Associated globally with the words “COmpany,” “COrporation” and “COmmerce” – the .CO domain is easy to recognize, simple to remember and flexible to use. And that makes it the perfect platform for today’s socially networked individuals, entrepreneurs and companies to create .COmmunities, share .COntent, and .COnnect, .COmmunicate and .COllaborate.
~COInternet.co

You’re virtually looking at the proud owner (if all goes well) of the brand-new domain, Gentry.co . Yup, that’s right: not .com (unfortunately), not .co.uk or .co.jp, simply .CO . The .co extension is the newest addition to the burgeoning list of top-level domains (such as .com and .net) which have been giving domain-flipping Webheads something to obsess about for the past twenty-five years.

Originally the country-specific domain for Columbia, .CO is now being phased into use for the entire world. It came about in three general phases:

• Sunrise: Colombian companies and then trademark-holders get first dibs on the .co equivalent to their .com name.
• Landrush: Rich and/or gambling folks get a pop at the best names at about $300 per domain.
• General Availability (now): Average Joes and Janes get a chance at what’s left for roughly $30 each.

So what’s the big deal? Of course the folks hawking the .co domains and their ten registrars are going to say it’s the best thing since email, but what about less-biased sources? This site reports that the opening up of the .co TLD could be “one of the biggest domain launches in history,” because “three out of four people associate .co with ‘company’, ‘corporation’, or other commercial endeavours, presenting a clear opportunity in online branding.” Bunches of business bigwigs have jumped on the bandwagon, with over 26,000 trademark-holders grabbing their names in the Landrush.

The savvy Webheads among you may ask, “Since .co is so similar to .com, won’t all the domains be taken up by typosquatters? What if somebody uses his millions to make a deal with Columbia, like Kevin Ham did with Cameroon (.cm), and redirect all the unused domains to his holdings?”

Juan Calle, COInternet CEO, says to Wired that “the [$30] price is intended to help keep the domain largely free from ‘domainers‘ who buy domain names in bulk in hopes of making money off parked ad pages, without actually building a useful site.” “I don’t think small businesses are sensitive to $2 versus $30,” he says.

No, that wouldn’t affect a person buying a couple domains. Again, though, that probably wouldn’t put off the people with extremely deep pockets either, so I’m not sure how valid his point is.

Nonetheless, .CO offficially releases into the wild today. Will it be like the .com boom, or the .info bust? Time will tell. Until then, people in .COvert ops, .COnartistry, and pirate .COves will be able to buy their perfect domain name.

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