Yesterday was the first day of Landrush for the new .CO domain extension. Of course, as Adam Eisner, our Director of Domain Services, is fond of saying, there’s no rush in Landrush for .CO.

Now that’s not to say that people won’t be lining up to get their preferred .CO domain during the Landrush phase – demand for .CO domains has been quite strong. Rather, it’s a way of saying that Landrush orders aren’t approved on a first-come, first-served basis. Instead, multiple Landrush orders for the same domain will result in the domain going to an auction in which all those who applied for the domain during the Landrush period are able to bid.

You can submit Landrush orders through OpenSRS and we’ll continue to accept them through the end of the Landrush period on July 13th, 2010.

General Availability is just around the corner

What will be a rush is General Availability (GA), which happens on July 20th, 2010. On that day, it’s a real free-for-all as registration officially opens to everyone at the regular price and whoever gets the application in first gets the domain. We’ll have more information about what we’re doing for General Availability shortly, but in the meantime, OpenSRS is already accepting pre-orders via the Reseller Web Interface (RWI) and the API.

As always, the .CO Launch Page is updated with all the information about the launch of .CO.

Yesterday the micro-blogging/messaging service twitter announced that they would begin using t.co as their official domain for shortened URLs. While most of the media coverage around the move was focused on the twitter side of the deal – things like analytics, length of tweets, etc. – another side to the story is that twitter’s decision to use a .co domain will no doubt lead to greater awareness of .co amongst the general public.

With just over a month to go until .co officially launches with the General Availability phase, we’re continuing to see a lot of buzz building around the new domain extension.

We’re nearing the end of the Sunrise phases of the launch where trademark holders get first dibs on .co domains that match their existing trademarks. Later this month, things really begin to heat up as the Landrush phase starts on June 21.

For many, Landrush will be the first chance for many to get their hands on some great .co domains. And as exciting as Landrush will be, General Availability will really ramp things up with a first-come, first-served registration blitz when the .co Registry officially opens for business on July 20.

e.co Auction

While t.co is generating some significant buzz around the tech community, another .co domain is also grabbing headlines. Between June 7 and June 10, .co is auctioning off another single character .co domain – e.co.

With bidding set to close tomorrow, the current price for e.co is already up over $30,000 and continuing to climb.

Proceeds from the auction of e.co go to the winner’s charity of choice which makes the whole thing even more of a win for all involved.

Are you selling .co?

OpenSRS is fully supporting the launch of .co as one of ten .co accredited registrars. We’re continuing to take Global Sunrise orders at the moment and we’ll be switching on both Landrush and General Availability pre-orders in the coming weeks.

If you haven’t yet started marketing and selling .co domains, it’s not too late. Awareness amongst the general public continues to build and CO Internet SAS continues to do a great job building buzz around the new extension. With General Availability coming next month, demand for .co domains amongst the general public should continue to swell.

If you are looking for more information on the launch of .co, we have a special page setup for you. All the information around dates, phases and pricing is there. And you can download a full package of .co marketing materials including web copy, flash banners and other images and graphics you can use to highlight your participation in the launch of .co.