder.co developed with the city vibe in mind and marketed with strong local traditional advertising, would do extremely well”
This is exactly with 99% of domain investors do not do … you are right, with the correct business plan and money to market it would be great and owners would not even need to care about SERP results but sadly thats an end user sale and when you buy a name like this for into the five figures you have to find one .. and most domain owners are not even good at that.
“with the correct business plan and money to market ”
Good God – that is the definition of the .com Internet space – he who does not have enough money to market needs a .com.
May God – with enough money you can put quotes around anything and make it a brand – even with a $5M marketing budget you can put “BoulderColoradoIsARealyFunPlaceToLive.com” – and take the town by storm
well said .. I think this applies 100x to domains that have specific markets like this
“he who does not have enough money to market needs a .com”
no truer words.
all the Colorado cities should buy their .co domain
“CO” is also the short form of the province of an italian city: Como
The best Boulder, Colorado domain is DowntownBoulder.com and that is why “Piety” outbid my $8500 bid for it 2 years ago at NameJet. My experience is he has a lot more money than me but he invests very wisely – it would be curious to see how many .co’s these high end guys are going after – I am the biggest “student” around.
has FBI registered the Quanti.co domain ?
http://www.census.gov/tiger/tms/gazetteer/places.txt
“::: GooStation.com – a $20 million domain??? :::”
Stop spamming dude, goostation it’s a stupid name, no matter how many forums you spam with it. Reg fee at best.
I just registered
DowntownBoulder.co & DowntownBoulder.org
Boulder.co does indeed get points for being a hack for Boulder, CO, and amazingly enough, Google has “Boulder CO” having more exact searches than simply “Boulder” (not sure I truly believe that to be the case as Google Trends shows the opposite, but still do believe it has significant search). So to me, it’s pretty worthy from a hack perspective let alone from the .co perspective. Throw in that it’s a Geo and geo domainers loooove their Geo’s, it’s no surprise that it’s bid up to what it has. We may see within 24 hours what a pure domain hack with nothing else going for it can sell for (Doma.in in TRAFFIC Dublin live auction – shameless self plug
) which may shed some light on what the hack value of the domain could add to the overall value.
That said, I’m not really on the .co train and think that it will see just as much speculation-to-development ratio as .me and will fizzle out quite a bit after the hype dies down. I saw a comment the other day from a layperson about a .co that tells the whole tale and I think will ultimately be most laypeople’s view of the extension: “You forgot the m.” Simply put, .co domains LOOK like typos to the average person, and development on a .co would lose a significant portion of traffic to a .com, probably more so than any other extension in existence besides maybe .cm.
It will continue to have value for sure, but .co has even more extreme speculation than .me for instance given the prospect of collateral traffic from the equivalent .com domains. However, the intersection of quality .com domains and .com domains with enough traffic to make the traffic on the .co worth nabbing is rather tiny…which leads to many people getting quality names in .co probably already disappointed in the (lack of) traffic they see, and when hype dies down they’ll be asking too much for their .co’s, sales will slow, then when renewal time comes, they’ll find themselves with a ton of .co domains that may or may not be worth holding onto and some tough decisions to make, and we’ll see a massive amount of drops like with .me.
That said, I think right now at around $10k, Boulder.co may still be at an acceptable level for a reseller given it is also a pretty viable hack, but it wouldn’t take much more than that for it to really only be worth going after with development in mind (and a clear plan to monetize whatever site is put on it). That’s my take on it.
-Steve
+1
http://www.circleid.com/posts/the_web_is_dead_what_this_means_to_icann_new_gtld_domain_industry/
New DNS Software could combine .CO and .COM for better reliability, stability, security. Owning both may become expensive and necessary.
There is a lot of debate and excitement around the .co domains for good reason.
Bear in mind how new they are.
Not many other extensions have sold almost half a million domains in the first month.
.info domains sell for a decent amount and are not completely worthless.
How does .co compare?
.co has sold ~450k in first month at $30 a pop.
.info sold ~25k in first month at $30 a pop (see New York Times Article “Data’s Validity Is Faulted In Net Registration System”)
So put things in perspective!
=) Even viewed as being as bad as .info, which seems highly unlikely, a premium domain name like those that can be bought now for .co are worth multiples of the investment.
Auction Update
The auction for Boulder.co is now at $11,500 with the auction having been extended for another day, now due to close Tomorrow night
Sorry Friends-
I no longer have time for this .co support group.
Best of luck
7/25 Update
Boulder.co Now at $11,650 and auction is extended another day
“extended another day”
summs it up = lets reel in that last sucker –
Mike just delivers the facts – this is completely entertaining
I appreciate your info on the dotco names. I live in Colorado and am really curious what the Colorado city names will go for. Keep us posted.
I was wondering though if you are getting your information from somewhere on cointernet’s site (that we can look at as well), a special inside releationship, or because you bought into the names your tracking so you would have exposure… or all 3?
Is there a place where we can see a whole list of published sale prices?
I was also curious about the comment from Brian – “lets reel in that last sucker” – I lost something in the story… Please explain.