DotCo, which is the ccTLD for Colombia, is opening up to general public registration today.
According to official sources from both Neustar and CoInternet the registry has handled over 90 thousand registrations in the first 15 minutes!
You can expect the various domain / internet news sites to carry more updates on the volume of registrations over the next 24 hours and beyond.
While the initial registration phase of any new domain extension can attract a lot of media interest and a flood of registrations you need to look at the “big picture”.
In a few months time when the initial excitement has died down how many new registrations per day will there be?
More importantly, how many of the domains initially registered will be in active use? And by active use, I mean not “parked” or simply redirecting to an existing site?
The key players in CoInternet’s pre-launch marketing have a lot of experience in the domain name industry, so it was not that surprising to see how much hype they were able to generate in advance.
But will that translate into active usage?
I certainly hope so, as many people have invested heavily in the new extension, but I would be worried, as always, that a disproportionate number of names might end up under the control of domain professionals.
It’s too early to tell obviously, so in the meantime let’s wish them all the best of luck with the launch – it looks like it’s going very well so far!
