.co Is .co a success?

[Zutroy]

I was wondering how the .co name is going? Is it looking like a success or a flop? My apologies for not been up to speed I haven’t been paying too much attention to the domain market of late.

Many thanks,

Zutroy

 

[jmcc]

That's a bunch of behooey. If a new statistic doen't exist, too bad.

It is not. While it is a single statistic, it does illustrate the danger of switching from a highly visible and well established brand on .com to an unknown domain name on a largely unknown ccTLD. No matter how you want to frame it, .co is irrelevant to the majority of internet users outside of Colombia.

But common sense tells me it will drop as more .co are registered.

Common sense is highly overrated. A few hundred years ago, common sense considered the world to be flat. What most people do not see is how TLDs change over the years. A landrush TLD is very different from a mature TLD because a lot of the junk has been removed from the zone because domainers don't want to pay for bad investments.

As more TLDs come out en mass, everyone will begin to realize that the right of the dot means something.

More propaganda from those who wish to promote TLD services! What I've seen in the last year or so points to a concentration on core TLDs (.com and .ccTLD) at the expense of the non-core TLDs (net/org/biz/info/mobi/asia/tel/eu etc). The established small Mom and Pop operations that populate the .com and .ccTLD TLDs will not change to the new gTLDs unless there are very good reasons. (This is one of the main attractions of city ngTLDs.)

As such, it will become more and more apparent what .co is. Therefore leakage will go down slowly.

It won't. The growth in .com and .ccTLD domains is far higher than that in .co ccTLD and as such, that creates its own momentum. With .com alone, there are millions of new domains registered each month.

But remember, this is only a statistic for ONE company.

But could this mean that only one major company took the gamble to rebrand with a .co and found that it was a waste of time and money? Were there others that you know about? Did any other major company rebrand?

I'm more interested in knowing what the leakage is for Angel.co. If it is 25%, it throws the whole 61% bruhaha down the toilet.

Again the issue of irrelevance arises. Angel.co isn't really a massively used site like eBay or Google.

While .co is far from dead, there's an element of 'whistling past the graveyard' about all this .co cheerleading. It may yet end up with a highly active secondary market and very little primary market development because of domainers just selling to other domainers. The most effective killer of any non-core TLD is a lack of development.

Regards...jmcc

 

[DU]

Who is Adam Savage and who cares?

He's from Mythbusters, a TV show, exactly what Brad said.

Look Bud, life is changing all the time and so is the market. Nobody knows exactly what is going to happen and if you find someone who tells you the "truth" about what will happen, run the other way. That is just plain skullduggery. If you haven't come to that realization then you haven't tasted the breath of life. As .co becomes more pervasive, in small increments, the leakage will decrease, this is just common sense.

Common sense [ "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts."] is your attempt to create a "truth" which is skullduggery. There is no common sense here - there is simple optimistic opinion. Your premise is based on "more pervasive" and I haven't seen any evidence of that.

Once again, I'd be interested to know Angel.co's leakage. THAT, would be interesting.

It's different. They're still branded as Angel List and the .com forwards to the .CO. Their model is different.

From:
http://www.cointernet.co/blog/angelco-thats-dot-co-without-m

That's when Naval makes it a point to say "AngelList.CO - that's dot-CO, without the m." It's a little jokey (think Mattress and drop the 's'] but it's clear even here that they have .COM concerns. This is old news, it might be interesting to see if they still use that line... It's more telling that their Twitter handle and brand is still Angel List to me.

"Angel.co the online home for ANGEL LIST."

They probably lose more traffic to AngleList.com, imho

Numbers don't lie, but they change

But you can lie with numbers!

 

[jmcc]

Perhaps we should ask Mythbusters about whether .co is a success.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Beezy]

It is really gaining popularity in the startup crowd and for that alone it is a success.

 

[jmcc]

Depends how you define success.

Success for the registry:
High profile keyword domain sales - yes.
High level of speculative registrations - yes.
A million plus registrations - yes.
A lot of fanboys and fangirls promoting the ccTLD - yes.
Favourable media coverage - yes.

Failure for the ccTLD:
High profile in global market - no.
High level of development and usage - no.
Positioning of .co as alternative to .com - no.

It doesn't need to compete with .com.

This is a remarkable change from some of the more extreme fanboyisms about .co ccTLD when it was launched. It was supposedly an alternative to .com for companies and businesses. Every repurposed ccTLD, once it moves its focus outside its own country , is competing with .com whether the registry, the registrants or the fanboys like it or not.

If you have the very best keywords, why not develop on .co?

This is something that many domainers do not understand. Development can be expensive it takes time to build a successful brand. Generic keyword domains are the most difficult of all to establish as successful brands and this is why people remember Google, Ebay, Overstock, Twitter etc. The development path for successful brands is either ccTLD -> .com -> other ccTLDs or .com -> other ccTLDs. It is far simpler for major brands to redirect any keyword domains to their primary brand website.

But I would say that you should have a lot of money in the bank for extra marketing.

Overstock found out that even a large budget is not enough. That lesson has been learned by many large brands.

As with any non-core TLD, there will be people with a vested interest who will talk up the prospects for the TLD and will argue with facts. Right now, the .co ccTLD is approaching a major landmark in its evolution (the second Landrush anniversary) - the time when many of the smaller portfolio domainers will decide whether or not to hold their speculative registrations or let them drop.

For the registry, based on the number of registered domains it is a success. Other than that, it remains to be seen if it is a success for anything other than a handful or high value keyword registrants and the people of Colombia. The only thing that will make it an end-user success is development.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Zutroy]

I just wanted to say thanks to all those who have contributed to answering my question, I have found the range of opinions very interesting, I like the way when you ask something here you get a proper discussion instead of people just being annoyed you have asked something they think you shouldn’t like on so many other forums on the internet, I have always found this the friendliest domaining forum, anyway sucking up to this place aside I just want to say thanks.

In terms of my own opinion at present I probably view .co in a more favourable way than I did before, if you look at the poll results so far I personally don’t think they have been too bad, only 7 out the 35 so far don’t think it hasn’t been successful with the majority of people saying somewhat, which I think at this stage is a relatively fair way to view it, obviously it still has a fair way to go in establishing its self and as some people have pointed out it will probably take a little more time to give it a proper evaluation, but the one point I do find interesting is that it is becoming more and more popular with new entrepreneur start up type crowd, of which some in years to come may end up being very successful. I appreciate at present .com is still the master to which all else has no choice but to bow down, but I can’t help thinking as time goes by its position may well weaken, with anything even remotely good already gone I think in time the internet is something that may have no choice but to recognise that not every website of any credibility has to necessarily be a .com, many people just make their choice out of what is available to register and either can’t afford or don’t necessarily think of going to the aftermarket for their name and some of the start ups of today will be the success stories of tomorrow.

Obviously you always have to bear in mind when you ask a question like this on a domaining forum that there are people who have a slightly vested interest from either side to encourage others to take a certain perspective, not only are the people who have brought .co’s for whom it is in their interest for it to be a success but there are also those who own large portfolios of .com’s for whom it is in their interests for only .com’s to be considered of any value, that is a double edged sword that cuts both ways, but cynicism for either argument aside my own personal view for whatever little it’s worth and as someone who doesn’t own any .co’s yet, is that in time extensions other than .com will start to become recognised as more credible, I think it’s only a matter of time and will have to happen eventually, but I appreciate when you have seen so many come, fail and go why one would be sceptical.

Anyway I don’t claim to know that much about domaining and so maybe my points are of little value. Would I use a .co? Maybe I would if I liked the keywords or name enough and perhaps people are even more likely to remember a good .co than a poor .com, at this stage it’s definitely something I will give more thought, they would have to be much much better keywords though, although I have already found some I really like still available to register but maybe my standards are just plain low, LOL. Anyway thanks again to all those who have contributed.

All the best,

Zutory