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How a Colombian internet address became the online home for startups

January 25, 2014 by Raymond Hackney

By: Raymond Hackney

How a Colombian internet address became the online home for startups

Juan Diego Calle and the team from .CO were featured in a piece today by Leo Mirani for Coimage
QZ.com. Calle shared with Mirani the two factors it took to make .co successful. He also discusses that other services and fancy packaging will be important factors for the new gtlds to find success in their niche.

From the article:

In less than four years, more than 1.6 million individuals and businesses, mostly start-ups, have created a website with an address ending with .co. That is a staggering number for a new top-level domain (the last bit of a web address). Contrast that with .biz, which was introduced in 2000 and by April last year had chalked up just 2.4 million registrations.

People went to .co because, on .com, with over 111 million registrations, the short, simple names are mostly taken. They went also because .co is one letter shorter than .com, which matters in the age of Twitter. But most of all, they went because some very canny marketing convinced them that it’s where sexy, innovative start-ups go.

Of course, .co is not a new top-level domain like the 1,000 or more being introduced this year; it’s the one that was assigned in 1991 to Colombia. Juan Diego Calle, a Colombian-American entrepreneur, won the contract to run it in 2009, after years of effort and a 1,165-page bid. In exchange for exclusive rights to market .co, Calle pays a fee to the Colombian government that goes towards improving the country’s internet infrastructure.

Read the full article on QZ.com

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Filed Under: .CO

About Raymond Hackney

Raymond Hackney has been involved with domain names since 1997. One of the most prolific writers in the domain industry and founder of TLDinvestors.com and 3Character.com

Comments

  1. todd says

    January 25, 2014 at 4:04 pm

    It amazes me that in the whole article he didn’t mention Godaddy once. We all remember when Godaddy was hammering .CO on their homepage and of course the big .CO super bowl commercial. He has done some amazing things with the extension but its a fact that it would be nowhere near as popular without the behemoth Godaddy pushing it. If it was pushed with the other gtlds coming out soon it would be considered a lower level extension in my opinion and probably wouldn’t even get 20% of the registrations it has.

  2. Steve says

    January 25, 2014 at 5:03 pm

    So 1.6 million sites are sending huge amounts of FREE traffic to the .COM equivalent!!! Thanks Juan keep up the good work.

  3. A.J. says

    January 25, 2014 at 9:39 pm

    Steve you couldn’t be that naive could you ? That nonsense .com domainers spew is a joke. I have seen it from both sides, I have a parked .com of a developed .co and I get no traffic. not a little but zero.
    Why would Juan care anyway he gets paid for the registration.

  4. Bram says

    January 26, 2014 at 2:14 am

    A.J. : If you have a .COM consisting of crappy keywords and then develop a .CO consisting of the same crappy keywords then yes most likely your COM domain won’t get any spillover traffic from you .CO .
    On the other hand if you have a killer .COM then it will get TONS of spillover traffic from EVERY single lesser extension out there, such as .CO .
    It’s all about the quality of the domain. That’s why true premium .COM domains, with the soon to be released tons of new extensions, will get even more traffic and as a result more valuable, while crappy com’s will still get zero traffic and stay worthless.

  5. A.J. says

    January 26, 2014 at 2:27 am

    keep telling yourself that Bram, you got to tow the company line, its bullshit but you have to tow the line.

  6. Steve says

    January 26, 2014 at 11:04 am

    aj
    o.co proved it. I am just reminding everyone of FACTS. You can put a dress and lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig.
    Juan has thrown huge amounts of $$ promoting an extension for a 3rd world country. What happens when the government of Columbia doesn’t want to renew his contract and wants to run the registry themselves. Good luck… …. 🙂

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