.tv A wake up call for Verisign + Good News

[Blastoff]

Overall, I would almost bet Verisign thought they would do much better across the board, ergo, numerous sales in the mid to high xx,xxx.xx.

I hope Verisign takes away from this auction that the free market should determine domain + extension value and not inorganic forces. The "premium" model has only delayed the natural growth of the .TV extension and should be done away with totally.

The good news, it's great to see business.tv sell for 100K+, we are clearly moving in the right direction.

 

[antonis12]

Overall, I would almost bet Verisign thought they would do much better across the board, ergo, numerous sales in the mid to high xx,xxx.xx.

I hope Verisign takes away from this auction that the free market should determine domain + extension value and not inorganic forces. The "premium" model has only delayed the natural growth of the .TV extension and should be done away with totally.

The good news, it's great to see business.tv sell for 100K+, we are clearly moving in the right direction.

the other interesting things is that this is a much more efficient way to set the market for these names. some went for fraction of their implied renewal value, others for more than I would have thought...

 

[Blastoff]

Great point! The fact that some domains didn't even reach their renewal value further strengthens the agreement that people sitting in a room, setting firm price points is ludicrous.

 

[equity78]

Overall the auction was excellent and doubt Verisign had any disappointment. Secondly .tv revenue means so little to Verisign they probably could care less. Verisign bought Great Domains.com for $50,000,000 and sold it for $2,200,000 to SEDO years later and it was a blip.

Great auction.

 

[antonis12]

Overall the auction was excellent and doubt Verisign had any disappointment. Secondly .tv revenue means so little to Verisign they probably could care less. Verisign bought Great Domains.com for $50,000,000 and sold it for $2,200,000 to SEDO years later and it was a blip.

Great auction.

Equity, I agree with you:

(1) To VSGN none of this matters. They have a multi-billion franchise in .com which is what matters to them

(2) For .tv in general, I think this is great. .tv is going to own the ccTLD charts on DNJournal and good parts of the overall charts the next 2-3 weeks.

I just wish they had approached it this way, 4 years ago. things would have gone so much smoother overall

(3) I do think it serves as a useful reality-based data point. Once you look past the top 10 domains, the vast majority of domains sold for 1x or less of their prior 'premium renewal fee'.

This is the realistic sense of their value which is comfortably in-between:

(a) VSGN = these were $10,000 per year domains (or $500,000 per year domains for business..lol)

(b) Jeff = Reg Fee +/-

Without high renewals, it is a TLD comparable with the second level of gTLDs and a lot of ccTLDs and that is what these prices show.

 

[Blastoff]

equity78, I'm sure when Verisign (CEO & CFO & COO, etc.) meets in the morning and they bring up the issue of .TV the management doesn't say, ".TV sales, we could care less, let's talk about something else". FYI, large companies don't just to make big sales & purchases, they MOSTLY calculate small moves, which determines the success of their company as a whole. You only hear about the big stuff because that drives stocks up or down and is also news worthy.

antonis12, I totally agree with your comment "I just wish they had approached it this way, 4 years ago. things would have gone so much smoother overall"

 

[antonis12]

I'm sure when Verisign (CEO & CFO & COO, etc.) meets in the morning and they bring up the issue of .TV the management doesn't say, ".TV sales, we could care less, let's talk about something else". FYI, large companies don't just to make big sales & purchases, they MOSTLY calculate small moves, which determines the success of their company as a whole. You only hear about the big stuff because that drives stocks up or down and is also news worthy.

I am pretty comfortable saying that when the Verisign CEO, CFO, COO meet in the morning, their agenda items do not typically include .tv...

Over the years they have rarely staffed more than 1-2 business people on the whole TLD which tells you its relative importance to them.

 

[equity78]

I don't believe that the CEO of Verisign discusses .tv on a daily or weekly basis.

 

[Blastoff]

I don't believe that the CEO of Verisign discusses .tv on a daily or weekly basis.

Agreed, I didn't say every day, I said when "they bring up the issue of .TV".

To move past this minor sticking point, because they are a large and sharp company I hope they will see the potential opportunity in dropping there existing sales model and let it grow naturally the same way .com did.

 

[*AllThings.tv*]

On that note, I don't see a current argument that would persuade Verisign to drop the premium price revenue that it currently expects or takes in from the old premium model.

That has to be worth more than half a million in pure profit since they no longer have to incur costs to support this income. This income will naturally fall as names drop, but they have to wait a full year to see the impact of their recent moves on that income stream.

If more premium names with premium pricing are dropped during this next year than Verisign anticipated, then we may see the buyout offer so many here speculate. However, if they cannot clear the revenue they can expect to earn from those names purchased and held under the legacy premium business model, then I don't see a buyout offer on the way but I wouldn't be upset to see one.

 

[equity78]

I agree Kevin, it sucks but Verisign is not going to budge on the demands of domainers. I remember in 2006 when someone from Verisign told me that "we don't care what domainers think, this is not a domainers extension"

 

[antonis12]

I agree Kevin, it sucks but Verisign is not going to budge on the demands of domainers. I remember in 2006 when someone from Verisign told me that "we don't care what domainers think, this is not a domainers extension"

we'll see.

I don't think 3 weeks ago anyone would have predicted that there would no longer be premium renewals on new domains.

 

[*AllThings.tv*]

The only argument that has teeth is the one that relates to confusion.

Verisign changed its business model because the old one didn't work out well for the company. Clearly, Verisign acknowledged that confusion was one of the largest culprits in holding the dot tv extension back when it decided to terminate its exclusive relationship for premium names with eNom, expand the channel of registrars for premium dot tv names, and declare that all renewal fees for names sold by registrars after March 18th will be standard fees.

However great you feel about Verisign's moves to increase the exposure of the extension, the company failed to eliminate all of the confusion. Names sold under the legacy premium business model, i.e. those premium names sold prior to March 18th, 2010, remain subject to hefty annual renewal fees equal to their first year's registration price.

According to some people, the current model is more confusing now than it was before "Verisign blew up its business model," in the words of DN Journal's Ron Jackson.


Maybe Verisign has a plan for how to deal with this, I don't know. But If you want to complain about something, complain about something that resonates with Verisign, i.e. the confusion that Verisign has created by its recent moves. Don't waste your time complaining about the premium prices you agreed to pay for your old domains.