• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Go Daddy.com smells like ClearChannel.cc

Some countries have had better luck than others selling out their 2 letter domain code. The .fm assigned to the Federated States of Micronesia is used for many stations but I don't think Ive ever seen a .cc used.
 
OP must be referring to the "GoDaddy.co" commercial in the first half of the Super Bowl. Yet there was a "GoDaddy.com" ad in the second half. (In the first one, I was expecting a cameo from Ronald McDonald - you know, he'd bring the "M"...)
 
Can't believe Go Daddy spent that much money promoting something that will never work (.co). Well, I guess if enough people register a domain they might do okay, but for the registrants it will never work because 99% of the people will always type ".com" out of habit. That's why .net and .org never really took off either.

Clear Channel tried the ".cc" for many radio stations in the late 90s and the concept also bombed.
 
Radiofornia said:
Can't believe Go Daddy spent that much money promoting something that will never work (.co). Well, I guess if enough people register a domain they might do okay, but for the registrants it will never work because 99% of the people will always type ".com" out of habit. That's why .net and .org never really took off either.
Click to expand...

Actually, registrations for .net and .org had a slower start because, back when there was only one company doing registrations, you had to meet certain qualifications to get those types of domains. It's kinda like how .edu is only offered to qualified educational institutions and .gov domains are only given to gov't agencies.

According to Wikipedia, .org was originally intended for use only for non-profits and other "organizations of a non-commercial character" that didn't meet the requirements for other domain suffixes. Likewise, .net was originally planned for "organizations involved in networking technologies" like ISPs and other companies that deal with internet infrastructure. Although these guidelines were never really enforced, I think the "stigma" behind .org and .net domains has managed to keep many major companies away... and as a result, the general public is used to everything ending in .com.

Of course (bringing this back to Syracuse/Utica since it's really been a "national" discussion until this point), there's one local radio station using the .net top-level domain. Clear Channel's B104.7 uses www.b1047.net because another "B104.7" in Kansas (not owned by Clear Channel) had already beat them to the punch on registering b1047.com. But I'd be willing to bet the Kansas station's site gets plenty of hits from the Syracuse area because, just as you mentioned, many people tend to assume .com rather than anything else.
 
BobRoss said:
Radiofornia said:
Can't believe Go Daddy spent that much money promoting something that will never work (.co). Well, I guess if enough people register a domain they might do okay, but for the registrants it will never work because 99% of the people will always type ".com" out of habit. That's why .net and .org never really took off either.
Click to expand...

Actually, registrations for .net and .org had a slower start because, back when there was only one company doing registrations, you had to meet certain qualifications to get those types of domains. It's kinda like how .edu is only offered to qualified educational institutions and .gov domains are only given to gov't agencies.

According to Wikipedia, .org was originally intended for use only for non-profits and other "organizations of a non-commercial character" that didn't meet the requirements for other domain suffixes. Likewise, .net was originally planned for "organizations involved in networking technologies" like ISPs and other companies that deal with internet infrastructure. Although these guidelines were never really enforced, I think the "stigma" behind .org and .net domains has managed to keep many major companies away... and as a result, the general public is used to everything ending in .com.

Of course (bringing this back to Syracuse/Utica since it's really been a "national" discussion until this point), there's one local radio station using the .net top-level domain. Clear Channel's B104.7 uses www.b1047.net because another "B104.7" in Kansas (not owned by Clear Channel) had already beat them to the punch on registering b1047.com. But I'd be willing to bet the Kansas station's site gets plenty of hits from the Syracuse area because, just as you mentioned, many people tend to assume .com rather than anything else.
Click to expand...
In the early days of the Web, a porn site squatted on whitehouse.com and got plenty of traffic from people looking for the White House (whitehouse.gov).
 
The Whatcom Hills Waldorf School has us beat to www.whws.org by many years. So we elected to go for www.whws.fm instead. I know WRVO went for .fm as well, but I don't know if they were forced to do it or just elected to go down that particular road for the branding. Personally I've found .fm to be a mixed blessing. Most people think it's cool, but usually it just confuses them at first. We've been aggressive in posting WHWS branding to as many different places as we can on the web, though, so at least we're pretty high in the search ranking (the entire first page of Google except slots #1 and #2, which belong to the Waldorf school).

Vermont Public Radio also went for vpr.net - not sure if that was out of necessity or not.

FWIW, part of the reason you don't see much .net and .org is that any smart business registers the .com, .net and .org to prevent domain squatters and/or competitors from grabbing them. But that doesn't mean the business ever really uses the .net/.org in their marketing; it's purely defensive registration. For example, in addition to the www.whws.fm, I also registered whws1057.com and .net and .org - just in case the attempt to use the .fm in our marketing fell totally flat, we had a backup.

Actually, I think the .co campaign is a smart business move...unfortunately, it's based on a slimy idea. I'm positive a ton of people are going to register the ".co" versions of more popular websites in an attempt to steal the traffic away. For example, huffingtonpost.co goes to a domain parking page. WHOIS says someone in India owns it as of last July.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom