Rick Schwartz posted an article about Juan Calle of the .CO Registry Dissing domain investors, falsely calling them “cybersquatters”. The article was posted on Rick Schwartz Domain Name and Traffic Blog.
Mr. Calle posted his response on his .Co blog. In this response he tries to backpedal a bit and differentiate between domain investors and cybersquatters. But in his video comments he did not seem to make that distinction.
Here’s my response.
It’s one thing for Juan Calle to say they are changing their business model, but it’s another to lash-out at the people who helped build his business.
I met him and his team at DomainFest when they were courting domain investors to grow their business. They could have started with a different business model, one with higher prices or auctions for premium names (aside from the few hundred they held back and sold for big money). They didn’t because they wanted domain investor money and activity to legitimize their extension.
Comparing legal investing to cybersquatting is not just false, it’s a shameless act of self-promotion designed to muddy the water of domain investment. Cybersquatting involves holding trademarked domains with the purpose making money of the value and good will of the trademark. Most domain investors never do this.
That Calle does this is a sure sign that he is failing to do his job in promoting the domain name and helping to market businesses who take the risk and build a brand around a .Co domain name. In face he admits to being a domain investor, but not a mass speculator of domains. He knows the difference between an investor and a squatter. He’s purposely trying to inflame the emotions of end-users who are frustrated by the secondary market for domains.
Let’s face it, the very reason that .Co generated excitement is the cause of it’s undoing. It is too similar to .Com. It’s not a distinctive domain and thus adds little value. It’s a me-too extension. For a business to build a brand around a name it’s still far better to use .Com than any other generic-type of extension. After .Com there is some value in .Net or .Org. On the other hand if you don’t have the .Com, why not go with something more distinctive like .TV or .Me if those extensions fit your business model? For a generic sounding CC-TLD, I’ll go with .TV or .ME 100 times before I grab another .CO.
Fortunately I have very few .Co domains. I’ll be dumping what I have very soon.
