Afternoon,
Want to know what Juan Calle thinks of Domainers after taking MILLIONS of our dollars??? You are not much more than a 'SQUATTER'!
Calle: $30 price: 'Deters Domainers from Cybersquatting.'
He clarified his comments on his blog later on but just seems to have dug a deeper hole:
'But, if you're a cybersquatter, or even a mass speculator, leveraging technology to register thousands of names, please do so in someone else's backyard.' Juan
I guess sponsoring ALL the major domain shows was your way of deterring us??
Watch this interview on Youtube that Elliot Just Posted. (embedded below)
And since Juan's customer owns a .net and filed a UDRP against the owner of the .com that was registered long before he went into business, I think domainers would label him a 'Reverse Domain Hijacker' as long as we are throwing labels loosely around here.
Rick Schwartz
UPDATE:
On his blog here Juan states:
'But there is an aspect in the world of domaining that sucks: it's called cybersquatting. The reality is cybersquatting makes our industry look bad. I hate to break it to you, but the entire internet ecosystem thinks cybersquatters are the scum of the earth'
I agree with that. Almost all of us do. There is no argument there. But that was not what was said and certainly not defined. It wrapped us right up in one little bundle.
It would have been very constructive to take the opportunity to define the difference for all to see instead of lumping us all together. We have spent years trying to explain the difference and this only reinforces the stereotype to the exact people we are trying to win over.
Juan's customer, Loïc Le Meur, files a UDRP for making a BONEHEADED business decision of getting a .net and that makes him a 'Reverse Domain Hijacker'in the eyes of domainers.
It's really time to set the record straight. Maybe an opportunity will present itself. I for one am tired of getting trashed for investing in things nobody else on the planet did and then putting up with reinforcing a stereotype.
So stereotype this. This company tried to hijack a legit domain and I am happy folks want to cozy up with him. I would really like for Loïc Le Meur to see the error of his ways. The domainer that owns the dotcom did NOTHING wrong and he should reimburse the owner for his expenses. THAT would be a good start.
Then maybe getting on stage at your event and explaining what you have learned.
Then maybe the guy that owns the dotcom version will allow you to use it and then maybe you can measure the losses of BOTH the .net and the .co to the .com and report back. Isn't finding out answers the real key and then sharing it with YOUR audience?
Almost all professional domainers stay far away from trademarks. We invest in generic names of social or commercial value and we buy most of our domains in the open market in which all have a fair and equal shot. We have a legitimate marketplace with hundreds if not thousands of companies doing commerce in a 100% legal manner. We also follow a model. Real Estate in which people and families have been investing in and passing down generation to generation for hundreds of years. Go tell Trump his model is illigitimate. Tell it to Ted Turner one of the largest land holders in the USA. Tell it to millions of land holders throughout the USA and the world.
I and many others are still wrestling with another disturbing comment on his blog:
'But, if you're a cybersquatter, or even a mass speculator, leveraging technology to register thousands of names, please do so in someone else's backyard.' Juan
Where would Mr. Calle like to draw the line on that one???? Seems that was a really big FLIPOFF after spending a boatload to get our business over the past 2 years and tens of thousands or more domainer registrations.
As for the precious 'End Users' and 'Startups'.....may as well tell them in some sort of disclaimer that those that have used .co have found it to be VERY COSTLY and as much as 61% of all traffic will never find them as they type in the .com. Those are FACTS! Just ask Overstock.com
andrew
Disses? Or more like says he doesn’t want his whole customer base to be domainers?
Rick Schwartz
No Andrew, that was being dissed in a BIG way followed by a freudian slip if you watch closely.
nodotcoforme
Nice to see he is happy to take real money from investors to buy this .co crap and then he craps all over them. Can you say biting the hand that feeds you? Does anyone remember Lauri making the rounds at the shows to promote this .co fantasy? Kudos to her for a good job, but.
.co really only just sends traffic to the .com.
.co is for Columbia.
As long as Juan keeps pumping $$ into promoting it he will get some traction but the minute it stops, adios dot columbia.
All .com owners should thank him for all of the bleeding the .co extension gives to .com. Muchas gracias Juan!
Aggro
Good luck to him
Anyone who is able to hype & sell – for the most part – a pile of steaming shit to domainers is doing something right..
As nearly always, the guys who sell the tools & services in most industries make the most money (Bob Parsons, Juan Calle), the speculators (especially the Johnnie-cum-latelies ala JBLions) end up shit broke, with big dreams & lottery tickets
Andy Kelly
Seems like they want to diss domainers and diss other (much cheaper and much better) extensions such as .net
Bottom dollar for me is they have clearly identified .net as their main competition as clearly .com is way out of their league.
So .net is prehistoric right? therefore $30 to hand reg a brand new supposedly cool .co is a bargain. Laughable really.
Jake B
Don’t see the issue here, sorry.
rob sequin
Loïc Le Meur is a douchebag.
At 1:37 in the video he says that leweb.com”has been taken since before we started leweb” and it is being used by the most famous domain squatter of Japan.
Boo Hoo.
You started your brand and now you are pissed because someone else registered the .com before you? What an ass.
He says he has been trying to buy it but he”can’t get it back”.
Get it back? Screw you Loic. How are you entitled to leweb.com?
Juan goes on to say that he is proud that .co is more expensive than .com because it is better and deters squatting?
Greed doesn’t have anything to do with it, Juan?
I was curious to know where this video was first posted. It was a you tube post by Loïc Le Meur here http://www.youtube.com/user/loiclemeur .
He has a video series called Build Your Own Brand which he runs from buildyourownbrand.tv NOT .com.
Maybe he can UDRP that one too.
What an idiot.
Abdu
I guess the poster boy got a new friend. What a F* up.
The Truther
what a pair of highly annoying individuals to watch
both desperate to hear the sound of their own voices all the time
excruciating to watch in fact, constantly talking over one another
maybe Le Meur should rebrand himself as ‘Le Merde’
but then calle may sue him for tm infringement as he is just a shit leech himself
pair of cunts, lol
Izaak
Wow, what an arrogant stance. I have a feeling though in the next few days he will make a public apologize to avoid any major backlash. I have been a big supporter of .co, but after listening to that interview its pretty clear Juan just wants new start-up businesses to register .co.
Dean
The video ends at 6:07, they cut out the part where they jerk each other off!!
Kevin Murphy
Seems to me that focusing on actual end users is a great way to drive secondary market prices up. Isn’t the usual complaint from domainers in non-.com TLDs that nobody uses them?
reality
It’s sad to watch these guys push .CO on STARTUPS of all people/entities because it’s mostly engineers with no branding/marketing knowledge. So the”new” and”hip” factor sucks them in. But it reality it will kill their company when they realize people are typing in .COM instead. I mean, most startups DO get it. Read techcrunch and other tech blogs …. almost every major funded company has a .COM. Dozens a day manage to get their .COM. But every once in a while you get a few that slip through the cracks and instead goes with”.ly,””.co,””.it,” or some other random extension. And it’s truly sad because, no matter how big and popular they get, they will never reach their 100% potential. By definition, you just can’t do it when you are losing traffic and customers are confused.
reality
Wow, so I checked out Techcrunch right after posting my above message… and there is a perfect example: a startup called”Drawbridge” has the domain DRAWBRID.ge. That’s right, a .GE … so the left of the dot is”Drawbrid.” And this supposedly received $6.5 million in funding ! Poor guys. Rick these people are complete space-cadets.
Scott Alliy
but wait … there’s more! 2300 more last I heard. AS you say Rick Pass the Popcorn. This shows just getting started!
You gotta love a guy who shows up at the event passes out trinkets sponsors a party, rolls out some T&A then when he finds out that neither the T&A, the party or the trinkets produced any income turns tail and disses the crowds he paid to attract as an event sponsor.
While I did not talk directly with hime at DomainFest Juan seemed commited. Turns out he was to the .CO brand, but apparently not to the domain name industry. As one commenter pointed out. This is a video that he will regret and no doubt an apology is forthcoming.
Scott Alliy
disclaimer. my previous post was my opinion. I do not know what Mr. Calles event goals were or if and fact his appearance at DomainFest was profitable or not.
I do know that his stated emphasis on deterring bulk domain domain investment and his statement that they want real businesses leaves a sour tast about .cos in this domainers mouth and I suspect many other domainers as some have voiced here already.
Domainsville.com
We got the following response to our comment at http://loiclemeur.com/english/2012/05/we-just-switched-leweb-to-leweb-co-because-its-cool.html:
Hey “Domainsville” yeah I don’t deny having tried to get LeWeb.com and I agree it doesn’t seem that I did it the best possible way and I’m happy to dicuss and learn.
Where we will, however, never agree, is that it’s “right” that an empty page with google ads on it can squat for life a domain used by a brand like ours for good reasons. I get the “I got it first” part and understand it, but I think it’s a real shame and frankly, a pain for the whole industry.
No question some people make a business out of it, but it’s a pain.
Brad Mugford
I wonder if this little PR video turned out like .CO had hoped. Somehow, I doubt it did.
steves
Yawn, didn’t we just go through this Overstock
Yawn, didn’t we just go through this Overstock.co
and now back to
Yawn, didn’t we just go through this Overstock.com
With the CEO saying .co sucks.
Andy Kelly
Well they figured out that the domainers gravy train has ended so they got their heads together and thought who can we sucker now? hmm how about startups. Cheap and nasty Well maybe not cheap @ $30 a pop
Gazzip
Ahh, those pesky”Domain Squatters” again lol
What a Dick, I noticed how he didn’t mention anything about keeping back hundreds, possibly thousands? of the best keyword .co names for himself so he could sell them off for thousands privately.
Domainsville.com
Juan of .CO Registry responds via blog post: http://www.domainsville.com/FeedItem/126472
Leo
They act as though since they decided .net is”old-fashioned” then .co is new and hip, that the world automatically agrees and falls in line with their thinking.
The Leweb guy says”I like .co”, when really he should ask what the surfers want, or much better yet, study what they actually do.
Rick Schwartz
On his blog Juan states:
“But there is an aspect in the world of domaining that sucks: it’s called cybersquatting. The reality is cybersquatting makes our industry look bad. I hate to break it to you, but the entire internet ecosystem thinks cybersquatters are the scum of the earth”
I agree with that. There is no argument there. But that was not what was said and certainly not defined.
It would have been very constructive to take the opportunity to define the difference for all to see instead of lumping us all together. We have spent years trying to explain the difference and this only reinforces the stereotype to the exact people we are trying to win over.
Juan’s customer, Loïc Le Meur, files a UDRP for making a BONEHEADED business decision of getting a .net and that makes him a”Reverse Domain Hijacker”in the eyes of domainers.
It’s really time to set the record straight. Maybe an opportunity will present itself. I for one am tired of getting trashed for investing in things nobody else on the planet did and then putting up with reinforcing a stereotype.
So stereotype this. This company tried to hijack a legit domain and I am happy folks want to cozy up with him. I would really like for Loïc Le Meur to see the error of his ways. The domainer that owns the dotcom did NOTHING wrong and he should reimburse the owner for his expenses. THAT would be a good start.
Then maybe getting on stage at your event and explaining what you have learned.
Then maybe the guy that owns the dotcom version will allow you to use it and then maybe you can measure the losses of BOTH the .net and the .co to the .com and report back. Isn’t finding out answers the real key and then sharing it with YOUR audience?
owen frager
Third time is a charm: Calle is 100% right.
Leo
@Domainsville…thanks for that.
So…. Juan at the .co does not want big investors, he says.
Mass speculation can go somewhere else he says.
What an arrogant jerk-off statement.
LSM
One of the best points you can arrive at in life is when the shitty decisions made by other people don’t influence your own focus.
You can always tell a dumbass by how they’re influenced by crowds or the anecdotes of other dumbasses.
owen frager
As Andrew Allemann said”Calle has responded to the allegations that he’s anti-domainer by pointing out he’s a domainer himself. He doesn’t want cybersquatters on .co. He goes even further by saying he doesn’t want “mass speculators”. That’s smart, whether or not you want to hear it.”
No one held a gun to your head and told you to buy a .co for speculation and I advised not to. Also advised against .tv and .mobi with lots of evidence and personal experience (such as holding the iPhone that was coming to disrupt everything in my hand at my job in 2002). But no one listened.
And many here got burned on TV and Mobi and came back for more on .Co and now you want to blame Calle?
rob sequin
Juan doesn’t want speculators. I guess he shouldn’t have pre-sold all those domains to Mike Mann who is just reselling them for big profits.
What an asshole Juan Calle is.
BullS
What a freaking cry babies….wearing a super size diaper!!
WQ
Jaun needs a good ol’ fashioned ass kicking IMO.
What a real POS.
Leonard Britt
Funny how I just spent two weeks in COLOMBIA (Cartagena & a lesser-known city a few hours south) and despite trying to find websites with .CO domains, I only found one .CO – in a magazine on the flight back. Mostly it was a split between .COM.CO and .COM and more English words in domain names than I had anticipated – even for Spanish websites.
FYI I felt safer walking in the Bocagrande and Castillogrande sections of Cartagena than I would in Miami Beach or Fort Lauderdale Beach – particularly at night.
RAYY
So if you bought 3000 co’s (2yrs$150,000) makes you a cybersquatter now….
Yeah, it’s terrible that Juan called all domain investors who owned thousands of domain names are…..”Domain Squatters”
So, you guys are all squatters….that’s official by Juan’s definition….
Ziad
Well, i recently registered a .co domain name which not in my best dreams i would have found it otherwise on other TLDS. Domain name is Start-Ups.co, which i find this pretty cool especially that domain registrars and the online community started to give it lots of weighting and it now counts among the best 4 TLDS, the other 3 being .com, .net and .org
Cheers
jorge Zamora
Hmmm never registered a .co but I like explore.pt for my non .coms
JamesD
.co – it’s a joke. There’s no traffic, you may as well get a .ws, you’ll still have to force traffic to it just the same.
I bought 4 .co names with 150k+ combined global exacts including 2 Spanish name. Total traffic for all 4 is less than 50 in nearly a year. Last week I hand registered 3 .com names that have had nearly that much traffic already – all type in.
.co is like having a remote control for your TV, but no batteries in it.
Homero A. Gonzalez
Calle: $30 price:”Deters Domainers from Cybersquatting.”
Uhm…. 1and1 offers $ 9.99 .CO Domains, Go Daddy $ 9.99 as well, NameCheap $ 12.99, and Dynadot $ 12.99
Does Mr. Juan Calle *NOT* know this??
Do you think Cybersquatters don’t know this?
I think it would be Wise for Mr.Juan Calle to Clarify the difference between”Domainers” and”Cybersquatters” two mutually exclusive terms.
Cheers!
MaxPax
Yup you can even get cheaper .co than $9 at godaddy if you use the right coupon code so not much of a deterrent so Mr Calle is talking out of a different orifice.
dolphin.co sold recently for $48K
As for leweb – anyone with $99 to invest might be interested to learn that leweb.xxx is still available :-)
Rick Schwartz
I am reposting part of Ravy’s comment from DomainNameWire.com
“People who don’t acknowledge the difference between “squatter” and rightful “investor” are either ignorant/uninformed or condemning out of envy.”
WQ
As a mass speculating domainer I won’t be buying another .CO, ever.
Lance
1.5 mm domains registered.
Of which I would like to know just how many are domainers anyway. Did we buy half a million? I didnt think we as domainers bought as many as the hype through godaddy commercials on superbowl and .com business defensive registrations. I would like to know because…just how many startups are there anyway?
Flip side: the more extensions get developed the more the value of the extension becomes by use.
Ps- The web is dead…but its coming back in a big way :) lol
Steven Swimmer
Rick,
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. 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. They didn’t because they wanted our money and our 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.
It’s 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.
Let’s face it, the very reason that .Co generated excitement is the cause of it’s undoing. It is too similar to .Com. Not distinctive. Adds little value. It’s a me-too extension.
For a generic sounding CC-TLD, I’ll go with .TV or .ME 100 times before I grab another .CO.
Steven Swimmer
NameBrandable.com
Gazzip
“dolphin.co sold recently for $48K”
I’m pretty sure that one was sold by Juan Calle, I have a big list with hundreds of the .co domains he squatted o…., oops, I mean kept to sell themselves.
DarkDN
Arrogance kills business, specially a business with such volatility as the domain business – Calling someone a cybersquatter because he registered 1500+ domains or even 10 domains and seeking profit from it by leveraging it with technology – it is simple stupidity – this business, even before the .co era, is, was and will be a profitable model, once people realize not to mess around with TM’s – and protected brands. Putting all domainers in the same category as “cybersquatters” is a very dumb statement, there are professionals in the field making a good living with .com’s and happended to register some of the .co’s – and perhaps that is the sticking point .. Maybe the .co pretends to be a no-cybersquatting brand ? – again ..stupidity at its best .. – I think, Mr Calle is the clear example of the inverse ratio, between the size of the brain and the size of the mouth …… word to the wise .. you don’t bite the hand that feeds you …..
Joao
hmmm…i dont get the part where a startup can’t have as their main business goal, to buy and sell .co domains. That same startup which is the main target for .co extension CEO, becomes a mass speculator. Qué?
.co just became a wierd place to invest.
Gaines Milligan
He will say anything to try to get his dot co extension to be more popular. It’s not going anywhere. Just wishful thinking on hi part. in that psychology of wishful thinking, he is a domainer himself but won’t admit it.
To me, being a strictly amateur”domainer” (a word which I learned from someone emailing me an inquiry) domains are a kind of poetry, self-published. I own about 300 and I mostly quit when I woke up one day and realized the expense of keeping them. A few I did and will put content, maybe sell if I can bear to part with them and the rest I will let die or try to sell. Thinking up domains is fun, but I won’t pay $30 for the privilege when I can pay a lot less.
Duras
Nice and complete comment.
Theo
bout time this bubble bursted….
still awesome how they did it.
Bobby Cakes
“Desperate Kicks of a Drowning Victim …and extension”
This guy will do or say anything for a buck, his”snake oil” partner$
are pretty MUM about the whole deal, thanks to RS for keeping them honest.
Sooner or later another issue will come to light :
How his immediate family acquired premium .co’s way before the sunrise period.
All it will take it’s a little digging by Colombians…
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1004494301
He can stick his .co up his and go fuck himself. Takes millions and then slanders us?
Dave Wrixon
I think the boneheads are those that invested heavily in this crap.
Interestingly, the same boneheads that have invested heavily in other dead duck domains.
Why do this? Is it simply a lack of vision to grab the real opportunities that are out there?
Overpriced
Almost all professional domainers stay away from trademark domains. Like that statement. StatConter is a typo of StatCounter, a trademarked name. A top professional domainer owns it.
You will find many more professional domainers owning trademark names. They park them to make revenue.