.tv I would like to make one comment for domainners who want to be end users

[localexperts]

Over the past 10 years, I've personally witnessed many employees with large stock options, as well as affliates, have unrealistic expectations and jump the ship too early. They lost out on millions and in one case billions.

Companies like Demand Media and Local Experts were not built in a day.

At Respond, I had affliates who thought they could do it better than we could. They cancelled their deals and launched competitive sites. 18 months later they were back asking us to buy out their assets.

People like Richard and myself have a track record of launching successful companies. If we did thing "by the book", then anyone could do what we did. When I'm facing across the competitive aisles staring at a new company and I get the opportunity to speak to the CEO (maybe at a conference). I have a series of three questions that let me know if this company is a "wanne-bee" or a real threat. Companies that are "wanna bees", do everything perfect and by the book.

One of my friends had a brother who has launched several succesful internet companies and was worth $1B (down to $300M - poor guy). There were stories where he would go into the CTOs office and ask him to look at the stock price. It was up $10 for the day. Then he ask the CTO to read the comments that the CEO had made to the press. Last question, "OK Mr CTO how are we going to do this and launch it by the day I said it would be out".

Seriously, if launching a company was easy anybody could do it. If a book described how to launch a company with a proven method, it would be a best seller.

Don't miss out on millions because you can see the forest thru the trees.

Demand Media is going to be worth alot of money.
Local Experts is going to be worth alot of money.

In Respond we had a saying YIYO - Your In or Your Out. If you can do it better, then do it. If not, then have a coke and a smile and stick to domaining. You don't have the patience needed to be a succesful business man.

 

[Dr. Mindwrecker]

That was a great post local, I wish you the best with your business.
And again to second, any business is going to have problems, especially at start-up.

 

[localexperts]

In the Civil War, the Union lost most of the early battles; but won the war.

In WW2, the US got creamed in the Pacific until mid 1942; but won the war.

Starting out strong, does not always guarantee victory.

Otherwise, Excite and Lycos would be worth more than Google.

And we would all still be using Netscape.

Good luck Mindwrecker. Many are impressed by your venture so far.

 

[Dr. Mindwrecker]

Local, you hit the nail on the head,

1. People not understanding that there will be problems.
2. Fighting the long term fight with short term steps.

 

[localexperts]

NamePros has been having alot of recent problems. I keep getting server busy, 404, and server crash messages.


I once had a deal with Verisign with 99.9999% uptime requirement. That means I go be down for a max 2 hours a year. We were down more than 2 hours that year. Never heard from Verisign.

But I would hear within 10 mins of going down from several small insignificant affliates that gave us 30-50 uniques a month. Hey guys, if you spent that much time growing your traffic as you did about my downtime; then I might listen to you.

 

[equity78]

George I don't own Namepros so that's good if you have issues contact RJ

 

[localexperts]

Sorry Ray, those eight years of military school are shining thru today due to the pressue. My philosophy, "The best defense is a good offense".

I'm having my own set of issues, due to our problems getting launched.

No one is more unhappy about it that I am. I can only fix the problems and make progress. I'm sure Richard and DM have a similiar mental model. They spent 12 months pouring their soul into ME.TV.

When its down, they are doing everything they can to bring it back up.

Sometimes recovery plans aren't as great as advertised. PSINet lost an entire data center in the late 90s because no one tested the generator on a regular basis.

 

[MrRhee]

Don't miss out on millions because you can see the forest thru the trees.

Demand Media is going to be worth alot of money.
.

Hi, I spoke with you several times on the phone, and based on our conversations, you are very wise. But I don't think anyone in the domain industry doubts that DEMAND MEDIA will be worth lots of money... they already are. I don't think anyone doubts that ME.TV will make money. I believe that ME.TV, if not also DEMAND itself, is being "built to flip" while the big fish are still biting. But where does that leave all of us who are on the ME.TV platform. Do any sites on the platform itself have a chance of flipping for several million or half a billion? doubtful. Bottom line for us, imho, in order to meet any real success or see any real revenue, it'll be using another solution outside of ME.TV - if things remain the same. Obviously ME.TV is working hard to make changes, but the list of ME.TV's direct competitors continues to grow fast.. checkout TechCrunch or Mashable and you'll see new ones popup every week... formidable opponents that are giving domain developers viable alternatives. That's who ME.TV has to worry about every time their site goes down, or every day that passes without hearing about revenue strategies.

So when you tell people not to miss out on millions, did you mean that you believe that sites hosted with ME.TV have a chance of making millions? (revenue? ads? leadgen? flipping?)

or that DEMAND MEDIA will make .TV a household name and awareness/adoption of .TV will increase the value of our .TV investments (holdings/developed sites/domains/content)?

I know you're building an empire, but it's not going to be part of ME.TV network, correct?

thanks in advance.

 

[localexperts]

Correct, I am not using ME.TV but we may be using other DM assets.

I cannot use ME.TV because it doesn't have (and will never have) the features I need.

Some people on this board view ME.TV as a business tool (I don't). If your mental model is that ME.TV is a tool, then you can't bail due to a couple problems.

Otherwise I would have thrown out SQL*Server and Oracle years ago because they are tools I do use and I've had problems with both. What am I going to do, write my own database. Use MySQL (freeware). My investors would shoot me, followed by my engineers.

If you view ME.TV as a business tool, then you should stick with them. If you bail because of a simple problem, then I question why you viewed them as a business tool in the first place. Write your own platform.

If ME.tv is a business tool, then you better be able to make millions on it.

 

[MrRhee]

Correct, I am not using ME.TV but we may be using other DM assets.

I cannot use ME.TV because it doesn't have (and will never have) the features I need.

Some people on this board view ME.TV as a business tool (I don't). If your mental model is that ME.TV is a tool, then you can't bail due to a couple problems.

Otherwise I would have thrown out SQL*Server and Oracle years ago because they are tools I do use and I've had problems with both. What am I going to do, write my own database. Use MySQL (freeware). My investors would shoot me, followed by my engineers.

If you view ME.TV as a business tool, then you should stick with them. If you bail because of a simple problem, then I question why you viewed them as a business tool in the first place. Write your own platform.

If ME.tv is a business tool, then you better be able to make millions on it.

I view ME.TV as a tool. My mistake was sending my "business" associates to look at ME.TV

re: "write your own platform"
easier said than done, but when necessary... it's gotta be done.

and what's wrong with MySQL? LOL.

seriously though, after seeing the ME.TV new channel guide, I was excited to show off the potential ME.TV had... and I still have some faith in them and hope for the best... but I also need to realize how dangerous it is to completely rely on others.