Breaking News: .Co To Star In Godaddy Super Bowl Commercial
The big news for domainers out of the ICANN meeting in Colombia today was delivered by none other than Bob Parsons CEO of Godaddy.
Tonight .Co held a party for some of the attendees of the ICANN meeting.
As part of the party Juan Calle, who is the CEO of CO Internet S.A.S., gave a presentation using video to show some of the achievements of the registry.
Mr. Parsons the CEO of Godaddy delivered a video message directed to Juan, to the effect that Godaddy would be making a BIG announcement on December 13th and although he couldn’t tell us the exact nature of the announcement, he said he would give a hint, saying to the .Co party attendees ” keep an extra eye out during the Super Bowl”.
The announcement was followed by huge fireworks display to the music of Shakira.
The message from Mr. Parsons is clear.
.CO is going to either star in, be featured in or at least get a mention in at least one of Godaddy’s $3 Million dollar Super Bowl commercials.
The domain world went wild last month when Godaddy.com replaced the .com as the default choice for new domain registrations with .Co for one day.
Now it seems like .Co will star on the biggest platform in the world, the Super Bowl.
As of today there are 610,000 .Co registrations, (as also announced at tonight’s function).
After the Super Bowl commercial(s) there is every reason to believe that number will be well into the 7 figures.
Guess the world will have to tune in on December 13th to see exactly what Mr. Parsons has in mind for .Co, but for all our readers you just got a one week head start.
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I wish all of .CO the best of luck!!!
.co is a likeable, bona fide extension that has been around for 20 years. It comes with build-in “company” leverage….
Why should .co be a gamechanger? It doesn’t need to be. It is a well-run company that is seeing nice growth, already.
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Saying .co “has been around for 20 years” is laughably dishonest. As far as its bona-fides, we will see that in time. Prediction: Lots of splogs and domainer-development, no significant company outside of Columbia using it as its primary web presence.
We both agree it doesn’t need to be a game changer and if there’s some underlying merit to it (which I don’t see), ok, but the people who are fast to pump .co are usually doing so in the context of it being a ‘game changer’.
As far as it’s ‘growth’, we shall see if that’s sustainable and particularly, lets pay close attention to how it ‘grows’ outside of domainer circles, in terms of meaningfully developed websites with an offline marketing budget.
“no significant company outside of Columbia using it as its primary web presence”
===
Odd 100% of all .COlorado City names in development
Aspen.CO
Denver.CO
I agree with Em. What does ‘us’ mean to the rest of the world? .us isn’t even an open TLD, add that to the fact America already had its own collection of TLDs (.com, .net and .org) and you’ll see why .us is there now. Not to repeat the same stuff, but .co is potentially desireable to a much wider user base than just the US.
It seems as though people have been manipulated by the marketing efforts of the .co registry. This cycle just repeats itself over and over again. By the time you realize it your money is gone. On to the next worthless extension!
@Tommy
They (.co registry) are selling a service. Can one conclude from that point that they are being manipulative? What sort of evidence do you have for this accusation? Why are you angry with .co registry for making money? Isn’t that the idea behind a business?
I’m sorry for your past losses but history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself. If it did, we would still be reading by candlelight. The will of innovators makes change and success possible. It’s also important to choose wisely which innovations to support.
Hmmmm….I guess we would have been better off without the light bulb. Darn dem naysayers were so right…:)
I am really sure where people continue to get the notion that there is no money to be made by .CO.
Even “Failed” extensions have made money for some investors. .ME seems to be holding its own and that is considered by many to be a “Failed” extension.
Hell, I would take 3k-26k for an extension that I paid a few bucks for.
That is called a great return on your money.
Why is there so much hate about this one extension? It cant get any worse then .Mobi or .Asia (in my opinion) and those sites have still see prices in the couple thousand from time to time.
If you where lucky enough or savvy enough to get some particularly good .CO domains when they where available, with out a doubt… you will be able to pull off a profit over time.
It has happened in every extension, and it will happen in .CO.
If you didnt pick up any .CO or you came late, then dont expect to turn a profit or if you do, expect for it to take more then the few months after the initial launch.
That is just the way I see it
Cheers
@MHB,
To answer you question, I believe Concerned.co is worth nothing, which is why it’s on auction now with a high bid of 21-cents as of this writing.
Why did I buy it? I made a mistake by failing to apply proper discernment to the “.co opportunity” before pulling out my Visa card.
I also bought SandCastle.co and am in negotiations to sell it to a small beach house owner in NC for probably around $100 (not a done deal yet), but when I registered it I believed the .co extension had potential. Now, several months later, and after much more research and thought, I don’t believe .co domains will hold value. Actually, I’ll go one step further and predict that the average .co domain FIVE YEARS FROM TODAY will sell for about the same price as .mobi. Go ahead, call me a fool (I’ve been called worse), but time will tell. Since I’m in “prediction mode”, I’ll go one step further and say that .TV will slip right into the #2 slot behind .com for valuations within 4-6 years.
Good luck to all of you,
CH
@LS Morgan
I believe the advent of .co was 1991. The idea of .co as an alternative to gTLDs was conceived in 2001. There were quite a few business people inquiring about the .co in the past 15 years because of its “company” connotation and what it could mean for their internet presences. It really just is common sense. Internet-business-company-.co, internet-business-company-.co. Is that such a stretch? Laughably not.
This is what I would call built-in leverage.
@Slate
Exactly.
@concerned
See earlier comment. Speculator vs Investor.
To be a successful speculator, you need years of practice and a particular savvy. You tried to speculate.
Investing is something entirely different.
Best Of Luck to You.
before .com – if you had a company, would you instinctively choose .com or .co (if you had to choose between one or the other)
today if you are a company, if you had to choose between .net or .co (if you had to choose, which would you choose?)
if you can’t afford a particular com…where will you go?
@EM,
With respect, anyone who bought a .co domain in hopes of selling it for a much higher price down the road was clearly speculating. The .co extension was new and unproven, which means it was a gamble.
I’m getting the feeling that more and more .co speculators are waking up and realizing that, while we won’t know for several more years, the .co extension will probably never come close to the values we all had hoped it would. Let’s face it – most .co buyers were hoping, with fingers crossed, that .co would someday surpass .com in value due it’s potential as a url-shortener…well, that’s not gonna’ happen.
Then again, I could be completely wrong.
Motorcycle Bob Parsons throws away $4 Million for a party …
(there is a payback angle somewhere (ha)
then tries to recoup by conning the super bowl newbies
about the great and wonderful…
.Co … which does stands best for > .Con
@concerned
As an investor, you do your homewrok about long term viability. There are many things that need to be checked. This has to be done beforehand. MHB mentioned earlier that as an INVESTOR, you want to wait 3-5 years, have good keyword domains, ability to develop and expectation of a higher return after 5 years. This IS investing. Not all investments work out but the likelihood of success is much, much higher than speculating which requires a flip for a much smaller ROI.
lots of people like the name “sandcastle”….over 500 registered over .com, .net, .org
easy $200.00 for .co (Concerned, you would be in the money…since you have only 4 .co)
As an investor, you do your homewrok about long term viability. There are many things that need to be checked. This has to be done beforehand. MHB mentioned earlier that as an INVESTOR, you want to wait 3-5 years, have good keyword domains, ability to develop and expectation of a higher return after 5 years. This IS investing. Not all investments work out but the likelihood of success is much, much higher than speculating which requires a flip for a much smaller ROI.
————————
Sweet Jesus McGee. Please, for the love of Pete, stop throwing around the finer points of investing terminology here as if you have even the slightest clue of what you’re talking about. What you’re doing is absolutely, positively speculation.
I mean, it isn’t like this stuff isn’t totally, clearly defined. The difference between investing and speculation is quite literally the first question asked on the test of 101 level finance majors who are being quizzed after their first run through “Security Analysis”.
Don’t mean to come off sounding like a dbag here, but this whole “I’m investing, not speculating because I’m willing to hold on for a while” is just hilarious. It wouldn’t surprise me if MB checked his inbounds to find links from threads on various finance and investing forums full of people referencing this post and laughing their asses off.
LS Morgan,
Well shiver me timbers. Are we in a poetry class or in a domain forum?
You’d be surpised how many people don’t know the difference between investing and speculating. It’s all about intention. Some people did not know the difference and lost their shirts. If you’ve ever traded stocks or futures, you’d know what I mean. And no, it is all not speculation. Any good chart reader can tell you that.
On a side note, it’s actually not the points that are made but how its made which makes one sound like a dbag. When a tone is rife with the ugly C word, condescension, some people might call that intentional alienation.
You’d be surpised how many people don’t know the difference between investing and speculating. It’s all about intention.
————
OK, again. No. “Intention” plays absolutely no role in differentiating “investing” from “speculation”. This is not a semantic argument here. You might want to hit up Wikipedia or Investopedia or Google and go see for yourself.
I’m not experienced investor by any means, but isn’t the whole point to buy and hold? Sure, I’ve tried selling off a few of my less palatable .COs (and I have about 175), but the core of the ones I landed, I planned on keeping for at least 2-3 years. Several of these are Spanish keywords, and I don’t see any sense in letting those go until (some would say “if”) the market in Colombia embraces the extension.
But still, regardless of whether you want to call it speculating or investing, to expect some sort of amazing value from an extension that’s barely been out 6 months seems a little premature to me. I mean, isn’t it impatient to be disappointed after just a few months? That kind of takes all of the fun out of it. It’s a risk for a reason. I’m not guaranteeing results, but I’m at least willing to wait a while and see what happens.
@Nadia,
“I’m not experienced investor by any means, but isn’t the whole point to buy and hold?”
My answer to your question is: depends. I remember ClimateGate.com was available at the end of October, 2009 – I saw it was available and almost registered it, but passed (I’m an idiot for passing, considering some of the crap I’ve hand-reg’d before). The “Climate Gate” news broke just before Thanksgiving in 2009.
ClimateGate.com sold in December, 2009 for $10,000 on Sedo. Obviously, this story is extreme; but in the end, you just have to use your best judgement in any purchase or sales situation. Sometimes, you sell right away at the right price, sometimes you sit on the domain for ten+ years before cashing in, and sometimes you register the wrong domain and never make a penny.
Funny business, this domaining stuff.
Thanks, Cheeseburger. When I said I wasn’t an investor, I meant outside of domaining. I’m pretty conservative when it comes to stocks and mutual funds – but my overall impression is that it’s usually not a good idea to buy copious amounts of anything and try to sell it off quickly. I suppose that’s one investment strategy, but I prefer the slower approach.
Nice story about ClimateGate. There are so many examples of this – I can’t imagine the person who registered Star.me expected it to sell for 10K EUR, either. I like domaining because it combines skill and aptitude with a bit of gambling.
In terms of stocks, day-trading is speculative because most of the time its full of more guess-work than planning. Caring about company fundamentals, reading charts and so on and holding for long-term gain, this is investment. I’ve done both and the intentions are widely different.
If I managed to secure skates.co with intention of developing or holding for 4 years, to me this is more like investment. I have a solid keyword domain that has immediate built-in worth and has a promising future which I’m willing to wait for and work on.
If I managed to secure whattheheckisgoingonhere.co and tried to sell it right away, not having a real plan, except for rapid-flip gain, IMO, this is speculation. It’s pretty much guesswork as to whether that domain will sell and I may be stuck holding the bag if i had no further plans to develop it. Into the drop she goes.
The two scenarios require two completely different outlooks. Clearly scenario one is the more promising in terms of .co.
@Cheeseburger
Good point!
Mmmm Cheeseburgers…. I can go for a huge Cheeseburger right now.
Anyways!
In the end, .CO is being pushed by Godaddy. Its seems to be the case with their past actions.
Godaddy is a company and has every right to push the domains how they see fit. The fact that some of us have to put our 2 cents in and bash a company for trying to make a buck is really really backwards point of view.
If a company can NOT make a profit then they will cease to exist and that is true for all companies. If no companies existed… guess what!!!
NO DOMAINS!!!
None of us would be here on this blog. None of us would have jobs. There would be no one buying domain names because no one has any money. We would be thrust back to the PRE-INDUSTRIAL age when everyone literally worked on the farm.
You didnt work for profit, you worked to stay alive. Your only real hope was to grow enough food and get enough live stock to live through the winter.
No…. begrudging a company the ability to make a profit is NOTHING that we should be doing.
If you dont like Godaddy… then dont watch their Superbowl spot.
If you dont like .CO….Well, then dont watch their Superbowl spot.
Whether you like it or not, Godaddy has seemed to take a fancy with .CO.
Even if .CO is paying them to run spots and ads to promote the extension, that again would be a business at work. Just like any other business, some advertising needs to be done.
Either which way. I look forward to see what Godaddy comes up with. I hope it is a Superbowl ad. I would love to to see .CO do well.
Yes, I do own some .CO domains. I limited my speculation to only 11 domains but still, I would love to see .CO do well.
Just my point of view.
Cheers
@Slate,
I don’t think anyone here is necessarily bashing Godaddy for pushing the .co extension, at least I’m not. What we’re doing is discussing our views on the present and future profit potential and/or utilization of the .co extension by companies worldwide. I don’t think it’s going to happen, EM and others do…we will see who is right.
By the way, I like the 3D-site – good potential with that one. Do you have 3Ddb.com too?
- CH
well .co could have instant value if used in the correct context.research and development is the key know exactly what you are buying before hand. and now for the example boulder.com bought boulder.co and it forwards into the .com.
in this case the .co compliments the .com and the .co has instant meaning and recognition.the state of colorado
no 3- 5 yr wait here.the owner instantly enhanced his web position by shoring up the possibility of
market differentation/segmentation/fragmentaion by adding the .co suffix to his portfolio of domains.this could also be a defensive registration to eliminate a potential competitor to boulder.com. a smart domainer protecting his domain portfolio.
.CO is a Global TLD undoubtedly. Its also one of the neatest to have. Which TLD would you rather have lets say. Medco.co or Medco.com. Which naturally sounds better to the mass majority who enter the web daily in search for a domain, and who do not necessarily have any idea about TLD history or sophisticated insight. Those will go by what sounds neater and more brandable. To them the .CO is as old as the existence of companies, while other TLDs are as old as the internet and as popular as their Adv dollars.
.CO I believe needs not ADV, although its a great bonus to have… It’s eventually going to take over I’m sure deep inside, as I was about the price of Gold when the ounce was 500$…
So, I see the .CO TLD a one in a life time opportunity, unlike any other previous TLD like .mobi or .me… Simple incomparable on many levels.
My Opinion…
If Godaddy or anyone else wants to raise the value of a given extension… I am all for it, especially if I have some decent names in that extension.
I just hope that we are reading into this correctly and that Godaddy is actually going to give a nod to .CO during their SuperBowl ad and not something lame like showing the flying pig in the background. No body would get that reference, and would do nothing for the extension as a whole.
I am hoping for the best but expecting nothing major to happen.
Cheers
It is blatantly obvious to me and everyone on this board that there are a few sore losers here. Misery loves company. And you few don’t want to see .CO blast off to its rightful place as the successor to the .com
Just making downright derogatory statements, comparing .CO to everything from the sink hole to low lives and thieves and burglars. ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME
.CO is simply the best extension, even better than .COM
less is more! Looks better. Simple and to the point.
@Chadi,
I’d rather have Medco.com; no question about it.
@Robert,
.co is still unproven, as in, it isn’t being developed by ANYONE. The buyers of .co picked up the complementary domain to their .com as a defensive measure only. I don’t see .co’s being developed by companies, ever.
@Slate,
I predict the SuperBowl ad by Godaddy WILL NOT make a specific reference .co domains – doesn’t make sense for them to do so, since they’re trying to push domains to the masses, i.e., .co doesn’t resonate with anyone outside the domaining community. Why spend MILLIONS of dollars on a 60-second commercial that does nothing but leave people scratching their heads in confusion? That’s not Godaddy’s style – they’ll push .com, or just domains in general (my prediction only, no inside info).
What you guys should be doing is looking into .TV – it actually has alot of potential AND it’s being used by companies (Playboy, Oprah, Major League Baseball, NHL, and likely more to come). There are still alot of decent .tv’s unregistered, just make sure you register one that could be turned into a video intensive site – get creative.
@concerned
Do all the Deloitte 100 Companies have their .TV registered?
What is the security company behind .tv?
Em
Not sure what you mean by security but the .Tv registry is owned by VeriSign the same company that runs the .com and .net registries
So this is the day Bob Parsons should make his announcement about .CO?
@MHB,
Thanks about .tv. You answered my question.
Press Release:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101213005290/en/Daddy-Announces-1st-Storied-Super-Bowl-History!
” ‘We think this new commercial will do for the dotCO domain what our first Super Bowl commercial did for Go Daddy,’ said Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. “
UPDATE
Godaddy has now officially announced that they will be highlighting .CO in one of its Super Bowl Commercials
http://www.thedomains.com/2010/12/13/godaddy-announces-the-co-super-bowl-commercial/