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New Service by Domainers Aims to Rent, Not Sell Premium .CO Domains like Candy.co, Pizza.co, Toys.co

"Rent your CO"
According to the website's Business Model, Rent Your Co offers a huge .co domain portfolio with more than 300 exclusive premium .co domains to rent.

I discovered “Rent Your .Co” a brand new service for renting premium .co domain names.  I stumbled upon the website when I typed in Candy.co into my web browser, and the web address re-directed me to RentyourCO.com.

The site’s business model involves re-directing premium .co domains to websites for a fee.  Redireting traffic is one thing when it comes to .COM, but according to several reports by Domainers on Domaining.com who own other premium .co domain names, type-in traffic has been relatively low, despite the similarities to its .COM counterpart.  

Considering .CO availability and awareness is so new to the general public, chances are this model may change over time.  And even though the website states the names are only for RENT, when the right offer comes along, that could certainly change. 

The Rent Your Co Team

The new service aimed at renting premium .CO domains, is made up of a team of Domainers, apparently a small handful based out of Colombia.  But the team of Domainers has assembled an impressive portfolio of category-killing .CO domains that any domain name investor could be envious of.  

The Premium .CO Portfolio, For Rental

The list includes some of the best .CO domains in the world, with more to come as the website promises.

 

baby.co friends.co pizza.co
beer.co fund.co sales.co
bikes.co gambling.co save.co
book.co gifts.co search.co
books.co guns.co shop.co
buy.co gyms.co songs.co
candy.co houses.co stores.co
cd.co invest.co tell.co
cocktails.co jewel.co times.co
coffee.co jewels.co toys.co
creditcard.co job.co traffic.co
db.co lawyers.co vodka.co
diet.co magazine.co webcam.co
diets.co maps.co website.co
divorces.co models.co win.co
download.co motorcycles.co wine.co
dvds.co myvideo.co yes.co
flowers.co online.co  
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News

.CO web registrations fast approaching the 400,000 mark

.CO on Facebook
The .CO community on Facebook, established in 2009, has over 350 members and keeps supporters up-to-date on .CO news as well as promos and discounts.

Sitting at 383,122 .CO web addresses registered to date, .CO is fast becoming a popular domain for speculators who have been gobbling up the web addresses since late July. 

The record pace of registrations for a country code top level domain, that soon will be global thanks to Google, is grabbing the imagination of Domain Investors looking to put their investment properties up for sale and make a quick profit on websites like Flipping.co

On the other end of the spectrum, some domain investors have argued the .CO will go the way of the .BIZ (a failed domain that never took off), but that argument could become harder to defend as a number of well-established companies like Twitter (www.t.co) market the domain and the number of registrations begins nearing the number of .BIZ and .US registrations, two domains that have been open to the public for years.

A closer look at .CO auctions

How are sales of .CO going on the aftermarket?  The domain is holding its own already, putting a challenge to other secondary domains.

Flipping.co, the first established aftermarket website dedicated to .CO domains, has several active auctions at any given time.  Right now there are over half a dozen including:

HomeInsuranceQuotes.co
Fighting.co
Carcinoma.co
Laid.co
ManagedCare.co
Rmt.co
Fishfinder.co

At Sedo, sugarcane.co, pkv.co, and bidrivals.co all have bids.

Join the .CO Community on Facebook

There is even a .CO community on Facebook, that has partnered up with Francois Carrillo’s Flipping.co.  The communty has quickly grown to over 350 supporters, and offers promo codes for registering discounted domain names.

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News

.CO speculators turn hand registered domains into quick profits, already

"Oprah Winfrey"
Oprah Winfrey's own moniker, OprahWinfrey.co is up for auction at Sedo. Oprah's official web site runs on Oprah.com. The OprahWinfrey.com web address doesn't even resolve.

Many of the .co domain names registered in the last week were web addresses purchased by speculators in the quest for quick profits. 

The .co domain, which reportedly has over 366,000 domains registered to date, could prove to be lucrative.

No matter your opinion of the domain, everyone from Twitter to Mike Mann to Francois Carrillo have walked away with .co domains. 

.Co domains, like any new domain, are deemed by many to be risky, but that hasn’t stopped the swarm of speculators, who are quickly turning profits on websites like Flipping.co and Sedo.

The .co has only been available a short time after being released to the general public on July 20th, but Sedo and Flipping.co both have several current auctions with active bidding.

Active .co Auctions

Yesterday, I wrote about Flipping.co and the website’s active .CO auctions.  Now here’s a look at active .co Sedo auctions that have recently appeared online.

car-insurance.co – current bid $1,200 USD
touchscreens.co – current bid $2,500 USD
oprahwinfrey.co – current bid $500 USD
sugarcane.co – current bid $187 USD

While these few names represent an infinitesimal fraction of the hundreds of thousands of domain names registered, the .co domain could revitalize sales for new domain investors who weren’t part of the .com landrush, which has had numerous rags-to-riches stories since the nineties.

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The .CO Domain King: Mike Mann of DomainMarket has 100+ .co domains, as much as $350K per name

"DomainMarket"
After founding, then selling BuyDomains - Mike Mann launched DomainMarket in 2007, a domain name marketplace that lists thousands of amazing domain names. In 2010, the list of domains has been expanded to include .co

Mike Berkens of TheDomains has been writing in recent days about Mike Mann and his domain portfolio listed for sale on his website at DomainMarket.com

The DomainMarket.com portfolio, includes names such as Angola.com, Tasty.com, Favorites.com, SportsDrinks.com, and literally thousands of other great domains.

But .com names aren’t the only gems listed.

Mike Mann’s portfolio also includes the new country-code top-level domain that became available to the general public just last week: .co.

The .CO Domain King
 
In one of those stories posted on TheDomains about Mike Mann, Mike Berkens highlighted some of Mike Mann’s .co domains that he listed for sale on his Facebook page – including category-killers like Health.co for – $175,000 and Advertising.co for – $150,000. 

But the handful of names mentioned in the story are really just scratching the surface of a very good .CO portfolio.  If you browse the DomainMarket.com website, you’ll find Mike Mann owns well over 100 of the best .co premium domain names.

And by the looks of it, Mike Mann could very well be considered the .CO Domain King. 

When you look at his inventory, you’ll be amazed at the .co domains he was able to acquire, ranging from Oil.co at – $350,000 down to Bonsai.co listed for – $2,000. 

Here’s the list of .co domains for sale at DomainMarket.

Oil.co – $350,000
Advertising.co – $200,000
Business.co – $200,000
Money.co – $200,000
Shopping.co – $200,000
Health.co – $175,000
Computers.co – $125,000
Bank.co – $100,000
Clothing.co – $100,000
CreditCards.co – $100,000
Finance.co – $100,000
Gas.co – $100,000
Gold.co – $100,000
Luxury.co – $100,000
Training.co – $100,000
Art.co – $80,000
Boats.co – $75,000
Doctors.co – $75,000
News.co – $75,000
Football.co – $60,000 
Time.co – $60,000
Cameras.co – $50,000
Fitness.co – $50,000
Fun.co – $50,000
Office.co – $50,000
Party.co – $50,000
Electronics.co – $40,000
Mobile.co – $40,000
Lingerie.co – $30,000
Shoes.co – $30,000
Cruise.co – $25,000
Jewelry.co – $25,000
SKI.co – $25,000
DisabilityInsurance.co – $3,000
Bonsai.co – $2,000
DigitalCameras.co
FilmCameras.co
SportStraining.co
Accessories.co
Antiques.co
Appliances.co
Auctions.co
Automotive.co
Bath.co
Bed.co
Biking.co
Boating.co
Brakes.co
Candles.co
Cigar.co
CigarStore.co
Classical.co
ClassicalMusic.co
Condos.co
CurrencyExchange.co
Dance.co
Desktops.co
Disability.co
Downloads.co
Driving.co
Drugstore.co
DvdPlayers.co
Entertainment.co
Exercise.co
ExerciseVideo.co
FlowerShops.co
Gardening.co
Girls.co
GunShops.co
Handbags.co
Hybrid.co
Investing.co
Jazz.co
JazzMusic.co
LatinMusic.co
Linens.co
LiquorStore.co
Luggage.co
Makeup.co
Men.co

Categories
News

Domain Investor Elliot Silver could be the best marketing weapon in the .CO Arsenal

"Bahamas.co"
Elliot Silver's grass-roots marketing efforts, include running a logo design contest at 99designs

Already marketed by well-established online companies like GoDaddy (www.x.co) and Twitter (www.t.co), there is no doubt that the .co registry has done a better job marketing the domain to companies and individuals than any previous country-code top level domain.

What sets apart .CO from other internet domain registries is they have created an outstanding marketing campaign that relies on ambitious web developers to promote the domain.

Instead of paying huge lump sums of cash in expanding their already expansive marketing campaign, the .CO registry simply granted premium domain names to their .COFounders.

But it’s not Twitter and GoDaddy that will help build the popularity of the domain, it’s the grass roots investors like Elliot Silver, a successful domain investor, who recently announced he would be building and launching Bahamas.co as part of the .CO Founders program.

What .co is saying?

The .co company website regularly includes news stories about its domain – including those of Elliot Silver who has been writing about the development of Bahamas.co.  The current home page links to Elliot’s blog which includes a story titled Don’t buy .CO’s for Typo’s.

Elliot’s tweets even made the company’s website recently.

Unlike most companies and individuals, that were granted a premium .co domain free-of-charge, Elliot is chronicling the development of Bahamas.co.  Here’s a look at his latest post:

Just a quick  evening post to let you know where I am at with the development of Bahamas.co and the steps I’ve taken so far. I want to show you how development doesn’t have to be time consuming.

1) Posted a coming soon page on Bahamas.co and submitted it to Google Webmaster Tools. It’s nothing fancy, but I figured that I might as well put up a placeholder for now. As you can see, it’s already been indexed in Google.

2) Held a logo design contest on 99Designs.  I invited some designers I thought did quality work, and others participated as well. Hey – why don’t you take a minute and vote for your favorite logo?

3) Found a few templates I like on ThemeForest.net, which will be modified and customized to my liking. I don’t have much time to get the site live, so the custom option is going to have to wait. I plan to have a travel search function eventually, but for now a template is going to have to suffice.

To keep updated on the latest development with Bahamas.co, visit http://www.elliotsblog.com/

You can see a list of other .co websites participating in the .CO Founders Program here.