UK.tv was a $10K per year renewal. It made no sense at that price once market pricing had been revealed through the auction. And given what you see in the market, UK.tv is about a $10K domain once -- which means at the one-time premium renewal it is priced about right. Whoever is picking up the drop is getting a market price at best, not the steal of the century.
It is also a domain that seems incredibly amazing awesome, until you think a bit about the fact that: (a) nobody has really made the subdomain business on .tv work and (b) i am not sure how commercial a term it is.
I don't think the subdomain business works at all. I did recently learn that Missouri.me does it. This the only geo I know of that does it.
Personally, I don't think UK is a very commercial term. The odd think is that my brain wants to add "Gold" to the end of it. I think this speaks to the power of real branding. UKGold is far more powerful to me than UK.
As an Englishman I never even think of UK as something I would use. Sure it comes after .co. but that's about it. No one ever buys vacations to the UK. Most foreigners don't even know what constitutes the UK. People ask me if I'm from England. Talk about England (Scotland if they play golf) or Ireland (if they drink Guinness and not UK anyway)... occasionally they will say UK but ONLY when they're being intentionally generic. I don't think a website capturing "generic" is highly desirable.
In terms of the original thread.
I think me.tv is the gold standard.
I think us.tv is the second best domain in .tv period but I wouldn't expect it to be used as a CC.
I know every one is social networks are out etc etc but I don't think that all social networks have to be built the same way. People confuse an INTERACTIVE site with a Social Network.
US.TV has the potential to be an amazing interactive website.. It would be instantly memorable, instantly brandable... short at 2 letters but even then BE EASILY INTERPRETED. It would not be an acronym or take a extra brain synapse connection. Us.TV. IMMEDIACY. It's instant.
The modern market needs three things: INSTANT BRANDING. INSTANT ENGAGEMENT. INSTANT MEMORABILITY
(I need the TM symbol there if someone wants to add it - it's as relevant as the 14 character rule)
In terms of geo's I love NY.tv. NY is vibrant, it's bright, it's media. I don't like global/country 2 letter iso's. They're inferior to the full country imho (though have the advantage of being universal).
Again it speaks to immediacy. NY is always New York. It says New York.
JP - sure it's Japan... but at the same time it's not immediate. I don't know why anyone would prefer JP over JPN, or DE over DEU (ok, well that one I do), but what about Spain? ESP is far superior to ES in my mind.
So. My top three
me.tv
us.tv
ny.tv
I also like Depeche Mode and Doc Martens so DM.TV would be up there just like I'm sure old bearded rockers might like ZZ.
So much for not frickin posting here anymore... I'm such a damn loser.