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List of websites in the .CO Founders Program

"Opportunity.co"
The .CO registry set up a website http://Opportunity.co to showcase websites developed by .CO Founders.

The .CO Founders Program was an initiative designed by the .CO Registry to engage early adopters (called “.CO Founders”, a word hack on the term cofounders which means a person or persons who start a new business jointly).  The registry granted .CO Founders premium domain names like T.co and Angel.co to people and companies, and in turn, the .Cofounders agree to develop and market a website using the domain. 

Though premium names like T.co went to established companies like Twitter, the program was open to the masses.

List of .CO Founders websites

Here’s a list of sites we’ve found so far that have evolved their .CO domain into a website. 

We’ll regularly update this page as more are launched.  If you have a tip on a .CO Founder’s website, submit your tip here)

Angel.co 
Bahamas.co
Challenge.co
GetSighted.co
IWNY.co
MakeupArtist.co
Now.co
Pappas.co
Pitch.co
T.co
Tmg.co
Turkel.co

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.CO Web Addresses Registered to Date, Tops 300,000

"Angel List"
Angellist landed Angel.co as part of the .CO Founders Program. According to Opportunity.co, which features several domains already developed, Angel Investors play a vital part in getting some of the world's most innovative startups up and running. Angel.co brings Angels Investors and Startups together!

.CO domain registrations has passed the 300,000 mark, the .CO registry is reporting on its home page.

People of all walks of life – speculators, companies, individuals – are registering the domain names.  The .CO registry celebrated its launch of the domain to the general public earlier this week, with much fanfare, and hopes of the domain avoiding the same stigma that has plagued other domains such as .biz, .tel, and .mobi.

To put 300,000 registrations in perspective, .biz the domain that is intended to be used for businesses only has 2 million registrations and change to date.   The .biz extension was created in 2001.

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Professional Poker Player and Domainer Dutch Boyd, still has time for domain names

"Arcade Ninjas"
Dutch Boyd's latest web development project is ArcadeNinjas.com. A domain he hand-registered, then developed using a script that cost him $10.

Dutch Boyd, the Professional Poker Player and Domainer-Developer, who recently won his second WSOP Bracelet, is back to blogging. 

But this time, instead of writing about his poker exploits, he’s writing about his latest domain development exploits in a post titled Out of the Main and back to real life…

The professional poker player, despite collecting $200,000 in winnings in June, still has time for a normal life – that is, if you consider investing in domain names and developing them, a “normal life”.

Dutch had recently sold the domain name Cured.com for $25,000, but at the time of this story, the name is still registered to him.

For his latest project, Dutch Boyd hand registered ArcadeNinjas.com, and quickly launched a free flash games website.  And even if it only pays him pennies per week, he’s happy with the return as long as it covers the renewal fee of the domain name.  ArcadeNinjas.com was the subject of his latest blog post.

So I snatched the ArcadeNinjas.com domain up for regfee, spent $10 on a web arcade script called Arcade Block, spent $30 on a logo design contest and NamePros, a few hours surfing the Interwebs for free flash games that I would have permission to use on my new arcade site, a few more hours installing (and re-installing the script), a few minutes adding the Google Adsense code and VOILA! A new free flash games website which will hopefully bring enough pennies every week to pay for the yearly renewal fee of $8. For anyone who is too lazy to do the math, a domain needs to make 15 cents on average every week for you to break even.

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Long-tail Domain Name sells for $18,000 at GreatDomains

"Piggie Bank"When’s the last time you saw a long-tail domain name sell for $18,000? 

Especially one that’s over 25 characters long.

Sales of Long-Tail Domains

2009 saw the sales of several long-tail insurance domains like KansasCityHealthInsurance.com for $6,000 a pop – names acquired by Joel Ohman of Domain Superstar on an insurance-domain shopping spree that included dozens of city-based home, car, and auto insurance domains.

Sedo GreatDomains is now reporting the sale of the long-tail domain name HighInterestSavingsAccount.com for $18,000.  

While it’s not necessarily an easy type-in domain, the new owner can tap into natural search traffic on Google – with nearly 30,000 exact Global keyword searches conducted last month alone.

A WordPress blog has been put up.  Still in its early stage of development, no ads are displayed, but several pages of content are online already. 

HighYieldSavingsAccount.com sold last week via Moniker for $16,200.  Though both long-tail domain names are marked Private, they appear to belong to the same owner, based on the look-and-feel of each website.

According to Estibot, the Average Cost Per Click for High Interest Savings Account is $19.20 USD.

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With the .CO landrush behind them, now the big ticket auctions will begin

"E.co"
As Mike Berkens of TheDomains.com reports, "E.Co, which was just purchased for $81K in June, is back up for sale with a new price tag of $500K."

If you were one of the single applicants for a .CO domain, by now the domain name is sitting securely in your account at your registrar.  During the landrush phase, you had the opportunity to submit an application before general availability began. 

Now with the landrush phase closed and the general public snatching up thousands of .CO domains, those domains that received multiple applicants during the Landrush phase will battle it out at auction.

Though there is always high uncertainly with each new domain released to the public, reports of domains like e.co selling for $81,000 and o.co selling for $350,000, it doesn’t take a genius to predict that .co domains headed to auction (particularly coveted keyword and product domains) will fetch price tags in the thousands.

According to the .CO website:

Multiple Applicants:  If there were several applications for a .CO domain name, all of applicants for the particular domain will have the chance to participate in an auction for that domain.  Only applicants for the particular domain will be eligible to participate in the auction for the requested domain.

Auctions Notices & Scheduling:  Notices for auction scheduling will be sent no later than July 30, 2010 requesting applicants to sign up for the auction site.  Notices for auctions will be sent from service(at)COAuctions(dot)co.  Auctions will be scheduled during the first 3 weeks of August and will last 7 days.  Once an auction ends and payment has been completed by the winning bidder, the domain will be awarded within 10 days.