.tv Business models and Partnerships for .tv's

[[email protected]]

Hello My name is Dave Lalande and I own a small startup called Impel.TV

This is my first thread in many many years. I would like to attempt to start some talk about business models and partnerships with .tv domain names. What else can we do with .tv domain names besides sell them to each other or sell them to an occasional end user? How about parking... That's not really doing anything with the great name. We ALL need people making markets with .tv's, making the domain extension popular. Watch what happens to the value of you .tv's when someone sells one or more to the Google machine for a billion dollars.

I believe that .tv actually means something to people. I think we all do. It's really the only one other than .com that really makes people think of something.

Years ago, via a Public company, I filed patent on a domain name system addition called, Simplified Domains. The concept is that SD would allow for any domain name extension, 3-back. That is micros.oft or ap.ple or taxi.cab. You would just type in the word(s) and hit enter, the browser would test for the domain "3-back" and if it didn't resolve it would kick it over to the current domain name system to check for the silly "categorized" ones we now use. It worked great and we had $50K in domain registrations in the first 2 days. I didn't allow this company to actually charge anyone, but it was an interesting test of the concept. I was actually asked to speak at an ICANN meeting in LA about Simplified Domains and did just that. You can read more about SD of course, now that I have told you this much.

I told about Simplified Domains to show a little history I have had with domain names and also to impress the fact that the naming categorization model, that is .biz, .info and the rest, are garbage. They don't REALLY mean anything. It's goofy to roll out more, quite frankly. If they roll out .sex, churches will buy them up to protect themselves and that just runs the cost of doing business up for everyone.

Having said that, IF a domain extension did actually mean something (.tv) theeeeeeeeen we would have something of value. That's us folks. .tv does actually mean something. Congrats to all the .tv'ers, you are in the right place a good time, a little early, but great timing never-the-less. That is, if you can find an "end user" to buy your name OR, you figure out a "legitimate" revenue stream with it. Parking is not legit, we all have figured that out. Only a handful of people make any real money this way, it's in the numbers and paying $40+ for the domain names makes it tougher.

The television industry is in turmoil. I recently read that 30% of the ad revenue had been ripped out and handed over to the Internet. Disruption... Other industries are seeing this Internet disruption, we are all reading about it. The travel industry, real estate, gambling, music, government, software/OS, nothing is immune to what the Internet is doing. It's clearing the playing field and saying "start over".

It's the television industry's turn and .tv is where it's going to happen. Did you ever wonder how someone comes to own an NBC affiliate? Well, this is it, your chance. If someone could have slapped down a chance to own a television channel waaaaaaaay back when the Television Industry 1.0 was taking place and then said, "THIS IS YOUR CHANCE", would you have jumped? Seriously, sell your domain name for 3-4 times the cost, park it for pennies or use it. Try something... What? We don't know, if we did, it would be too late or too much money to get into for most of us. That's the cool thing about the only other potentially commercial domain name extension besides .com that means anything. .TV It makes me smile when I write .tv.

So here is the deal, let's talk about business models that we know of, the good, bad and the ugly. Although, ugly is okay if the content is good, on the Internet. How do we make money with these names? Impel.TV believes that the Internet will break the television viewers/business into little chucks, islands of interest. CBS has a broad range of programming for instance, whereas you would assume that tampabay.tv is going to be about Tampa, FL., before you land there. Well this is an advertisers dream. Target marketing. Everything about a topic of interest in one place. Now marketeers are hunting with a rifle.tv not a shotgun.tv. If what you want to sell is in Tampa, you can pretty much count on the audience's interest in tampabay.tv, tampa.tv or tampaguide.tv. (I was doing so well )

Before I go on any further and explain about what Impel.TV does and some partnership ideas, I want to ask if there is a genuine interest from this crowd about doing something with your names, not just sitting on them? If you want to keep you "for sale" options open, well that's just part of the model that needs to be there for you to participate? Take it from a guy that has bought and sold a number companies/businesses, including to a public entity, your domain name is worth more if there is revenue attached. WAAAAAAAAAAAAY more. Try marketing your name with $5K monthly revenue attached and a market started. Your negotiating position now becomes mathematical. Not, "because I think it's a great name". You now can say, "I am going to lose $60K a year selling you this name, what's that worth?"

Are you interested in figuring this out? I am starting to meet a few that are, right here on namepros.com That is what this thread is about, let's talk business models and partnerships.

 

[[email protected]]

Partnering with Impel.TV

Oh yes... for sure. I just need a little time to respond. I want to post something here first about my ideas for partnering and see if we can't find something that sounds interesting? Let me talk about Impel.TV tonight and then you will have my ideas.

For all the other folks who have PM'd me about partnering, the answer is YES. I will write each of you back individually, but I want to talk about some ideas first, here, first. That way I can give everyone that is PMing me some food for thought and we can talk this weekend or offline/PM about an exact arrangements.

Thank you for your patience Showbiz and the rest. I am honored you would consider partnering. Thanks again.

Sincerely,

Dave Lalande
Impel.TV

Dave, pm sent with a list of names. Would like to know if you are interested in partnering with me.

 

[TheBulldog]

Well heck Dave, after I pretty much attacked your posts the other day, I am humbly now curious about what your thoughts are.

 

[Shammy]

Informative thread Dave ... would like to be involved in this development. Sending PM with names/ideas.

 

[[email protected]]

Impel.TV for Smarties

Okay Folks, here it is.

Impel.TV wants to take part in the transformation of the television industry. We believe that due to the Internet bandwidth increasing with Verizon's FIOS, the YouTubes, Brightcoves and the rest, allowing free hosting of video plus embedding of other people's content, wireless set-top hardware and .tv domain names will result in the television industry being broken into little niches. I have my interest that will be different than yours. CBS and Viacom legacy model of spending an hour on one topic then swtching hats, is dead or dying. The elements before us will allow for television channels to be all about one topic. On-demand video, no need for a TiVo.

I think most people here must believe the same thing, because they are registering domain names that look like niches. olderwomen.tv for instance. I don't think you will find a bunch of teeny bopper vids on this channel, when its built out?

Impel.TV has built a platform/engine to crank up these niche TV channels. We have dumbed down the "producer" part of the running a television channel, content collection. We are like YouTube where you can upload your video, but that's not really necessary, because we have written hooks to major video providers that reach into their db's and pull out the video that is searched for, placing it in a "producer/partner" interface. This interface allows you to check one or all of a search and quickly stuff it into a video category in a channel. That is, you can place hundreds even thousand of videos within a channel in a matter of minutes/hours. The interface also allows a producer/partner of a channel to dig a little deeper into the detail of a video selected by the query and moderate what goes on a channel. No knowledge needed to produce a TV channel, other than about the channel topic.

We are finding many publishers of videos are releasing great content about topics on a regular basis, so we are now tuning our engine to go get this newly released content and stuff them into a particular category without a human getting involved. This means, channels can stay fresh with very little human interaction, once they have been trained/tuned to do so. We are keeping a list of publishers.

We call ourselves "packagers" of video and the LARGE video services "aggregators" of video content. That is, using "the aggregators", I will search for Tampa and get video that is not about Tampa and mentions Tampa in its tags, because the poster is from Tampa, maybe? I will find beer bong vids from Tampa and companies trying to pitch products.

We "package" the video about Tampa. So, all you will find on Tampaguide.TV is videos about Tampa. You won't find a Chicago video on tampguide.tv, you will find Chicago videos on Chicagoguide.tv. On Youtube, you will find a guy from Chicago that mentions he just visited Tampa and "here I am coming back from the airport, in Chicago".

Fairly quickly using our engine, we can take a niche and become the single largest concentration of redeeming video in that niche, on the Net. We can assign more than one domain name to you so that you can manage your entire network of channels, syndicated with Impel.TV. The syndication brings synergy and traffic that you wouldn't otherwise get. Our marketing dollars and your marketing efforts benefit the whole all the Impel.TV partnerships.

So, now we have a way to bring up channels quickly and fill them with content. Also, we have an efficient way of keeping fresh content flowing into the channel, much like any television station in the World. We do this all in Webpages and make it REALLY easy to manage.

Okay, how do partner and make money with this thing?

Our engine has (currently) 6 potential revenue streams built into it.

1. Views... We are just starting to see the large services pay the hoster of videos that get viewed. Video content creators are uploading their videos, the services are slapping an ad on the front-side or back-side of the video and when it gets played, three parties share in the revenue from the ad. The LARGE service, the upload/content provider and the hoster, (the .tv) When our system reaches into the databases at the LARGE service providers we use credentials, they mark the video with that ID and they know who then to pay. This model is just starting to unfold, but clearly is the direction we are headed. Exclusivity of content is silly once this thing unfolds. Do I want to hold the content to my own channel, if I am content provider, or do I want a million qualified hosters showing it whereas I get paid on every view? Common sense is taking over. Proof is NBA, CBS, Dow Jones all are now allowing people to show their content. Soon they are going to realize that they used to have say, 100's affiliate stations in various cities around the globe showing their content, now they can have a million or more.

2. Banners... Our channel engine has a banner system using 3 positions on the main page. We allow for 10 banners per position for a total of 30 possible banners. We by default configure each channel with one Google banner (revenue) and one Amazon banner (revenue). This leaves us with a total of 24 banners possible for sale on each channel. We start these banners out very low in price, $10, $15 and $20. Bottom, side, top. If they sell out, then the system marks the next one up by 50% until we find "what the market will bear". Its low fly, but we think it will work. We think as viewers pick up and they do/will, advertisers are going to LOVE this and have no problem buying ads on our channels or a syndicated/partner channel.

3. Name that Music... This feature is akin to a contest. It's a social network/viewer participation feature. Many videos on the Internet today have soundtracks. This is not really a good thing for the artist that produced music that might be being used as part of the soundtrack. So we have built in the ability for people to tell us about what are the song tracks that are behind their videos and we then can use the Amazon Associate Program to link to the actual CD or download to sell it. When we identify a particular musical track and link it, the label under the video now changes from "Name the Music" to say "Support the Artist". The artist name is under this label and the link leads someone enjoying the music, wondering who/what it is to am Amazon page where they can purchase it. We think this will really help keep the music industry off our backs, give credit where credit is due and both the artist and the channel can make some money.

4. Featured Products... Again, this is an Amazon link to a page that offers products for sale about the niche. The featured product gives a global link to all videos as well you can have a different link on each video. So we have a "Global Related Products" link and we have the ability to be more finite and allow you to tune the Amazon products page tighter and close to a particular video.

5. and 6. are the banner ads from Google and Amazon. Google and Amazon's systems actually study your channel topic and tune their ads appropriately to sell into that niche. The audiences are qualified already, so the ads are more effective. We think we have had a fairly decent click through rate on Google Ads and although we are really rolled out the network ~10 days ago, (two test channels are ~90 days old) we are seeing some early percentages of .5 and 1% CTR. I am smiling about that of course, because its mathmatical. I LOVE math.

Everything about our engines is Web based. The titles on the page, the meta data/SEO, EVERYTHING, even the db setup to bring up a new domain and creation of the Web.config file happens in a Webpage. We dumbed down everything to the point where about anyone can drive. Everything happens in a Webpage.

The system is written starting with a Microsoft starter kit, so its setup to scale. This also makes our engine one of the best documented pieces of software running around the Net and gives us some social networking/wiki features that we have yet to unleash. We need partners/producers first and viewers second before we need to unleash social networking. Not to mention, that the design of the channel is done in such a way to keep you on the main page and navigate with a TV remote. Watching television is not really a social event, although... Upgrades, upgrades...

We use a Microsoft Net 2.0 platform and GoDaddy managed servers for our network infrastructure. We would consider moving this whole thing to Amazon's cloud or somewhere else, but we aren't speaking in San Jose yet and therefore we don't have checks being handed to us after those speeches. Take it from a guy that has owned more data centers than most people will step into, we "will" grow the infrastructure need with the business growth.

Well, there you have alot about what we built, in the next post, I will talk about partnerships with us. This thing is getting a little lengthy. Yikes... I have to give you enough detail so you know this was not some casual engagement that happened in a few months with a part-time coder. There are two coders that eat, sleep and code this thing.

I would like to say a couple more things. We are seeing brute force login attempts to our databases from 4 IP addresses around the US. You know who you are. Heck, we know who you are. I actually enjoy this part of the startup journey, because we have lawyers to collect supeanas and go after connections. We are flattered. I told my girlfriend that we were seeing attempted brute force against our SA passwords and she said, "Congrats". She has a Masters in Computer Science and she programs for a living. (Not for Impel.TV) She hasn't ever seen the code. Her own choosing....

The last thing, I think its important that namepros.com foster this kind of chat. It's real, it's real interesting and it helps the users of their site. Not to mention, this has got to be one of the more immediately popular threads on this site? Thank you namepros.com. I mentioned to the owner of Media Silo tonight to get connected here. I told him that his market was here and we need players to make these .tvs worth ALOT more than they are bringing now. We will be doing some advertising with you and he might too?

Partnership ideas next post.

Thanks for reading,

Dave Lalande
Impel.TV

Well heck Dave, after I pretty much attacked your posts the other day, I am humbly now curious about what your thoughts are.

Shammy, I am just going to hang it out there and let people think about it, rather than first talk PM. We don't talk alot before we act. I follow my gut and it's been REALLY good to me.

I have to take a break and I promised by midnight that I would have rolled out some partnership ideas.

Stay Tuned... No Pun

Informative thread Dave ... would like to be involved in this development. Sending PM with names/ideas.

 

[ninetwofive]

.tv

Impel,

These discussions are more than welcome around here, they generate streams of ideas and visions that seem to snowball. Threads such as this one showcase that .tv is primed for some serious respect in the domain world.

My business partner Virtuali and myself have lengthly conversations about where .tv is headed, and the direction of our venture - Generic.tv. We believe that success will follow solid ideas that are molded into a tangible, and it is good to see many other quality members in the same boat. I'm sure all of us own some solid .tv domains, so let's get to work.

- Richard

 

[equity78]

Well first off Content is not of some importance it is of the utmost importance. Secondly from looking at some impel.tv sites babyboy.tv etc they are just plain ugly no offense they do not look professional. Maybe that was just to throw them up for the rollout that's fine. But I see no way for users to upload content or the owner to upload their own.

Now to be a niche aggregator of a certain theme is totally fine but you can do that with ME.tv Wet.tv is videos of one niche, WET WOMEN. ME.tv also has a blog and a forum and once Demand Media includes revenue sharing and adsense/ypn code I could not see why I would use Impel over me.tv tools or go further and buy topmedia script for $35 and have the ability to upload own videos and UGC. I think IMPEL is nice as a starter site for a .tv name that gets no traffic but I don't see the upside to grow a big channel.

 

[virtuali]

Hi All,

I would like to discuss dave and equity's responses. I agree with what equity is saying about the me.tv platform etc.. but I also know that what Dave is trying to accomplish takes an extreme amount of thought and knowledge. Coming from a programming back ground myself I know alot of these ideas are far harder to bring to fruition then to just talk about them. I give Dave huge props for bringing these ideas up and even attempting them, which is far more then most can say. I would like to stress the importance of people like Dave making the effort to come up with something new and innovatitive. Sure it might not be bullet proof at this point, but it is a workin progress and that should be respected very much and given a just look. I also think it is crucial to give positive critisim as we move forward with all endevours. You both have very good points which are needed to create something that can work.

Cheers.

 

[[email protected]]

Partnering the first concept...

Okay, okay, gosh... You have to know who we are and what we are about to partner with us, don't you?

Since we obviously want you to consider partnering with us and using our engine first, I will talk some about that.

We have domain names, you have domain names, some are better than others. What we really need are people who are passionate and knowledgeable about a topic/geo. We need people who are truly interested in building a video library, using the tools and keeping it fresh, mostly. Our ideal partner is one that is somehow professionally in the niche that they are representing. We will allow for the right individual/company to take over one our our channels, free.

The idea is this. You take the domain name off the market for 12 months. After that, if you sell your name, we get first right of refusal to buy it for the bonified sale price. That is, after the first 12 months if you find a buyer for your name for say, $5K, Impel.TV would have the right to buy it first for $5K. We would enter into a 24 month contract. This is your only risk. If the domain name sells, Impel.TV gets thirty days to move the content and users to another domain.

If the channel is sold, Impel.TV and you split the money, 50/50, if it's your domain name. If you're using one of ours and we sell our network, we will pay a pre-determined bonus to the partner of each channel.

During the course of the partnership, the revenue from the channel is split 50/50. Its that simple. We have a bookkeeper and a CPA, we have Counsel as well.

We do all the serving and we do all the software authoring, no cost to the channel. When one channel sees an upgrade, they all see it. We have an automated upgrade application in place.

If you want a nice graphical front-end on the channel, you pay for this. The ultimate decision of the look of the channel has to lie with Impel.TV, but we built the model channel very plain so it could be designer modified. Here is an example of a branded/partnered site.

We are already throwing some money at marketing and that will grow. Being part of a syndicated network has it's benefits when it comes to traffic generation. If the partner wants to throw some money at marketing, GREAT... It's only a matter of time before the press gets here and then all hecks going to break loose with respect to traffic. I have done a TON of marketing in my day and the best was press articles, not the paid stuff. We need both.

This is our first idea. We have our first partner with idahoguide.tv already and we just rolled the network a week ago Monday. Someone called us with interest, so we partnered. It was that easy.

I have some other ideas, but they are more complicated.

Thank you for your patience. I hope you didn't expect me to invent a new language here tonight. I tend to try to keep relationships straight forward and motives running in parallel.

Dave Lalande
Impel.TV

Well heck Dave, after I pretty much attacked your posts the other day, I am humbly now curious about what your thoughts are.

Equity78 we purposely left them plain so that the elements could be moved around and graphics added. I thought I made that clear in my earlier post? In 2/2007 we had our graphic artist starting to create mockups for the sites to use. I told him to hold that thought. We had potential partners coming in the future and they are going to be very opinionated about looks, like Equity78.

Here are a couple those samples he gave us back...

http://www.tpcfiles.com/uploads/mockup1.jpg
http://www.tpcfiles.com/uploads/mockup2.jpg

It's okay. You only have to look at Craigslist and MySpace to know, looks aren't everything. I would say if its looks holding you back, then we can fix that, that's why we left them plain.

Thank you for noticing and being so graceful about saying.

I also said, we have forums and blogs are easily installed. Forums and forum management are there, the menus have been taken off the channels.

Again, I thought I said that in my earlier post, I could have mistakenly left this out.

Equity, if Me.tv had the answers and its free, then why aren't you working with them? If you are, how are things going, you seem a little tense? I hope you're not mad at me for "hijacking" your thread. Sorry about that... I really just wanted to get some business model ideas out there.

As far as not seeing in upside, please don't tell this to the BIG companies that have signed on with content at westernheritage.tv.

If they knew you thought it was a bad idea, they might sit on the sidelines longer and wait for a better looking more scalable Old West and Western Lifestyle Web TV Channel? Although, I don't know how you can say that something is not scalable, when you haven't seen the code?

I wished you had told me that I could just buy a $35 script a year and a half ago. It would have saved me a ton of time and money.

Thank you for sharing your ideas Equity.

Dave Lalande
Impel.TV

Well first off Content is not of some importance it is of the utmost importance. Secondly from looking at some impel.tv sites babyboy.tv etc they are just plain ugly no offense they do not look professional. Maybe that was just to throw them up for the rollout that's fine. But I see no way for users to upload content or the owner to upload their own.

Now to be a niche aggregator of a certain theme is totally fine but you can do that with ME.tv Wet.tv is videos of one niche, WET WOMEN. ME.tv also has a blog and a forum and once Demand Media includes revenue sharing and adsense/ypn code I could not see why I would use Impel over me.tv tools or go further and buy topmedia script for $35 and have the ability to upload own videos and UGC. I think IMPEL is nice as a starter site for a .tv name that gets no traffic but I don't see the upside to grow a big channel.

 

[lenah]

Dave a couple questions. I am very new to this so sorry to ask stupid questions.

How will you market our sites? Will you send press releases on our behalf or do we have to pay for marketing?

I also noticed a license fee on your site. Are you waving this for NPers?

How much revenue are you generating from your western and sarasota site. If I bring in 5 names will you help me generate $1,000/month for me so that I can quit my day job and do this full time.

Why is the split 50/50. Google Ad Words and most PPC folks pay higher than commissions to publishers?

If Impel.tv sells out, what happens to our channels?

Thank you for your time.

 

[equity78]

Dave I am not sure how I seemed tense because I did not think what I saw of your site was that stunning. And yes I do use me.tv for a couple sites and yes I think they are far superior to IMPEL.tv and that's not tense Dave that is my opinion. Lastly this thread is to discuss business models not an ongoing ad for IMPEL.tv

 

[StargateCapital]

Hi Dave,

Your saying that [a] Impel.tv wants the domain tied up for 12 months, if the partner is using his/her own domain name (I'm guessing to allow time to build the channel up) 50/50 revenue split on the channel from the google adsense, amazon and other advertisements for the Partner and Impel.tv a first right of refusal (for Impel.tv)should the partner wish to sell his/her domain name and if that right is exercised by Impel.tv, it will take 24 months for the partner to receive the proceeds from Impel.tv and.. [d] if Impel.tv doesn't exercise the first right of refusal, the parter (domain owner) must split the earnings 50/50 with Impel.tv *only* if the channel is sold along with the domain name [e] if only the domain is sold, the domain owner gets 100% of the proceeds and Impel.tv has 30 days to move the content & user base to another channel. I'm trying to make sure I understand 100% of how things are to work. Did I get this right? CCD PS Excellent questions lenah.

 

[[email protected]]

Thanks for thinking about it.

These are fair questions...

Never stupid questions. Sometimes we can just say things to say things, that makes us look silly for sure...

We are going to be rolling some press releases. We aren't ready for this, we want to get more partners first. We have a couple that cropped up today actually. This will help, because they own newspapers and radio stations. Also, we have a direct mail campaign in place that we use to market.

If you wanted to market, great. Interesting story from this last week. A sports drink company called me and asked how much for an banner on all 400+ channels. I told them we would run a banner for $10 per channel and take 25% of their fee and turn it back into marketing for viewers to their videos. They are still talking to us about how this might work, which is encouraging. Even if they don't jump, this kind of approach would add up to some real dollars for marketing.

No license fee for qualified individuals. The license fee is for companies wanting private channels. I have had some approach me recently and I don't want to think we would give it to them. I took this off that site.

We are currently seeing less than $50 per channel per month. Westernheritage.tv does not have our banner system though. We through those graphics on there for a proof of concept and were surprise when the Western reacted as they didn. We will be upgrading wh.tv to offer the banner system we have built since its launch. I think there are quite a few candidate buyers that will buy a banner once we do.

We would LOVE to help you generate extra income. I know that you have to put a hook in the water before you can catch something. I can't tell you where this is going. I did however bet a large sum of money, by most peoples standards on this TV industry remix.

There is a 50/50 split because we spent alot of money building the channel and we have ongoing cost to maintain and enhance it. I revenue I see Google giving us is no where near 50% of what they are getting paid on the click through?

If Impel.TV sells out, we will leave the server in place and the software to honor the remaining portion of your contract.

Thanks again for asking some quesions. All good ones.

Dave Lalande
Impel.TV

Dave a couple questions. I am very new to this so sorry to ask stupid questions.

How will you market our sites? Will you send press releases on our behalf or do we have to pay for marketing?

I also noticed a license fee on your site. Are you waving this for NPers?

How much revenue are you generating from your wester and sarasota site. If I bring in 5 names will you help me generate $1,000/month for me so that I can quit my day job and do this full time.

Why is the split 50/50. Google Ad Words and most PPC folks pay higher than commissions to publishers?

If Impel.tv sells out, what happens to our channels?

Thank you for your time.

 

[Dr. Mindwrecker]

Correct me if im wrong but lets try to get this described in less than one paragraph.

IMPEL is providing a packaged site with banners, which can be designed and modified any way the owner sees fit layout wise,and this site/script also has a code, which automatically generates videos from sites such as Youtube, etc.

Im assuming these videos are generated automatcially based on doing a search for TAGS associated with the videos on YouTube etc???

You also have some sort of ad revenue sharing, and you this puts who ever signs up in a network with other .TV sites who are participating.

The thing is, and I would have to agree with equity78,
The me tools seem way more powerful in the long run, because I know that Demand is going to have better and bigger relationships with the ability to leverage ad revenue with content and get it distributed through there systems at a more efficient rate.

Plus much of this content will be legal to distribute.....

Do you have agreements with YouTube???

 

[[email protected]]

More questions and answers...

Correct, we want time to use the domain. If we are going to take money to setup and start marketing a channel, then we don't want someone ripping this out from underneath us after a few weeks or a couple of months. Traffic takes time to build, we would like our partners to settle down and try to make something of the channel.

If you sell your name after 12 months, 100% of those proceeds go to the owner of the domain. Impel.TV just wants to protect itself from spending money/time marketing only to have the domain name taken away. If someone buys the channel with the domain name, then we would want to split that, because of the extra value realized during a transaction of this type due to our software. We want the chance of buying the name first. It shouldn't matter to a the domain seller who ends up buying the domain name and since we would have time and money invested already in the name, we feel like we should get the chance to buy it first. We would pay what you're going to get from someone else or move the content and free up the name.

Yes, we would want 30 days to move the users and content. This again protects our effort investment and marketing investment. Since we believe like Equity that content is VERY important, we believe by moving the content under another smart domain name and pre populating the user credentials, the users would move.

We are trying to setup a fair arrangement and protect our real dollars we have invested is all. Maybe there is a better arrangement? I think this one is good, but that's why I am hangin it out there to talk about.

Thanks, CashCow. I sure like the sound of your handle.

Hi Dave,

Your saying that [a] Impel.tv wants the domain tied up for 12 months, if the partner is using his/her own domain name (I'm guessing to allow time to build the channel up) 50/50 revenue split on the channel from the google adsense, amazon and other advertisements for the Partner and Impel.tv a first right of refusal (for Impel.tv)should the partner wish to sell his/her domain name and if that right is exercised by Impel.tv, it will take 24 months for the partner to receive the proceeds from Impel.tv and.. [d] if Impel.tv doesn't exercise the first right of refusal, the parter (domain owner) must split the earnings 50/50 with Impel.tv *only* if the channel is sold along with the domain name [e] if only the domain is sold, the domain owner gets 100% of the proceeds and Impel.tv has 30 days to move the content & user base to another channel. I'm trying to make sure I understand 100% of how things are to work. Did I get this right? CCD PS Excellent questions lenah.[/QUOTE]

 

[lenah]

Dave have you ever considered just buying the domains? or does your model requires our active participation?

 

[Dr. Mindwrecker]

Dave have you ever considered just buying the domains? or does your model requires our active participation?

I think it is a way to leverage the value of other peoples domains without having to buy them, and it gives the domain owner a new way monetize while waiting on making a sale of the domain.

A great idea, but very close to what Demand Media is doing...

 

[MillersCrossing]

All this looks and sounds a little too complicated for me......unfortunately I see nothing of any interest whatsoever in any of the names you have given as working examples of .tv sites....

When I get involved with development of a ..tv I try and do it justice by making it more than a glorified .com, hence allthings.tv, but I can name many other examples of really nice geo sites, such as Boston TV, which I recently gave a 5 out of 10 ratings to but still beats yours hands down.... Dave, with the greatest of respect, your sites look like glorified .com parking pages.......why would I want anything to do with such a network. I would rather invest my own dollars in my own company - get a decent web designer, pay what it takes to get a decent job done - and go from there......

Getting stuck in the mud with an IMPEL.TV site really makes me shake my head in disbelief.....

 

[[email protected]]

Maybe you can explain to the power of me.tv that you want us to add to Impel.TV? We will do this. Inviting Mom is not a show stopper. Our wiki functionality, we turned off. It was toooooo busy. We had more menus that we could use at the moment. I will turn on forums on dotell.TV soon so you know we aren't bluffing. I own a bunch of wiki names by the way, I am all about social networking, although, I don't know how much of that is really going to go on, once this stuff moves to the TV in your living room and you lose the keyboard?

You are pretty close. We don't just have hooks to YouTube, but yes you search via Tags, Related Search, Username, etc. We also support a few other API's and are now spending much of our efforts beefing these up, so that our channels will offer as much video as possible.

I am not going to name drop, because its unprofessional. But we are talking with some of the largest media companies on the planet. We don't have any particular arrangements with YouTube. YouTube would make an agreement with anyone they thought would be of benefit to them.

We do however have discussions going with AOL/Brightcove. I can tell you this because Brightcove is our video host for the videos that get uploaded to our channels.

Not sure what efficient ad deliver you are speaking of, it sounds like a marketing pitch. YouTube is going to pay whomever to show their videos to viewers, just like the rest. We are not interested in a tie to any one company that would prohibit a partnership with another.

It's all about traffic and eyes on the ads. We have tools for efficiently bringing in vids from YouTube, AOL and Veoh. We are working on finishing Revver, Grouper and Brightcove's API's. We are also working on completely making much of this automatic, no humans.

We moderate everything so we are able to cut out the illegal. Our interface allows for a "producer" to bring up a group of 100 results on a page and then work within those videos, watching, reading the detail on the vid and what not, to make sure they approve. At the end of the day, we aren't interested in the most video, but the legal video that most people would be interested in watching.

Thanks for the questions.

Dave Lalande
Impel.TV

Correct me if im wrong but lets try to get this described in less than one paragraph.

IMPEL is providing a packaged site with banners, which can be designed and modified any way the owner sees fit layout wise,and this site/script also has a code, which automatically generates videos from sites such as Youtube, etc.

Im assuming these videos are generated automatcially based on doing a search for TAGS associated with the videos on YouTube etc???

You also have some sort of ad revenue sharing, and you are in a network with other .TV sites.

The thing is, and I would have to agree with equity78,
The me tools seem way more powerful in the long run, because I know that Demand is going to have better and bigger relationships with the ability to leverage ad revenue with content and get it distributed through there systems at a more efficient rate.

Plus much of this content will be legal to distribute.....

Do you have agreements with YouTube

 

[BDM1]

Well I dont think Its for me, I was expecting something else... good luck though.

 

[[email protected]]

Yes Sir, this is correct... The fact that someone else is doing this is fine, there is room for more than one of us. We don't want to have to buy all the names, we don't have the money nor would we have the staff to populate them all. We need partners to help us grow our network.

I think it is a way to leverage the value of other peoples domains without having to buy them, and it gives the domain owner a new way monetize while waiting on making a sale of the domain.

A great idea, but very close to what Demand Media is doing...

I think investor your own dollars is a great idea. I look forward to seeing the results. It could be that you come back to Impel.TV in a year and we just give it up and join you. I have no problem with that if I thought it would earn me alot more of a return than I am currently getting with the .tv's we own. We just want to figure out a way to maximize the return, that's all.

All this looks and sounds a little too complicated for me......unfortunately I see nothing of any interest whatsoever in any of the names you have given as working examples of .tv sites....

When I get involved with development of a ..tv I try and do it justice by making it more than a glorified .com, hence allthings.tv, but I can name many other examples of really nice geo sites, such as Boston TV, which I recently gave a 5 out of 10 ratings to but still beats yours hands down.... Dave, with the greatest of respect, your sites look like glorified .com parking pages.......why would I want anything to do with such a network. I would rather invest my own dollars in my own company - get a decent web designer, pay what it takes to get a decent job done - and go from there......

Getting stuck in the mud with an IMPEL.TV site really makes me shake my head in disbelief.....

 

[MillersCrossing]

Dave,

As the owner of a number of high quality geo sites, I have been bombarded with business proposals left right and center. The fact that you are the last person on the block to throw an offer onto the table is not your fault - its your timing thats off......

But the fact that your offer is by far, and I repeat, by far , the least attractive option I have seen/heard to date should make you reconsider your business model...

Are you brave enough to start from scratch??

 

[[email protected]]

Perfect, come back BDM. We want to know what you were expecting. Please, that is what this discussion was supposed to be about. New ideas, trying something besides just parking these names. Please tell us your ideas. What would excite you about a model?

In business we like to hear, this is the problem and here is a potential solution. I don't see anyone throwing out ideas, just describing how good other services are, that they aren't a part of???

Does anyone have any ideas on what would work, how to change what's already out there? I was hoping that we would get some real ideas here. Sounds like nobody really has a clue what will work or how to make the current ideas actually online any better?

Well I dont think Its for me, I was expecting something else... good luck though.

 

[localexperts]

Does anyone have any ideas on what would work, how to change what's already out there?

I DO

 

[Traveler]

Sounds like nobody really has a clue what will work or how to make the current ideas actually online any better?

If someone did they sure would not share that information freely, they would be doing it themselves.

 

[localexperts]

Correct.