More conversation about .TV. This is on Elliot's Blog.
July 20, 2008
A discussion about the Geo Domain Expo turned into a lively discussion/debate about the merits of the .TV extension and developing .TV domain names. As most people know, I don’t care to own alternate extensions for a variety of reasons, with the most important being that consumers aren’t really aware of these alternate extensions. If I am going to buy a domain name for development, it will almost always be .com since they tend to get the type-ins, search engines seem to like them better, and when consumers tell a friend about the site, chances are good they will assume it’s .com. After some back and forth in the thread, someone made the comment:
“Since you own the .com, why bother with the .tv??? You are right…I understand you are developing oenophiles.com, so I registered oenophiles.tv today which will make a great video site of wine conneseurs [sp] talking about their passion for wine, grapes and wine making in general………….it will also include vine growing tips, videos of famous vineyards across the globe, where you will be able to book online tours of these establishments………
But hey no worries right??…No need to secure the .tv that means absolutely nothing to nobody”
Developing a website on any alternative non-.com TLD is probably the only way to make money (other than flipping it to another domain investor). I think it is much more difficult to rank well in the search engines with a non .com site - especially if the .com is developed. From my perspective, Google and Yahoo give more credence to .com names, so it probably takes less effort to rank well with the .com than it would to rank with a .TV or .Whatever. This will make it more challenging to make money, as it is far less likely that a consumer will type in .TV for a domain name than a .com, even if they are looking for video.
The real money from development comes from direct to business advertising sales. In fact, when I developed TropicalBirds.com, one of the people I spoke with about a free advertisement with a link back told me she wanted to buy my featured breeder section for 6 categories. She told me I had a great domain name and a great looking website, so it wasn’t a tough sale. I am sure it would be difficult to get less than Internet-savvy businesses to advertise on a non .com TLD because many people only know .com, .net, .org and .gov.
Without strong search engine rankings, driving traffic to a website is a more difficult job. It’s hard enough to get links to an established site, and I would think it would be made more difficult with a non-traditional TLD. Some words and phrases are so difficult to spell that type-in traffic is virtually non-existent. This is the case with Oenophiles.com, and it’s the reason I am developing it - (that and I drink quite a bit of wine!) I am going to need to rely on links and search engine optimization for my traffic.
Incidentally, I checked out the Whois information for the .TV name, and the owner has a Flatbush Brooklyn address, so I thought I would make a more poignant illustration. From a real estate point of view, owning Oenophiles.tv is like owning an apartment in Brooklyn, while owning Oenophiles.com is like owning an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Sure Flatbush might be a nice place to live, but it will be more difficult convincing your friends to take the 2 or Q train to Brooklyn on a Saturday night than it will to get them to visit Manhattan. You can arguably have a great time in both places, but what fun is it if your friends aren’t enjoying the fun with you?
The bottom line is that I believe .Whatever have value if you develop them. Consumers for the most part aren’t aware of them, so the more that aren’t developed mean it will be tougher teaching consumers that they exist. I would think it is tougher to drive traffic to a non .com than a .com - especially if the .com is developed, so you need to determine if it’s worth the extra time and effort to develop a non .com TLD rather than trying to buy the .com.
I think the most vociferous supporters of non .com TLD are those who own them, clearly trying to make them relevant (and create liquid value). If you need cash quickly, it’s obviously MUCH easier selling a .com domain name than a TLD domain name. If few people care (or know) about a TLD, it’s much more difficult to sell them. It’s always amusing to see forum posts and blog posts of the most ardent .Whatever supporters who have a full page dedicated to selling these TLD. Makes you go hmmm…
Comments:
Bernard Says:
July 20th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Sounds to me that the person who sent you that message obviously was trying to be clever, but if he/she thinks they will actually spend the money/time to develop that site and have it try to compete with oenophiles.com, they are crazy. I guess they are unaware that you can feature videos on your website…
I can see the advertising campaign right now–”Just like oenophiles.com…but DOT tv!” What a waste of reg fees, trying to make a point. I predict that oenophiles.tv will be dropped in a year or two, after they make an attempt to sell it to you…
Thats a very long response about a comment to Elliot about an extension he says he does not care or believe in................
To me it looks like it hit a sore point!!!
I was the one that regged the .tv version.........now if the .tv means absolutely nothing to Elliot, why the huge response??!!!!!
You are right about one thing though, it is way down my list of development priorities, probably towards the non existent....but my point was made - a site dedicated to wine lovers screams out for a .tv ext and I have sold winemaking.tv for a healthy ROI having bought it for reg fee......and i am prepared to have a bet with Elliot that I do sell the name to someone who cares about wine and winemaking and wine sipping within two years etc etc = not my cup of tea though......
One thing I won't be doing is trying to sell the name back to you - not my style.....but who knows i am betting as .TV gets more and more widespread attention, you may well come to me and I will give it to you for free!! As long as you admit it on your blog.....(hmmmm doubtful - although look at Frager and his 360....)
To sum it up, if you are developing the .com and it makes sense as a .TV aswell. for goodness sake buy the .tv too.........for 15 bucks you are protecting yourself from a rival who will own the generic - I dont care what your theories are about search engine recognition
Now just to help you understand completely, if you had a site called nailcutters.com, I would not recommmend that anyone reg nailcutters.tv as it would have no use as a channel.............so I am only talking about names that make sense in the .tv ext
Last edited by MillersCrossing : 07-20-2008 at 06:13 PM.
Of course most people who own dot coms will never give another ext any form of credit or positive feedback. Why would they? Every dollar going into dotTV is another dollar not going to dot com.
People have to realize that many of the pioneers of the domain name industry are not savvy businessmen, they are just very, very lucky. They are scared of a shift in the domain industry, why wouldn't they? Most of their eggs are in the dot com basket
I am not denying that dot com is king, everyone knows it is. However, there are a lot of princes coming up in the ranks
"I am sure". Well I have advertisers who call me up asking to advertise on DiscJockeys.TV. So I know he is wrong. Traffic is all that counts. Domains don't with advertisers. Sure there are a handful of knuckheads will advertise on a .com with zero traffic just because it is a .com. But any site with traffic, whether it be a .net, .tv, or anything will get advertiser interest.
You really think an advertiser is going to say. Well I see that 100K uniques a month or 1,000 leads a month, but it is a .TV - those aren't real users. Come on.
Last edited by localexperts : 07-20-2008 at 06:47 PM.
more and more .com people are taking the leap every day....today i was asked in an email how much i wanted for Thailand.tv - the guy is a big .com geo owner...........
only a matter of time now before the .commers with an agenda give up fighting against the rising tide and learn to coexist peacefully with .tv
Long rides back from the beach give me plenty of time to write blog posts that will generate some discussion.
In response to: "People have to realize that many of the pioneers of the domain name industry are not savvy businessmen, they are just very, very lucky. They are scared of a shift in the domain industry, why wouldn't they? Most of their eggs are in the dot com basket."
I don't consider myself a pioneer. I got started in 2003 buying new registrations and flipping them for a quick profit, reinvesting everything. I got serious in late 2005 and quit my job at AIG in 2007. Most of my revenues come from buying domain names in private and selling them at a profit, which I continue to do. I also see tremendous value in geo domains and a few other areas, which I discuss openly on my blog. I think there are enough opportunities in .com that I don't even sweat other extensions.
I like to keep a nice liquid portfolio of names I can sell if/when necessary at a moment's notice. If .TV names become good investments, I will happily buy. Sure, I might pay a premium, but in the meantime I will have done other things with my capital.
BTW, I will also add that I have a portfolio of about 150 names (after a large sale goes through this week). 6-8 of the names are premium domain names I have developed or will develop in the next 6 months, 5-10 are premium domain names I will sell in the next 2-3 months, 5 are common typos of my blog, and the rest are speculative registrations (5% of which are non-.com and are protective registrations).
What % of your traffic to DiscJockeys.tv comes from type ins and natural search results, and what % is from the paid search advertising you are doing on Google?
Also, it looks like your banners on DiscJockeys.tv are run through AllWedding.com rather than straight through DiscJockeys.tv.
I have eight years of experience running large SEM budgets.
First of all, you can't do this if your site's revenue is based on PPC or PPI advertising. We have zero PPC advertisers and less than 20% of our advertisers have PPI advertising.
Second, in our industry - there is no type in traffic or SEO traffic. It is 100% purchased traffic. That industry is led by several billion dollar companies who are marketing machines. One company is a pioneer in building advertising creatives.
So yes, it can be done on any domain (extension doesn't matter). No, not everyone has the skill, experience, talent, or business model to do it.
If I wanted to, I could take the 35,000 uniques going to our top ranked DOT COM and switch the ad campaigns to the DOT TV version. The concept works whatever extension we use.
Last edited by localexperts : 07-20-2008 at 09:34 PM.
Elliot is so wrong and it's not even funny! just type in Cannes Films into yahoo and you will see CannesFilms.tv comes up on the first page! Now that is considering I've hardly done any seo whatsoever, just a little tinkering and some very basic content to get going.
Like Millerscrossing pointed out, I get the feeling that domainers with large .com portfolios are getting worried about cannibalization to their .com brands and for very good reason! If you fail to diversify because of an obsession with a first to market domain extension, then that is a huge mistake.
For instance I own Supremecourt.com and kick myself for not owning the .TV particularly. If stockbrokers tell their clients to diversify their portfolios, why in the world do domainers think they are so so different? Like I said, I have over 900 .coms, however I have now diversified into .TV's, .co.uk and a few others. Just ask whoever owns RealEstate.com how he/she feels about not owning RealEstate.TV.
What would you like to do today? watch videos of realestate or wade through boring text and static images? I think the answer is so so obvious, which is why Television trounces print media and anyone who dose'nt believe that is just in deep denial!
Google entered the UK market through diversification and guess what? they make a killing on a per capita basis by comparison in expenditure terms, to what they make states side. The UK leads in online advertising than the US does and that's a fact! bearing in mind most Uk sites are .co.uk and now a lot of media companies with deep pockets are buying .TV's, and trust me if you understand british business mentality historically, they know how to exploit markets globally. Like my boss in the US used to say when I was a stockbroker,
"never get emotional with any stock and learn when to take your profits!!"
Black,
These are not my thoughts. They come from Elliott Silver's blog. He had a thread about .TV there. I am just posting as .TV news. In fact, I like .TV
Sorry about that Ammudamus, we're in the same camp! I corrected my error! apologies bruv! ...y'know our fellow domainers are getting really panicky about where .tv is all heading and I think a lot of folks out there are truly worried. All they need to do is diversify! I checked out Sheeraz who owns hollywood.tv and compared his aleza ranking to hollywood.com, very very impressive for a guy who pretty much does what he does using the Me channel. he has an alexa ranking of about 3000 compared to hollywood.com that has been around for ages with an alexa ranking of 2000 or so. Hollywood.com is fine if you want to go through loads and loads of text , but if you want to consume video like most folks out there, you end up on hollywood.tv! I hope this will educate domainers to make hay while the sun is still shinning!
I am glad you guys are having success with .TV. The purpose of my blog is to share what I've learned to become successful as a domain investor, and I've been buying almost exclusively .com domain names. I know there are plenty of ways to be successful, but there hasn't been a need for me to diversify into extensions other than .com.
LOL. The only things that has/had me worried in the domain business in the last 2 years is/was the Snowe Bill and the economy (although much less about this)
Fair enough EJS! there are still lots of non-premium .tv's up for grabs should you decide to diversify. I've been in this internet industry since 1995 and for the first time i really feel i have a better conduit to negotiate deals with big or media companies through the advent of dotTV. There is just so much more scale that people can relate to almost instantly!
See I don't consider myself a domain investor. I'm not looking to sell anything except the entire company. My approach to the problem is the following:
Since wedding is a common theme, we can look at wedding. I went thru and bought up many of the high quality .COM wedding/event related domain names: BanquetFacilities.com, EventCatering.com, BanquetRoom.com, PortraitPhotographers.com, BarbequeCaterers.com, etc
Then I had a gap in coverage, so I had a choice - second tier .com or top tier alternative extensions.
So I started to buy .net: weddingphotographers.net, videographers.net, tentrentals.net, and cateringservices.net
then I discovered .TV. and .net got relegated to third place:
banquetfacilites.tv, caterer.tv, receptionhalls.tv, photographers.tv, videographers.tv, weddingreception.tv, discjockeys.tv, officiants.tv and more.
Do I prefer .com, right now yes. But I'm unwilling to spend more than $3,000 for a quality .com when a high quality .TV is available.
It's opportunity cost.
That is going to be the factor that causes broading out into alternative extensions. So many quality .coms are overpriced for end users. The end users are simply going to look at their options and give strong consideration to their options.
When the end user can drive traffic (like we can do) and type in traffic is gravy, the opportunity cost price point is very low.
Last edited by localexperts : 07-21-2008 at 09:26 AM.
I am opposite in that I would always prefer a .com over anything else, and I don't necessarily need to sell to end users to make money. In fact, I don't think I've sold to more than 4-5 end users since I started.
Incidentally, I bought WeddingEntertainment.com a few weeks ago for a very reasonable price. I plan to sell it sometime in the next year, and I had a mini site built with 100% unique content instead of parking it. Although edits are still needed (the site was launched last week), there will be a few hundred pages of content including the directory in the next couple of weeks. The name was never parked, it's dated to 97, there is unique content, and its a .com, so SEO will help to drive traffic to the site.
The name will make several dollars a day on Adsense and perhaps I will get some advertisers willing to pay monthly for listings. All of this will allow me to sell the domain at a considerable profit margin. I wouldn't be so comfortable if this wasn't .com.
But this whole conversation started with mentioning that advertisers prefer DOT COM.
They really don't.
I can assure anyone that an advertiser will cancel on a .COM that doesn't bring them new business and will pay for .NET or .TV that does bring new business
I prefer a couple hundred dollars a day per site, otherwise it is not a success. AdSense will never accomplish that aim for our business.
With AllWeddingCompanies.com (with over 100K uniques a month on Quantcast), adsense generates less than $1000 a month. AWC has dominate SEO placement.
Everyone has their own business philosophy and objectives.
DOT TV meets my objectives.
If you objective is to rely on type in traffic, then I see where it doesn't meet your objectives.
IF ... .TV ever hits critical mass it is possible that type in traffic will equal
.com type in traffic for the same domain.
__________________ cityforum.com -
Do you have your own cityforum ?
Toronto, Montreal, Hyderabad and Los Angeles are now taken. Send a PM if you wish to join us with your city in this group development project. Free Hosting.
At the end of the day it comes down to how much money you make from your domains/business. One can create a multi-million dollar business on DOT TV, just as easy as DOT COM.
You can't do it, if you bring a traditional domainer mental approach to your business.
We have to have direct relationships with advertisers. We have to have an SEM budget to drive traffic to our sites. We were forced to find a way to make the model work. We can't rely on PPC VIA Google.
If you are willing to get dirty, the extension and domain is im-material.
I fully respect your concentration on the .com - if its making you money - why bother with other extensions..,...
I have to say the same with me...I am a newbie at domaining - only got started in May of 06 - tried my hand at .com and got hammered as most newbies do with .com.......I realised to make a profit at .com, I would need to invest alot of time first in analysing the domaining industry, and the hugely competitive .com world......
But then i stumbled on .tv and quickly realised that as a niche domain, the learning curve needed to be steep but short lived....Being a lazy bugger, I opted for the short lived learning curve and soon found myself making a decent living from .tv - and like you, if .tv was working for me, why bother looking elsewhere.
Now i do have plenty of .coms, but are all TV.COMS, so I am still sticking to what I know in a sense, my pride and joy selling nutstv.com to Ted Turner for 7.5k and have had about 10 offers for some of my other .coms upto 6k
Plenty of people have made decent money from .tv and I am glad to hear you say that at some point you may diversify into .tv.......
You made a point on your blog - should I protect all my names I am developing in .com by regging them in every single extension....????
The answer is no!! Not even in .net. Certainly not in .cn, but definately in .tv IF it is fitting as a tv channel..........which would include I believe every one of your sites...
The reason being that all other extensions are no match for .com and have no type in traffic, so whats the point......with .tv, it is not competing with .com, it is complimenting it!!!!!!!!!!
That is why you have so many .coms develop sister sites in the .tv.(mercedezbenz.tv)....that is why you have .org sites develop sister sites in the .tv.......(Nasa.TV)
Because it acts as a showcase site using video with a video branded ext. Yes, .com can do the same, but it does not tell the viewer what to expect like the .tv does...............
Just like to end off by saying I really didnt intend to be malicious by regging the .tv of your site, I just wanted to make a point!!!!!
