.tv Project AllThings.tv (Beta 0.8)

[*AllThings.tv*]

AllThings.tv | beta release 0.8

Those that have had the opportunity to follow my posts know how adament I am about the .tv extension. Until I spoke with Millerscrossing over the telephone, I had no idea that others could be so afflicted with the .tv virus. After several weeks of phone meetings, we decided to launch a site devoted to the .tv sphere and video served or accessed across the Internet.

The concept for www.AllThings.tv was born. With the small budget we could scrape together for this project, our plans to stream video had to wait. We separately searched the Internet high and low, evaluating and sharing different designs and layouts we found. Taking different ideas we liked from different sites, we settled on the current one for this project's first skin.

In record time, the site skin was complete, categories and navigation links were created, and content was uploaded. It was out of our commitment to this project that we were able to get it off the ground much quicker than anybody expected.

One thing we hope to show in the process of building AllThings.tv is show that you can develop your favorite domain with a little technology (and it does not require streaming video), a little money, and a lot of hard work (which just means lots of trial and error). By making this a low-budget startup, we hope to encounter and share the challenges in taking a basic site to a full-fledged site that delivers media content.

The .tv Forum at NamePros is a great place to discuss .tv names and Equity continues to improve it. We can never replace it. Our goal is to complement the .tv forum and provide more.

It is a work-in-progress, but we welcome your feedback and criticism. We approach this as a good thing that can only get better and we hope you feel the same with respect to the development of your own sites. If you visit www.AllThings.tv and would like to return to the NamePros' .tv forum, you will notice that there is a convenient link in the navigation bar, labeled .tv Forum, that takes you directly back to this forum (not NamePros.com in general).

If you feel you have unique viewpoints or experiences you would like to share, or you would like to help out with this effort, then feel free to let us know. Right now, Millers and I invest only the free time we can give outside of work, friends, and family, which makes it a very exciting project to work on.

 

[MillersCrossing]

Yep...Silicon has said it all.......the only thing I would like to add, once again, is a big thank you to Equity for bringing me in touch with business partners, aquaintences and friends from across the US and across the pond!!

I know I am not on my own here, many of us have struck partnerships and alliances through this forum, and will continue to do so as this extension heats up.

This is but one (very important) venture I am involved with, and as silicon has alluded, this is more of a pet project than one of commercial viability.

That is not to say that our site does not have the potential to take off and be profitable, but if the least we can do, is to help ourselves and others interested in TV on the net aswell as the .TV extension itself, then we will have succeeded.

We are already in contact with numerous .TV site owners and we will be posting interviews that we have with them on our site over the coming weeks and months, aswell as some .TV players, .TV portfolio owners, and dare i say it, perhaps even a .TV forum moderator!!!

Finally, we are looking for a few guest authors who would like to write about an area of the TV on the net world that is of interest to them.Please PM me or Silicon if you feel you would like to get involved.

James

 

[atypical]

Very nicely done!

 

[namewaiter]

very nicely designed and thought out site ... you guys have compiled some useful info already and i can see it being very helpful for dant dant da da ... allthings .tv

 

[mckennaronnie]

great site, i think it will prove to be a great source for many of us .tv owners who are a bit lost at the development stage.

Best of Luck to you.

mckennaronnie

 

[space101]

May I ask are the name you have for sale the combined portfolio's of Miller's and Silicon ? I must say those are some impressive names.

 

[RPK]

Great Site! Congrads! Can't wait to do an interview

 

[*AllThings.tv*]

I posted some interesting articles today.

 

[MillersCrossing]

Welcome On Board!!!!!!!!!!

I am delighted to let everyone on the .TV board know that we have two of our most experianced and esteemed .TV domainers joining AllThings.tv as regular contributors.

SKG - a good friend and mentor, he has taught me everything I have picked up on in the last year on how to perfect the art of buying domains (an ongoing lesson I would like to add)........but SKG has proven time and again that he possesses the most important skill of all - the art of SELLING domain names.....

And yet SKG maintains a humble and friendly demeanor, always ready to give of his time with advice and constructive criticism....

Having Sanchay on board will give the necessary gravitas that Allthings is looking for as a new site in the .TV world.

Aaamaretto will also be joining us as a regular contributor. Another friend aswell as domain business partner, Aaamaretto has been domaining as far back as 1999 and has some super sales to add to his resume, including at least one DOT TV in the high X,XXX that I know of!!

Aaamaretto is currently involved in many many projects and we at AllThings.tv are grateful indeed for his giving of his time.

Want to get to know SKG and Aaamaretto a little better??? Read their bio on AllThings.tv.and keep tuning in for their latest and greatest articles

James

 

[ZigZag]

Good job Guys!

 

[RPK]

This is getting very exciting!

 

[antonis12]

Great job guys. I am glad someone is starting to do this.

A few constructive suggestions from larger to trivial:

1. Overall: you are all folks with mega-great names and are ultimately looking for mega-corporations to buy them or partner with you for them. By helping promote the .tv extension, you increase the chance of that happening and decrease the time that might happen.

Therefore, I think of your target audience being not so much the people on this board (who already are well-served by namepros.com/dot-tv), but folks like: advertising executives or the Director of Marketing at a Fortune 500 corporation.

Most of my comments are going to be colored by this starting premise so if you don't agree with that, you might not agree with my comments!

I meet with pretty senior-level executives regularly. I would love it if there was a site dedicated to .tv that I could point them too and I would feel comfortable it is representing the sector/opportunity at a high level.

Allthings.tv has potential but needs a somewhat differnet orientation to get there....

2. Specifics:

a) On your main blog page you need to increase the contrast between the text color and the background color. it is too hard to read right now.

Similarly, your logo is great and your header logo is great but the main body text and background colors are a little too cyber-cool for my tastes if you are promoting to a mainstream audience

b) http://www.allthings.tv/pages/.tv-Listings.html

Get rid of the banner and Google ads. It looks tacky next to names of your caliber . You want people to do 6 figure transactions with you and yet you have ads on there that are going to net you $2.31 per month. Why bother assaulting your users with them given the amount of capital you have deployed to this space?

c) http://www.allthings.tv/authors

I think you should use your real names and real bios and in the long run professionally done pictures too. I understand if your job circumstances might not allow this, but again no mainstream buyer is going to be 100% comfortable doing business with "Mr.tv" (sorry, Sanchay!

If job circumstances are the issue, please look at my last point in this email

d) http://www.allthings.tv/pages/.tv-Listings.html

It is unclear to me that what the world needs right now is what looks like another, totally sub-scale website selling domains with a relatively limited assortment of names.

I would structure this section more as a Marketers Guide to .tv. "How can use you use .tv to further your marketing objectives"

Describe to folks why .tv is different than .tv, how people are using it, that they can go to enom.tv to register a name (though many are already registered), describe the premium and non-premium pricing structure, describe that many names can be picked up in the secondary market (explain Sedo and Afternic and put links to their .tv search results), describe that leasing might be an option, then highlight your best names as "development opportunities seeking partners"

Again, put yourself in the shoes of someone who does not spend all day and all night thinking about domains and lead him/her into a safe, corporate-like space that helps him/her understand how to take advantage of .tv.

As a side-effect of that, they might decide to buy a name from someone on this board (maybe yours since it is highlighted there maybe someone elses) but overall you should position the names in a higher end, less transactional context than this page is doing now.

e) Section I would love to see. A showcase of great .tv websites. I know we have launched.tv and that is a nice effort to be a comprehensive directory but that is not what I have in mind. I am thinking of a site with the best 25 .tv sites in the world ONLY.

First, put only GREAT, Corporate quality .tv sites there (mtv.tv, eurovision.tv, smithsonian.tv, boston.tv, sail.tv, tnt.tv etc). Do not put our sites on there just because you know us. I would set the bar even higher than where my election.tv is today since it is a bit out of date and still focused on 06 not 08 (that will change of course but the point is only GREAT sites that a corporate buyer can think to themselves ("My company should have something like that")

Second, display them nicely. Put a small screenshot and an editorial description showing what they are doing and how it is a good use of the extension.

You have to make it real to them what they can do with .tv.

f) I am speaking totally out of place here but I think you guys and EQ should work together somehow. I do not think we are so deep yet that we need two .tv sites in addition to NP

g) I think we should strongly consider forming an Industry Association of some type associated with the .tv extension.

Something like DVA: Direct Video Association. I just pulled that name out the air, I am sure there are better, but the point is that it is better to be a group of executives interested in improving how corporations reach out to their customers through online video rather than a bunch of random guys regging domain names.

I think this will have multiple benefits:

i) gives a forum for everyone to meet each other as humans, not online identities

ii) allows us to speak strongly in case of crisis (e.g. when the Enom transition looked a bit shaky, it would have been nice to have the President of "DVA" call and say I represent 70% of all premium .tv domain holders and here are the types of issues we are having. Basically Equity played this role in effect but we should formalize it)

iii) It gives a forum to put out research papers, etc to ad agencies, etc explaining the value of the medium, etc

iv) It then allows at least some of you to worry less about your identity vs. your day job. You are now part of an industry association focused on online video which is a good thing for your corporation that you are part of this as opposed to having this bizarre hobby.

EDIT: This should have a small membership fee to give you an operating budget. I, for one, would be happy to join

ANYWAY, THOSE ARE MY 2 CENTS. HOPE IT IS HELPFUL!

GOOD WORK GUYS!

ANTONIS

 

[MillersCrossing]

Antonis,

Who asked you anyway.......











Only joking!!! You have made some excellent points, please remember that right now things are extremely fluid and we are looking for suggestions from all who wish to contribute.

This was going to be a blog that would start as a hobby and see where it went from there, as opposed to a marketing ezine for what Demand Media should be doing.

Having said that , I see no reason why, if with the help of people such as yourself Antonis, your time, experiance and connections, we couldnt take this venture up a level or two along the lines of what you are talking about.

However, the pitfulls involved in such a project are the following - coordination of many people and personalities in the decision making processes......how many times have we seen projects try and get off the ground, but fail before they start because too many people turn into cooks cooking broth.......

Your aims are certainly admirable, but can we get there?? annd keep up the momentum?? The first thing that would need to take place would be a conference call between Allthings.Tv and yourself to see if a meeting of inds can take place....and if yes....then we go from there........

If you dont mind Antonis, please PM me your number and a convenient time to call. so that we can discuss the issues in more depth.

 

[antonis12]

Antonis,

This was going to be a blog that would start as a hobby and see where it went from there, as opposed to a marketing ezine for what Demand Media should be doing.

Note: Demand Media's objectives are different than yours...they want a bunch of personal sites developed and millions of .tv names regged (channelme.tv!). they are going to be a bit consumer centric at first I suspect. Their target is YouTube, not Internet Reit.

You want your 3-10 best names to become something great...so it is a bit different...

PM sent

 

[MillersCrossing]

I recently came across a site called Bangarang.tv which I thought was a cool site especially since it was completed on a shoestring budget......

The soundtrack is cool, the artwork is reall y nice and the the host (Greg North) on whereabouts is hilarious......

I thought I would hook up with Bangarang for a quick chat..just to feel like a student again, if only for the time it takes to brew a cup of coffee!!!....check it out on Allthings.tv......

 

[MillersCrossing]

Guys,

Further to a conversation with Antonis on AllThings.tv, we came to some agreements on what AllThings .tv is NOT going to be about. It will not be purely about the .TV extention, for that we have a good enough forum right here...!!!

Rather AllThings.tv will be much broader and detailed than the forum, with exclusive and fresh content from a number of different sources.

Allthings will not simply be a place for the authors to post links to outside articles, for that we already have .TV in the news here on the forum.

Allthings.tv will pick up momentum in the next 4 weeks with some special video feeds which should get EVERYONES attention, and I am not overstating this.

Please stay tuned , please stay patient, we try and update with at least one article a day, (I have added one today) but the hope is in the next month to six weeks, we will be adding at least five well thought out, informative articles that will be of benefit to both members of this forum and another few forums on the net..

Our hope is that over time, you will have AllThings .tv bookmarked and checked into on a daily basis. We know fresh content is king for returning visitors, so I am going to say that we are aiming for the middle of April for this to be an absolute reality.

But in the meantime, we still have alot of work lined up and we hope we will not disappoint.

James

 

[rokoroko]

very nice concept and another way how get TV ext on the spotlight!

 

[antonis12]

Guys,

Further to a conversation with Antonis on AllThings.tv, we came to some agreements on what AllThings .tv is NOT going to be about. It will not be purely about the .TV extention, for that we have a good enough forum right here...!!!

Rather AllThings.tv will be much broader and detailed than the forum, with exclusive and fresh content from a number of different sources.

Allthings will not simply be a place for the authors to post links to outside articles, for that we already have .TV in the news here on the forum.

Allthings.tv will pick up momentum in the next 4 weeks with some special video feeds which should get EVERYONES attention, and I am not overstating this.

Please stay tuned , please stay patient, we try and update with at least one article a day, (I have added one today) but the hope is in the next month to six weeks, we will be adding at least five well thought out, informative articles that will be of benefit to both members of this forum and another few forums on the net..

Our hope is that over time, you will have AllThings .tv bookmarked and checked into on a daily basis. We know fresh content is king for returning visitors, so I am going to say that we are aiming for the middle of April for this to be an absolute reality.

But in the meantime, we still have alot of work lined up and we hope we will not disappoint.

James

good luck James! You are doing good work.