Are "shortr.co" Domains better than "thelonger.com" Domains?

[SudarshanP]

Each time I watched This Week in Startups, Jason Calacanis would create a big fuss about .co domains and how one could get nice .co domains cheaply. As I wanted one for myself, I ended up searching some possible domains.

I was really shocked at the number of 4 letter domains still available. I got really addicted, and kept on searching until I had gathered more than 150 awsome domain names... I think some hoarding instinct had taken over me :).

Then I asked myself... what shall I do with this list?? I had spent some time and intelligence on this. I did not want to empty the cart and just forget it. These were domains like:

* opamp.co * scanr.co * printr.co * buyr.co * editr.co

So I dumped this list on http://www.getr.co

The .co domains are supposed to be a substitute for .com. It is really tempting to get these instead of .coms. But is it really advisable? Have any of u had negative experiences with .co domains by loosing too much traffic to the corresponding .com domain due to customer ignorance? Are there cases of Trademark violations and so on by the corresponding .coms?

[niyazpk]

IMHO .co domains are not in any way better than .com domain names. Also I feel that they are worse than .net or .org extensions in that .co will get easily confused for a .com domain name.

[pzxc]

I got http://spu.co/ for the flash games development I've been doing lately. I think some traffic will be lost by people typing in spu.com or even spuco.com, but how much is anyone's guess. I think the more general-purpose your website (and therefore audience) the larger a percentage you're going to lose due to typos/unfamiliarity with the TLD.

Since my website is more of a collection of stuff I've made and I'm not going to be marketing it heavily, I think it'll be okay. The traffic it gets will likely be through links where the person doesn't have to type the domain in. An easy question to ask yourself: will you ever be putting the domain in print materials/advertising? If you can see yourself wanting to market your website in print, the .co will be more of an issue than if the only marketing you do is online, where the site will be linked and the visitor only has to click the link, not type anything in.

There are some people who absolutely refuse to use anything but .com/.net/.org, or even those who ONLY use .com, and there's valid evidence out there making their case -- del.icio.us changing to delicious.com, or the fact that microsoft has bought nearly every typographical misspelling of their brand that you can think of, for example.

And then there's the additional issue that .co is technically the ccTLD (country-code) of the Republic of Colombia, even though it's available worldwide for registration. With the .ly issue or non-issue, depending on which side you're on, that's arisen recently it could be argued that any ccTLD is potentially at risk.

Personal opinion? I think it works fine for what I'm using it and don't regret my decision. But then I love short domains (I also own http://pzxc.com and http://6d7.com, and used to own http://ui.cx/ but gave it up partly for these reasons we're discussing here but mainly because I had to use the Christmas Island registrar for that one instead of my normal registrar, which was annoying).

However if I was using it for a massive site trying to make oodles of money off of it, my opinion might change. I think if I was bit.ly right now I'd be at least a little worried, though of course I'd downplay it just as they are doing.

[SudarshanP → pzxc]

I guess this means that a startup with a focus on online growth without much print advertising could choose a cheap .co which has a corresponding, not too popular or powerful .com, grow fast and then buy the corresponding .com when they are big enough.

[SudarshanP]

Link to the list of 151+ domains http://www.getr.co