.tv How does Prior Usage of TV affect future use?

[DU]

This isn't directly a .TV question but I find it something that I notice more in .TV space.

It seems that in the last 10 years there have been a number of start-ups that have either (a) Failed or (b) Been absorbed by bigger companies, or (c) Changed names. Some of these companies received more than $5 million in a single round of funding before collapsing/being absorbed.

How does this affect the future potential use of a domain .TV? The TM are usually abandoned. The name is usually abandoned. However, does the existence of a business in the past mean that the domain because less valuable? Or can we assume that it retains value based on future intention?

It's similar with dropped .coms as well but more frequently these are small local businesses and I'm interested in .TV due to the whole branding that comes with it.

So for example.

ACompanyName.TV (where the TV is relevant to the company - being the business area is TV) starts in 2006. Receives $10M in funding and goes broke and is bought by OtherCompany dot Com dropping all reference to the "ACompanyName".

Is it unlikely another company will ever use that name again? Even if it's a decent generic descriptive name?

If this doesn't make sense I'll post a few recent examples I've stumbled on - though I'm sure most people know of some.

Thanks.

 

[Vito]

Pretty good question.
I see this all the time.
Lots of little TV Companies getting gobbled up by Monster sized TV Companies.

My opinion (not based on research at all) is that lets say ESPN buys Fuel.tv.

Well Fuel is a Generic term and also can be branded for anything at all in the future so I believe a true Generic can become Brandable and will not lose any value at all. That keyword dot tv will increase in value at the same pace as the rest of the dot tv domains, actually if someone is buying domains for the traffic, then this may become a bit more valuable.

Now lets reverse this.
Fuel.tv buys ESPN.tv
ESPN is not a generic term. It is a true Branable Domain so I believe that a true brandable/non generic former Company domain would become much less valuable. IMO

 

[equity78]

A real life perfect example of this would be Ekko.tv. The company had a real product, received VC and then went out of business.

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/ekkotv

The name was on GoDaddy auctions, I participated got bid higher than my value and now is parked.

Would it make sense for someone else to build a brand on that ? IMO No. The search engines could mislead new clients,consumers and potential VC to invest.

 

[DU]

Lots of little TV Companies getting gobbled up by Monster sized TV Companies.

My opinion (not based on research at all) is that lets say ESPN buys Fuel.tv.

Well Fuel is a Generic term and also can be branded for anything at all in the future so I believe a true Generic can become Brandable and will not lose any value at all.

I understand what you are saying - essentially that a name that has no meaning outside of its use as a company name has zero value but a generic can always be rebranded.

That would also mean, I think, that there is a correlation to just how successful the prior incarnation was. If the prior company was hugely successful it would be more difficult to rebrand.

A real life perfect example of this would be Ekko.tv. The company had a real product, received VC and then went out of business.

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/ekkotv

The name was on GoDaddy auctions, I participated got bid higher than my value and now is parked.

Would it make sense for someone else to build a brand on that ? IMO No. The search engines could mislead new clients,consumers and potential VC to invest.

This is what I am wondering. It's part of why I want a do-over on the Internet.. treat it as two parts an ODS and a BI-DW (Operation Real Time & Secondary Data Warehouse). Get rid of old useless junk and put it in a historical context!

Three examples:

E-p-i-s-o-d-i-c(dot)TV were bought by Google. The company actually operated on the .COM but the owner bought the .TV for $1000 and dropped it less than 6 months later after being taken over. (Still curious as to what they are working on as it was a very interesting company)

This is a "generic" word but it's also "brandable".

A-g-g-r-e-g-a-t-o-r(dor)TV Company that went broke and assets bought and now defunct. I don't think it matters; however, does that "kill" the name.

This is a "generic" word but it's also "brandable" but in my mind more "generic". It means something specific that makes sense..

A-g-i-l-e(dot)TV My main .TV has the same issue - being a company that folded about 10 years ago but it doesn't really affect too much because the name is taken in .net, .org, backwards, Youtube, Justin and various other places to make the original company seem irrelevant.

That name is truly "generic" and I don't think it's confusing at all.

Something like S-a-f-a-r-i(dot)TV has it to a lesser extent and greater.

That name was "kind of" branded and has a number of backlinks and history but it was NOT a large company.. so I don't see any issue at all.

So am I right in how I feel about this? This might be a legal question - if a company is defunct and the TM Is abandoned - can you simply pick it up an run and take the risk of confusion?

I think this happens every day in .COM land but everything seems so much more "brandable" in .TV

 

[equity78]

I think you are right that it does happen everyday in .com.

 

[DU]

I think you are right that it does happen everyday in .com.

Usually smaller less visible efforts though.

Seems that the .TV names got quite a lot of notice in the Business press. Most .com drops that I see were local/small business. Then again I don't do anything with Namejet where I'd be likely to see the better trafficked names.

Thanks for the comments.