.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.

 

[mckennaronnie]

I dont really disagree with the way you seen it BDM1 and really like your idea of regging .tv's with the "would this make a great TV show Title??" point of view, we just see a slightly different future.

I like the idea that every .tv site is like its very own niche Tv channel and in future we can all sit n watch whats on ____.tv on our TV's that are connected to the internet....etc That is exciting, its most likely the future on TV BUT it wont be the only use for .tv as a whole.

Regarding my developments i would ideally like to use far more Video for content & marketing but the costs are still way to high in my experience. I have been asking around for months to get a short intro video made for one of my websites and then get a reliable source to shoot short advertisement Videos & Guides to _____ but the costs mentioned have ranged from £250 - £1200 per minute of Video! ALthough i can most liely get somebody to shoot me video at a better rate once i find the right person it is very difficult and time consuming for a new start up so it makes me think right now Video content is not a priority as my site can work without Video even though i wanted a Video element.

Different strokes 4 different folks is indeed the way for .tv, there is so many of us here who see the future of this extension with slightly differen views that there will be 100's of completely original sites around in a year or 2.

why use a dot tv extension if your not doing video... you could grab a .cc or any of those others and do the same thing

Personally the reason i dont buy .cc, .name, .eu or any other extension is that i dont see them as credible or having a great future where as i see .tv becoming the 2nd biggest extension out there.


Mckennaronnie

 

[BDM1]

no more discussion for me.

 

[meeks]

Different strokes 4 different folks is indeed the way for .tv, there is so many of us here who see the future of this extension with slightly differen views that there will be 100's of completely original sites around in a year or 2.

Mckennaronnie

Thats why we are here!
It is exciting, challenging, and hopefully profitable for us all.....

Doesn't matter how we do our sites....

Its hard to ignore that .tv really does mean your going to get video footage though.

I think we have to make it the best of both worlds, great content and info but with .tv video is necessary I think....


Oh and Ronnie I know how you feel, we are all at the mercy of designers and coders, I always thought I would come back as a Great White Shark if I had the chance so no one would annoy me, but now I think web design might be much more enjoyable, I can make money and annoy people while I do it!

 

[RPK]

I dont really disagree with the way you seen it BDM1 and really like your idea of regging .tv's with the "would this make a great TV show Title??" point of view, we just see a slightly different future.

I like the idea that every .tv site is like its very own niche Tv channel and in future we can all sit n watch whats on ____.tv on our TV's that are connected to the internet....etc That is exciting, its most likely the future on TV BUT it wont be the only use for .tv as a whole.

Regarding my developments i would ideally like to use far more Video for content & marketing but the costs are still way to high in my experience. I have been asking around for months to get a short intro video made for one of my websites and then get a reliable source to shoot short advertisement Videos & Guides to _____ but the costs mentioned have ranged from £250 - £1200 per minute of Video! ALthough i can most liely get somebody to shoot me video at a better rate once i find the right person it is very difficult and time consuming for a new start up so it makes me think right now Video content is not a priority as my site can work without Video even though i wanted a Video element.

Different strokes 4 different folks is indeed the way for .tv, there is so many of us here who see the future of this extension with slightly differen views that there will be 100's of completely original sites around in a year or 2.



Personally the reason i dont buy .cc, .name, .eu or any other extension is that i dont see them as credible or having a great future where as i see .tv becoming the 2nd biggest extension out there.


Mckennaronnie

We are opening Qoof Studios shortly where we will shoot 1-3 minute videos with editing, actors & models, and saved in any file you need for about $500.00 per video. We will need a minimum of 5 videos to fill a production day.

Let me know if you are interested.

 

[[email protected]]

We are opening Qoof Studios shortly where we will shoot 1-3 minute videos with editing, actors & models, and saved in any file you need for about $500.00 per video. We will need a minimum of 5 videos to fill a production day.

Let me know if you are interested.

I was hoping Qoof would chime in. Qoof is a BIG deal, IMO. It lowers the bar to making the video yourself. As more regular people make videos, on their profession, the better they will get through example of others.

My only concern with Shammy's earlier post about the teacher model, is the videos are more expensive to make than, I think he said $150? I called someone locally here that I think was probably reasonable and he wanted $1500 for a 3 minute vid and $2500 for a 10 minute vid, done in a studio with a teleprompt. Other than that it's his kind of brilliance and thinking outside the Website that will make us all alot more money and why I started this thread. Great thinking Shammy, now you got us thinking more about other ways this .tv thing is going to change our lives.

This is why Qoof is our hero. They are lower the bar. Making it legit to, do your own. We are going to do a few Impel.TV promotional videos on our own, a month ago, we bought ourselves a Flip Video to make the concept even more legit. We saw two news recently guys doing a program on the Flip and when they got done, they said, "Now that you have seen what you can do using this Flip, this program was produced by it".... I about fell out of my chair. Wow, I was blown away on the quality and if you know what you're doing with editing, you can come out of with a VERY professional looking vid. Flip Video Camcorders start at $99US.

Go Qoof and Shammy... Shammy give it up man, we know there is more greatness in there. No offense to humans everywhere, you can walk them to the water, but you can not make them drink. You can share your ideas and that doesn't mean other people are capable tech/code/mind/risk/cash going to run out and produce it ahead of you.

One more thing on the subject of lowering the bar on cost of vids that look professional. The Real Estate Home Show is doing things for Realtors vids in the $100US range; though slide shows with voice overs, they are still very professional and I would think, more effective than other static marketing methods. i.e. print and static Web.

Thanks for all this talk.

Dave

 

[Shammy]

The kind of costs being mentioned for video shoots won't last long. Qoof Studios is ahead of the game, but not by far. What videos cost now won't even be in the ball park in a year. Everyone says .TV will explode, so it follows that the demand for videos will also explode - so then it follows that the costs for making a video will plummet, video editing software will become even easier, and we'll all have green screens at home so we can lie to our friends about vacationing in the Bahamas.

For example, I owned a major recording studio in a major US city for 20 years. We could charge a lot because nobody else could get that kind of quality because they (1) couldn't afford the equipment (about $250,000) (2) didn't have large rooms and 20 foot high ceilings(3) didn't have the expertise. What happened? (1) hard disk based recording developed (2) software algorithms to simulate room dimensions, simulate guitars, amps, drums sets were developed (3) computer-based music editing developed. Now most serious musicians have a $200 M-Box in their house that gets 3 times the quality of a CD. We are already able to record a band online in real time with the session guitarist in LA, the drummer in NY, and the singer in Austin - at virtually no cost. No need to get them in the same studio together. Why wouldn't video production become location independent too, for many applications? If you have DallasCowboys.tv, wouldn't you produce in front of a green screen and show game clips, photos, etc behind your analysis rather than going to a game? I can see being able to download video clips to use much like art clips for your own productions.

3 years ago it cost a real estate broker around $500.00 to get a virtual tour or video tour of one listing. Now I see them for around $100.00, shot on location, edited, and uploaded to the web site. And that is before .TV hits the market...the market will not be the same afterwards.

Brilliant minds are working on video search engines that go well beyond keywords and tags. The search engine from France called Quearo (which went underground since Germany split away) focuses on the ability to find and categorize video by what is 'in' the video, not what is 'outside' of the video. Do ask me how. Image being able to find a movie clip by typing in a line that one of the characters 'said' in the movie... wow.

 

[[email protected]]

The kind of costs being mentioned for video shoots won't last long. video editing software will become even easier

Brilliant minds are working on video...

Flip Video by the way, has the editing software built into it, so no external software required. BTW

Dave

 

[brainstormTV]

I'm KC from the brainstorm team. There are four of us grad students JC/KC/BB/VM and I've participated a bit in this forum vicariously through VM=Vimal, but I'm basically new.

Studying Physics/Engin. at Louisiana Tech U. in USA. Love the .TV concept!

Hi Dave,
Nice post mate.
I personally think many people are developing tv sites, they just do not have the money to market them properly because they are just small time domainers, which includes myself as well. Ive had to develop my idea over

AGREED, SAME HERE.

the last two years due to work commitments and time in general. It is a lot of work and money to do something really special in this emerging market. If you want to really stand out and be original or re invent the wheel so to speak, you cannot do that me the me.tv tools that many are using. Some of the

TRUE FOR THE CURRENT TOOLS: IF TOOLS WERE FLEXIBLE ENOUGH.....
I'D CALL THIS LEVEL OF XCROSS-OVER TOOLS = SITES LIKE LX.TV
MOREOVER, STANDARD INTERFACE (unique content) MIGHT INVITE STAND ALONE APPLIANCES (HARDWARE) AND OTHER APPLICATIONS.

members here have some of the best names in the .tv extension which led me to this site in the first place. I want to go into this fulltime.

ME.TV, erhhh I mean, ME.TOO!!! So for the cap, I see txt tools now ;(

As from next month, I will be fulltime and I have all the resources here in

Congrat!!! That is a dream come true. You did it, how inspiring.

Thailand, from editors, film crew, web designers, marketing, green screens, full production facilities etc... These are available to anyone who is interested and the costs are low compared to the western world. I will make these available for anyone interested.

That's a very generous offer. Thanks!

I am interested to go in the same direction as narrowstep.com (google them, they are making big bucks and growing rapidly), but I just dont have the expertise YET.

Narrowstep is nice, but it was a bit cumbersome loading (no_url_shorteners cable/modem). I loved the intro on the horse channel though, got me going!

Expertise is what? HTML, Dreamweaver, ASP/XML, Video Production? And also, BTW, what did you do before? and you just love this as a hobbie?

This is why I register names that have a good ring for a name of a tv show and thats why I dont buy that many generic key words, as I just dont think that is what the extension is about.
I have a small team in the USA as well and will be moving there next month to get my first project of the ground and would love to meet up with people who are thinking along the same lines. I will be based in Los gatos for about 6 months, but can fly anywhere.

If you come near Louisiana/Arkansas you should meet up with us.

Anyway, would love to hear more like minded people like you on this forum.
We have a chance collectively to change the internet how we want it to be in some regard, all it takes is a bit of vision, money and tenacity.
Count me in.

I love the concept and appreciate the value in arranging and providing and creating content. Google makes $$$/creates value by arranging,
cable/networks by providing etc..

We all use both our TVs and computers, basically everyone uses TV. They/we should have more power over the content of our TV and it shouldn't cost $100's/month. And the Home Shopping Network will never be the same!

I'm excited about the possibilities. I'm still learning so much, I'll post more later.

~KC

I agree about content. Look at the recent sale of Phil Askey's www.dpreview.com to AMAZON (for undisclosed millions). All created and driven by some of the most excellent content online (or anywhere).

~KC

 

[BDM1]

sorry Brainstormtv, I didnt see this post.. I would love to meet up while Im in the states...... now Ive got a baby on the way, I have to re schedule times and how long I will be in the country for.. but yes I will definately meet.. thanks!

 

[brainstormTV]

Sorry to see this thread die

sorry Brainstormtv, I didnt see this post.. I would love to meet up while Im in the states...... now Ive got a baby on the way, I have to re schedule times and how long I will be in the country for.. but yes I will definately meet.. thanks!

Great! We will learn and know a lot more by then. Check out how our channels are doing on ME.TV. The Brainstorm team has the largest share of the ME.TV guide.


Map.TV
HoTime.TV
HoTube.TV

and others are also owned and run by us.

We need a better strategy than waiting for ME.TV ad rev., if possible... we need to generate revenue from this. We don't know if content development (video, etc), website development (based on stream vid/ads)

 

[kubativity]

Im glad to see the excitement here on this forum. I have been thinking in a similar way lately. I am considering a few directions to take my development efforts and if anybody would like to join me in a project or collaboration please feel free to contact me.

I believe with a few simple sites we can have a content management system that pays out by the lead, click and type in. Many of us on this forum are experts in lead generation and in web optimization as well as the best ways to monitize sites. I believe if a few of us get working to gether on a project we could have one of the best and scalable software solutions for our sites.

The me.tv tools are great for a free template site, but they are not what I would want as a webmaster. I personally hope that the .tv extension doesnt get branded as this social networking site that is similar to myspace.

As a developer I want to extend my services to anybody here willing to work with me and my resources to build some of the most amazing sites online.
I have worked on many high profile sites through my employers and I have first hand knowlege of how systems are built for many industries.

Basically, lets network.

 

[[email protected]]

Update on Impel.TV

Hello Folks,

We have been burning the midnight oil here. Sorry I haven't chimed in much. So much is going on it's tough to keep up, but we are doing it. Sleeping when we can. I wanted to let you know that we have come to an agreement with a party about a contract and I sit with my attorney over sushi tomorrow to hash out the details and get it laid out on paper.

We have rolled out forums and polling on customtv.tv to show some social networking and we purposely removed all the formatting to make them as plain and ugly as possible, just to see everyone squirm here on Namepros. I agree with kubativity about .tv and social networking. .tv's ought to be about video first and everything else second. To highlight this point, we spent three hours adding ~5000 videos to gamerguide.tv and next week we will turn on the autofeed to grow that library without human interaction.

We'll get a designer involved soon and put a pretty face on a few channels. In fact the party we came to terms with is a design house with offices in the UK and San Fran. More about this later. I know that the fact we don't try to be designers slipped by some of you, so I thought I would mention it.

We stopped rolling our our soldier channels at 90 to move the network to a production environment allowing some growth. It was hairy (Plesk nightmares you can read about on Plesk's site) for a week or so, but the dust has settled and the channels are faaaaaaaaaast. We began to bring up more channels and we are at ~120 live now, with more coming up daily.

Thanks for all the nice letters, the phone calls and invitations to meet. I look forward to working with those inquiring. We intend to make your domains worth more, period.

Dave Lalande
Impel.TV
Go .tv's

 

[brainstormTV]

Dear Dave,

Hey Dave,

It's good to get the negatives (objections) of what people feel out in the open, ligitimate or not, at least you know what your obstacles are and you can start to address them.

I'm new to domaining, but I got some great training in one-call-closing and sales in my early 20's (17 in-home sales in a row was my record, overall better than 75% sit/sale ratio, these were prequalified stream-lined VA refi's mostly, basically cold calls).

1) KEEP IT SIMPLE.

2) Sell people on the benefit before you discuss the cost (helps w/1)

3) Avoid Politics and Religion! (remove Katie Couric please, she's not even popular and your pssing off half the people who visit).

Unspoken objects are the #1 and almost only reason people don't buy. Some are intractable/irreconcilable, but most can be addressed, if you can get the real reason out of people. If you hear something like, "sound great, but it isn't for me..." or "looks good, but we'll have to think about..." then you know you haven't found the real reason for their decision.


Thanks for posting your program. I thought as soon as I read it, "here's a model that directly competes w/ME.TV".

Even if we don't like the plan, competition is the BEST way to motivate (e.g. DM) and we should ALL welcome that!

Best Regards.

 

[boboski]

In the future (near at that) the internet will BE TV regardless of extension. Millions of niche channels.

 

[[email protected]]

Brightcove interview on allthings.tv

I listened to a interview last night that Kevin did with the CEO of Brightcove. This gentleman nails down what Impel.TV is doing in the first 11 minutes of that interview. I couldn't say it any better. The whole interview is fantastic, but the first 11 minutes explains Impel.TV's strategy.

Great work Kevin, very professional. The Brightcove CEO has got it together and we are glad that we chose to make BrightCove our primary video provider. This interview brings excitement and comfort/validation.

Thanks Jeremy and Kevin at allthings.tv for supporting our industry. .TV is Television 3.0.

 

[poiuytrewq]

This gentleman nails down what Impel.TV is doing in the first 11 minutes of that interview.

Hi Dave,

Can you clarify exactly what it is Impel is trying to do because I visited the site and it didn't impress me much to be honest. Just a whole bunch of test sites?

Am I looking in the right place? I just don't get it dude.

 

[StoneRoses]

I listened to a interview last night that Jeremy did with the CEO of Brightcove. This gentleman nails down what Impel.TV is doing in the first 11 minutes of that interview. I couldn't say it any better. The whole interview is fantastic, but the first 11 minutes explains Impel.TV's strategy.

Great work Jeremy, very professional. The Brightcove CEO has got it together and we are glad that we chose to make BrightCove our primary video provider. This interview brings excitement and comfort/validation.

Thanks Jeremy and Kevin at allthings.tv for supporting our industry. .TV is Television 3.0.

I am confused, isn't Jeremy the CEO of Brightcove? do you mean James at Allthings.TV?.

 

[equity78]

I think he meant thanks Jeremy(BrightCove), and Kevin at Allthings.tv

 

[Dr. Mindwrecker]

James is/was millerscrossing

 

[meeks]

Dave I PM'd you about 3 weeks ago I wanted to talk more about what you offer.

I have a few pretty good names for .TV categories and want to develop them.

Id like to talk to you about your model and the creativity it allows a domain developer.