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Wow!
What a big news day for domain
registries - one that culminated
late this afternoon, right after the stock
market closed, when Neustar
(operator of the .biz and .us
registries) announced
they have entered into a definitive
agreement to acquire .CO Internet S.A.S.,
the administrator of .CO domains.
for $109 million.
Neustar
already had an existing partnership
with .CO Internet to provide back end
registry services and infrastructure
support - a contract that earned
Neustar
$4 million in revenue last year. It
was also reported that .CO
exited 2013 with an annual revenue
run-rate of $21 million, so you can
see why Neustar valued .CO so highly. |
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Since
its global launch in 2010, the number of
.CO domains has grown to more than 1.6
million with registrants in over 200
countries and territories worldwide.
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Juan
Diego Calle
CEO, .CO Internet S.A.S. |
The
remarkable growth of .CO (a TLD
assigned to Colombia that
re-launched as a global offering in
2010) is a credit to the
masterful marketing job done by CEO Juan
Diego Calle, VP Lori
Anne Wardi and and the entire
management team and staff at .CO
Internet. We have often pointed to
it as the "textbook"
example of how to launch a new TLD.
Lisa
Hook, President and CEO at
Neustar said, "The
acquisition of .CO Internet is a
natural fit for us given our
successful partnership over the past
four years and our domain name
expertise. By combining .CO
Internet’s innovative domain
marketing capabilities with
Neustar’s distribution network and
technical resources, we will be able
to broaden our registry services and
the .CO brand worldwide, while
creating shareholder value.”
The
acquisition is subject to standard
closing conditions and is expected
to close within one month.
Following the acquisition, .CO
Internet, |
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as
a wholly-owned subsidiary of Neustar,
will continue to manage the .CO
domain extensions from its
headquarters in Bogota, Colombia.
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While Neustar
and .CO Internet S.A.S. are celebrating
their deal, the TLD
Registry team is in Macau
throwing a big party of their own
surrounding the launch of their two new
Chinese TLDs, Dot Chinese Online (.在线)
and Dot Chinese Website (.中文网).
The festivities there include a two-day
Landrush celebration and a
live/online hybrid premium
name auction tomorrow (March
21). .CLUB Domains (their strategic
partner) and Afilias are sponsoring
the auction event with all auction lots
online now at Sedo.
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The new TLD Registry extensions got a very nice jump
start earlier this week when an
agreement was reached with the the Chinese
central government's own registrar that agreed
to buy 10,226 domain names
in each of TLD Registry's Chinese TLDs, one
meaning "online" (.在线)
and the other "website" (.中文网).
TLD
Registry CEO & Co-Founder Arto
Isokoski
(standing) with
Chinese officials in Beijing who signed a
deal to buy over 10,000 domains in each of TLD
Registry's two new extensions.
The domain names
sold by TLD Registry include the names of every
city in China with populations of over
200,000 people, all 3,000 counties, all
provinces, all municipalities, all Special
Administrative Regions, and a number of key
locations such as mountains. In addition, names
such as "Invest in [Name of Place]",
"[Name of Place] Tourism", "[Name
of Place] Information" and "Place
[Transportation]" were included.
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Daniel
Negari
.XYZ Founder |
While
TLD Registry was getting their launch
party underway in Macau, the new .XYZ
Registry, founded by Daniel
Negari, celebrated the start
of .XYZ's Sunrise registration
period for trademark holders today. The
.XYZ Sunrise period, that ends on May
20, 2014, gives companies that have registered their marks with the Trademark Clearinghouse
(TMCH) the opportunity to register their corresponding
.XYZ names before the general public.
Following the sunrise,
.XYZ will have a 14-day Landrush Period where individuals, businesses,
and trademark holders alike can priority register domain names which were not taken during sunrise.
With
hundreds of new gTLDs coming online this
year, one of the biggest hurdles for new
registry operators is getting "shelf
space" at the leading registrars,
especially industry giant Go Daddy.
Negari has done very well on that front
with nearly 200 registrars around
the world agreeing to offer .XYZ domains,
including Go Daddy, Network
Solutions and 123-reg.
Registrations are also available |
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through brand
protection agencies such as Corporation
Service Company (CSC) and MarkMonitor.
A list of .XYZ's featured registrar
partners can be found here. |
(Posted
March 20, 2014)
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