.tv Few thoughts and Few questions...Dot TV

[gamehouse]

Hi folks,

For the last few days I was thinking about .tv and now is the time I express my thoughts and ask questions in the board.

This message could end up long and ideas/thoughts/questions scattered, so please excuse me.

First of all, I am very happy to see that .tv trend is picking up at least in registrations. I believe there are some sales in private. Once the registrations pick up, public sales will follow :imho: .

Now we all know that .tv is bought from original country TLd by Verisign. And they started controlling it. In doing so, they aslo reserved many names as premium. No problem. In my opinion, most of country TLDS may not perform as good as .com and .net in international namespace. Of course they may perform better in their own countries.

We also know that .tv is being publicized as television. Who is doing this? Any big companies backing this? Is Verisign working on same premises? I am asking this because the fact whether we consider .tv for television or just as an extension to any website makes a big difference :imho:

.tv as television: For example, if we take .tv as television, names like accounts.tv (premium at www.tv) makes no sense to me. When I say my domain name to my friend with .tv extension he says oh, something related to television. Which means he expect some thing related to television when he goes to my website. That could be shows, videos, or at least TV listings something related to TV. Now how does accounts.tv make sense in this situation. So the point I am making is associating .tv to TV strongly may make many names not so useful or attractive.

On the other hand associating .tv with TV makes more sense as tv is known as television worldwide. Nobody knows which country .tv belongs to (I am talking about general public).

But if the concept .tv is publicized only by domainers we have to still go a long way before things are established. Well, may be I am not aware of nicely developed sites using the concept .tv as television. I read in some tread, group of people collaborating together to develop one big site, can anybody point that thread to me? Thanks.

I also read in sticky thread a nice idea of developing network of .tv sites working as individual channels. It is good idea but the problem would be developing original content More on this later.

.tv like a regular ccTLD: This way we can use all names that exist. Like accounts.tv. The big problem would be it will be unwise to distance from the concept of .tv for television as it would attract general public right away. Simply because it can be understood easy. And .tv for television makes a great sense on international namespace. if .com is for commercial companies, .tv is for tv companies

Development:: I always get names for development or future development. As I derive some fun from it. Some times I sell names if I need money for development.

Now, we all know that .tv names have to be developed at this point to push it forward. The association of .tv with television and need for development put some questions in front of us.

Q1: Costs: If we associate .tv with television and decide to put some videos on the site, we have consider the cost of bandwidth. Once the site gets some hits, it could sky rocket the costs for hosting.

Q2: Content: As one NP'er suggested, developing channels with individual names, it is a good idea. But few problems. The first and fore most is creation of content. How can we produce the content? We may need lot of money for that. Production is not an easy thing. More over, it may take a little while to draw general public from tv boxes to computers to see the shows. One interesting point though. I read some where that some big shows are working to make those shows available for video Ipods. They conviniently by passed web and went directly to ipods. But I know, they have to come back to web. Imagine a guy walking in the metro watching a show on ipod and bumpting into the train

Again, developing a channel .tv on the web needs more association than just .tv with television. The association has to be in the name also. I mean musicshow.tv makes more sense than accounts.tv here. And that will kill many names that do not associate with .tv at all.

Also sinceit may take a little while before domainers or publishers can produce their own content, it may be a better idea to affilliate with companies that stream videos or shows. Did you guys do any research in this area? How about if we group and develop database for this purpose?

Of course we can cash on two things here. One is that shows that could not make to the real tv can certainly be shown on .tv and same with advertisments that can not afford real tv price can be shown on .tv for lesser price to bigger audience.

I would love to see all regular tv content on laptop since I do not have a television in my apt and I would only pay one bill instead of two.

One last thing: If domainers are pushing the television concept but then not develop the names and expect a big guy come along and buy the name, there is a problem. Many of the names being registered do not completely associate with television. So how a big enduser might be interested in all these names?

Okay, I will stop here and request other members to express their opinions. Sorry for the long post.

Thanks,

Gamehouse

 

[ForSaleSign]

This discussion could get very technical, I guess, Gamehouse!
I'm not really in a position to get too technical, but I have been thinking about things today (daydreaming in my day-job!)

A lot of "normal" companies (not TV broadcasters / producers) are using the .tv TLD to market themselves on normal television adverts - only today I noticed "xyz loans.tv" in an ad., which gives us lots of room to promote non-televison related .tv names.

As to your question about the actual tv / video content issues, and the PC, I think its fast becoming likely that "IPTV" will also come via set-top boxes, hooked up to existiing televisions.
Which raises the question of the "addresses" and means of delivery - - will content come directly from cable companies, or over the internet?
Also, if it's the internet (or partly the 'net) , will they use "proper" text addresses, or just an IP number directed to their servers (which might translate as gobbledegook in English)?

Perhaps there will be a further "divergence" of .TV rather than the convergence that has been mooted.
By this, I mean that there will still be dedicated "television sets", and also set-top boxes receiving digital broadcasting, and also PCs with content coming over the internet.

Edited thought:
Google are launching their GoogleBox PC - less a PC more a "Client", really - and also working on their own "sub-net" of cables which could deliver exclusive content.
I'm sure the two events are no coincidence - so there is yet more divergence of content-provision, which might also benefit us;
it might even see the launch of exclusive "Google TLDs" - you read it here first !


I'm sure Television will change this year, and the internet will become a big means of content-delivery, but also, existing companies will be pushing a mixture of IPTV and their own content, through set-top boxes.

Basically, I think we have everything to gain, its a Win-Win situation for us, as the companies will need :
1) "Cheap" Content - which we can provide via our innovation - channel guides, portals and clips etc.
2) Good generic names related to "non-tv" things - for TV companies to buy, then perhaps "rent" to advertisers to use themselves.
3) Good "TV-related names - for the TV companies to buy to use for their content!

I hope my little day-dream has been useful!

 

[RogueWriter]

Interesting thread. I guess I would add this:

I build affiliate sites. That is, I find a merchant with products that I am interested in, I develop an angle or look for a niche within that merchant's product line that I think will attract surfers, and I build a site, infusing products or links wherever it is appropriate. After that, I begin the marketing process.

With the .tv extension, I am going a step further and looking for ways to take advantage of the 'TV' association that the domain implies. For example, with a site like KnifeShow.tv, I am looking for knife merchants with affiliate programs that will be willing to provide - or have their vendors provide - brief videos of their products, so that my surfers will have more of an..... interactive experience. When I push that surfer through the buy button onto the merchant's site, I want them to be absolutely certain that THAT product will work, it is the one that they want.

The same idea can be employed with a dozen other tv domains that I picked up. Further, it's the vendors that want to sell their products, so they should be creating the 2 minute blurbs about their products, and providing them to distributors and affilaites for display. So, the expense of product videos pretty much should be reflected in the bandwidth used.

When you go into a record store, you can now try out, with a headset, a brief sample of every track on a CD before you buy. So why not the same thing with EVERY product online?

My hope is that one of two things will happen, either the site will work to some degree, and I will make some money off the traffic, OR, what I am doing will click with a merchant that visits my site, and they decide they just HAVE to buy my site.

Another point that I would make argues to the acceptance of .tv by the general public, which I think will happen at an accelerated rate, due to the fact that it is the media, itself, promoting .tv . When they include the .tv in their commercials or logos, they are spreading the word to millions of people, something that does not happen with .be or .bz , etc.

 

[antonis12]

Two thoughts:

1. It appears to be close to conventional wisdom that .tv will only be applicable or valuable for TV or media related domains and will be much less applicable to other categories. I think I disagree:

Let us lay out three possible scenarios for the future of .tv:

Scenario A: .tv never becomes particularly valuable for *any* type of domains and remains overwhelmed by the .com juggernaut. This is a plausible scenario and one that would have most of us (myself included) crying in our milk. This scenario reflects the speculation risk associated with this domain.

Scenario B: .tv becomes valuable for media-related domains but not for other domains that are valuable in the dotcom space (e.g. business related domains)

Scenario C: .tv because valuable for all domains where useful media-related content can be created.

I find Scenario B to be the least plausible of all three scenarios. If the .tv remains restricted to see.tv, plasma.tv and nbc.tv, etc it will not gain broad enough awareness to become particularly valuable. In effect, I think Scenario B effectively defaults to being Scenario A (in other words .tv remains a not very valuable niche domain)

In order to believe in the future of .tv, I think you, by definition, have to believe that will be appealing to a broad set of advertisers across industries (not just media) which ends up being Scenario C.

To summarize, I only really see A or C being particularly plausible scenarios.

Per the examples mentioned, accounts.tv and asparagus.tv do look like difficult domains in the .tv domain, but that is because they are difficult domains in any extension. I have a hard time visualizing what I would find on accounts.com and can't get very excited to head to asparagus.com either (nor can I imagine who would advertise there). On the other hand, it seems perfectly plausible that I would find useful multimedia content on stocktrading.tv or cars.tv even though both names have nothing to do with media.

2. The conventional wisdom about development is completely right. The amount of decent .tv sites is still very thin and the faster that changes the easier it will be to show end-users examples of the value of the space. I am as guilty as anyone else on focusing on the easy part (buying domains), not the hard part (doing something with them)

 

[equity78]

Excellent post RW I really like your strategy there rooted in common sense.

First off when you look at .tv the amount of people participating in the space froma domainer/speculator standpoint is very small. (thankfully) I have spoken to Verisign they have repeated that they are quite happy with.tv that domianers are very ignorant when it comes to the tld, there are many sales and much Information that they can and will not release. I explained people will not llike that and they kind of replied with "We are not really up set about that" They are not a domainer ext. For example a DUTCH company just spent Big $$$ to reg Men and WOMEN.tv that is who they are focused on. I do not agree with this but I know they don't care what I or any domainer thinks.

Many media and broadcast companies will be the first to wake up and reg a.tv to go withtheir existing domians. Channel 5 in England switched to FIVE.tv that name cost $5,000 to reg per year, I like numbers and all around the world in other languages I bleieve comapnies will buy their .tv Like Neuf.tv In France, SEIS.tv just sold for $2700 all the foreign names cost non Premium fee this forum was instrumental in genrating regs of all non premium names one thru ten in GERMAN , SPANISH , FRENCH.

Gamehouse you were asking I think for examples of companies using .tv
TNT.tv
QuickClicks.tv
Bizhub.tv
MissWorld.tv
UFC.tv
MLB.tv
NBA.tv
text2.tv
BT2.tv Japanese
GOGOS.tv Japanese
Neuf.tv France
FIVE.tv British
IGMA.tv Phillipines
NEO-tv.tv Russian
SPICE.tv
Lifetime.tv
NBC4.tv
JAXA.tv Japanese Nasa
just a few examples

I do not think .tv will ever surpass .com but in some cases the intuitive natures of using the .tv witht the right keyword will make it very memorable and very brandable.
What .tv does is allow you to acquire a key word in the $500 to $1000 space or if you get lucky and reg a non premium that in the .com space would cost $10,000 to $50,000. But if you are not going to develop them have an idea before you reg then it is a waste of money. But when you say ****tv people remember that people will not type in the .com and you lose traffic as much assay a .net when you say SEXY TV people will remember of FIVE.tv. AND remember for your best names reg the ***tv.com if In the UK reg the ***tv .co.uk and so on for your own country tld youprotect your name. If you won a great name it makes sense and if someone want to buy a name you have leverage they cannot say "too high I will reg the ****tv.com because .com is king anyway."

ANOTHER thing there is more discussion about .tv here than anywhere else so thanks for the contribution .tvers

 

[gamehouse]

Thanks everyone for nice discussion, I learned a lot.

Lol, if google uses its google.tv for all television related or multimedia related, most of the publicty needed will be done in a snap.

Gamehouse

 

[SKG]

Thanks everyone for nice discussion, I learned a lot.

Lol, if google uses its google.tv for all television related or multimedia related, most of the publicty needed will be done in a snap.

Gamehouse

Totally agree, it just takes a couple big ships advertising and all the boats will follow.

 

[ForSaleSign]

Further, it's the vendors that want to sell their products, so they should be creating the 2 minute blurbs about their products, and providing them to distributors and affilaites for display.

Great idea, its a bit like the "QVC television" sales model, where a live product demo is shown, and the viewer gets a much better "feel" of a product's features, quality and ease of use.

Short clips would work very well with .TV, and this certainly broadens the appeal of the TLD, as it can easily encompass the product-related keywords which have always suited .Com