.tv Total .tvs sold at NY TRAFFIC Silent Auction - ZERO!?!

[dcmike77]

I just saw the final list posted by Monte here:
http://www.namepros.com/343866-traf...r-1-a-2.html?highlight=silent+auction+results

So in all, not a single .tv sold in the live or silent auction - Wow - very disappointing.

Anyone watch the silent auction at the show and watched their bid? Perhaps bidding was strong but didn't exceed the reserve?? Or perhaps there was nothing.

I also didn't see a strong showing for .mobi either (only 2 sold in silent, and 2 in live).

Please reply if you have any info (I submitted some at one of the upcoming shows). Thanks! Cheers.

 

[TheBulldog]

one of the comments by a person at the show(can't recall who stated it) was that "isn't that the extension where they can change your pricing at any time?" or something like that.

IMHO, until the pricing is VERY solid and straightforward, you will see more and more tv's go for rediculously low prices, or not sell at all.

I seriously hope Quin makes good on her word and clarifies the problem. And MORE REALISTICALLY, Quinn, if you are reading this, it does NOT need to be posted here so much as it needs to go on your Q&A page so that it is official.

Namepros is not the official answer spot for Demand Media. If it is, then we are all in serious trouble.

 

[HBK216]

I agree with what you have to say Show. I also think it is too early to base anything on auction results. The extension is imo a long term play & not a quick flip. In the next 1-2 years I think .tv will really take off & make dents at auctions along with more end users.

 

[brainstormTV]

one of the comments by a person at the show(can't recall who stated it) was that "isn't that the extension where they can change your pricing at any time?" or something like that.

IMHO, until the pricing is VERY solid and straightforward, you will see more and more tv's go for rediculously low prices, or not sell at all.

I seriously hope Quin makes good on her word and clarifies the problem. And MORE REALISTICALLY, Quinn, if you are reading this, it does NOT need to be posted here so much as it needs to go on your Q&A page so that it is official.

Namepros is not the official answer spot for Demand Media. If it is, then we are all in serious trouble.

I could only laugh when I read this Showbiz, :lol:
You really know how to beat a drum, like that chinese water torture....
:lol:

 

[Ron Jackson]

one of the comments by a person at the show(can't recall who stated it) was that "isn't that the extension where they can change your pricing at any time?" or something like that.

IMHO, until the pricing is VERY solid and straightforward, you will see more and more tv's go for rediculously low prices, or not sell at all.

I think you're right Ray. I was at the SedoPro conference before Traffic last week in New York
(http://www.dnjournal.com/articles/events/sedo-at-mohonk-2007.htm)
and the pricing structure was one of the reasons Sedo CEO Tim Schumacher rated .tv a "sell" in a presentation covering what he thought would be the best domain investments over the next five years. I would tend to be more in the "hold" category because I think there is a lot of potential there. However, for a breakthrough, I think eNom and Verisign will have to use all of the keys needed to unlock the doors that currently bar wider usage - uncertain pricing being the biggest of those.

 

[TLDnetworks]

I think you're right Ray. I was at the SedoPro conference before Traffic last week in New York
(http://www.dnjournal.com/articles/events/sedo-at-mohonk-2007.htm)
and the pricing structure was one of the reasons Sedo CEO Tim Schumacher rated .tv a "sell" in a presentation covering what he thought would be the best domain investments over the next five years. I would tend to be more in the "hold" category because I think there is a lot of potential there. However, for a breakthrough, I think eNom and Verisign will have to use all of the keys needed to unlock the doors that currently bar wider usage - uncertain pricing being the biggest of those.

TS has been beating a dead horse with his comments for quite a while now... However, HIS comments really have no influence on me personally. I did appreciate your direct comment to him at DomainFest in LA earlier this year :bingo:

I do believe that Verisign and DM have REALLY clouded and confused many issues, companies, and people. I have been a strong believer and supporter, but it is getting tougher and tougher to continue given the constant double talk, lack of clarification, and especially the stupidity of the premium pricing. If DM can't even get the Myspace TV people on board USING, not just owning MySpace.TV rather than MySpaceTV.com then I think things will continue to wallow in mediocrity. Count that as another failure of the extension along with UFC.tv moving back to .com, NFL.tv abandonment, Bud.tv flop, and countless others. MLB.tv doesn't even USE the extension, just markets and re-directs...

:zzz:

 

[antonis12]

I am finding this discussion and Tim's comments completely detached from reality

As someone who has been involved in the .tv space for over two years, it is completely clear that prices are rising and rising rapidly.

1. In 2005, you could hand-reg great keyword domains for $30. Those days are long gone. Those same domains today you can't touch for below XXX (most cases) or low X,XXX (in some cases)

2. All you need to do is compare the YTD sales chart on this forum for .tv vs. last year's to see the increased transaction volume and pricing.

3. Premiums continue to get registered on weekly basis and far fewer drop than did in the past even though Verisign is not giving the discounts it has in the past.

4. I see more and more video-oriented sites on the extension

In any case, if you feel the urgent need to dump your .tv domains at bargain prices, please PM me.

I think that the fundamental issue that happens between .tv and domaineers is as follows:

Domaineers want first traffic and secondarily brandability. .tv has great brandability and limited traffic.

Given this, the natural audience for this domain tends to be end-users or developers, not the folks at TRAFFIC who have 50,000 domains at a parking company. Looking or hoping for validation from an audience which has a completely different business model is insane.

I agree that Verisign needs to be clearer on pricing, but in its defence, since 2000 it has honored exactly the approach it says that it does which is: "unless the name drops, they will not reclassify from non premium to premium or change the premium pricing if it is already premium". It needs to make that more clear and more solid for the extension to really take off, but its actions to-date have matched its statements.

I also believe that we should not be hoping for the break-out salvation site.

"bud.tv" is going to make ".tv" huge is silly thinking.
del.cio.us did not do all that much for .us, IMO.

And it certainly is not fair to blame Verisign for bud.tv's completely unusable first site which violated every rule of web UI known to man.

What will happen and what is happening is a steady increase of small developers and video oriented folks day by day building on the extension

just my 2 cents

 

[rodash]

I'm not surprised by the lack of interest in .TV names at the Traffic auctions. Some key two-word generic dot com names sold for surprisingly low prices, so it was no surprise to see no interest in .TV's. Being a pragmatist I think there are a lot of reasons for the lack of interest in .TVs and I believe these reasons point to .TV being in the doledrums for at least the next two years!

1. The poor history of the .TV TLD has warned a lot of serious domainers off buying .TV's in the aftermarket.

2. The Premium launch and the Channel.me tools have not set the world on fire. Quite the opposite really.

3. .TV single-word premiums are not only competing with .com, net and .org domains but are also up against 50 or more regional-specific TLDs. How many single-word domains can the market stand? How can 60 people develop a domain with the same word and all expect to do very well. If we're talking about the advantage of great generic names getting good key-in traffic, where does a surfer go? Does he go to music.com, or music.net, or music.mobi, what about music.co.uk, music.co.ca, music.cn, music.us, music.ws, music.cc, music.com.au, music.nz ... I'm sure you get the drift.

4. Park your single-word TV names and see how many uniques you're getting a month. I don't know about you but the traffic mine are generating is miniscule - I'm getting more visits on two and three-word dot com's I've plucked out of the drop-off bins.

5. MOBIs could be set to take off with the pending release of the new-generation cell phones, which means if people can't get into the hunt with .com/net/org names then they will go for .MOBI names.

6. There is also a gold rush to acquire .CN names, which again means people are going to be less interested in buying .TV names and other lesser extension domain names. It's my understanding that there have been more .cn names registered in four months than .TVs registered in the past 6 years. Some pundits are saying .CNs will become more expensive than .com's in a few years from now.

7. ICANN is set to release six new TLDs next year and one of those is .TRAVEL. That will have a bearing on some domainers thinking in how (and on what) they spend their money. It's also bad news for all those people who own geo .tv names. Not only will they have to compete with .com geos and regional-specific names but they'll also be up against .Travel geos.

8. Most people don't know what a .TV name is. You try and explain it to them and they look at you blank.

9. Most people are going to the Internet to GET AWAY from television so the last thing they are going to want is something that smacks of TV.

10. For all those people who use the argument that .TV is synonomous with video, have a look at the high volume of .com websites that are now streaming video (and have been for some time). Especially the music and music video sites.

Sorry if all this sounds dreadfully negative but I believe these are all factors in why TVs didn't get a guernsey at Traffic. How the .TV domain moves on from here is up in the air. If anyone wants any decent sort of return on a single-word TV name they should start developing it now ... and hope that they are clever and skilled enough to get a lot of people coming to their websites.

:bingo:

 

[nrmillions]

3. .TV single-word premiums are not only competing with .com, net and .org domains but are also up against 50 or more regional-specific TLDs. How many single-word domains can the market stand? How can 60 people develop a domain with the same word and all expect to do very well. If we're talking about the advantage of great generic names getting good key-in traffic, where does a surfer go? Does he go to music.com, or music.net, or music.mobi, what about music.co.uk, music.co.ca, music.cn, music.us, music.ws, music.cc, music.com.au, music.nz ... I'm sure you get the drift.

:bingo:

excellent post. I agree with almost everything you said, especially #3. There are over 200 TLDs that all have the same generic keyword. I do have some .tv names but this is why I invested more heavily in .mobi than .tv right now. If someone wants to check out music from their computer they might go to music.com and if they are on their phone they might go to music.mobi. How many of those people will check out all the other 200 TLDs like music.net, .org, .info, .us, .tv, .cc, .ws, etc. Some strong country codes where they mainly use their own ccTLD instead of .com could also do well such as music.ca and music.co.uk. Where does this leave .tv though? There are so many video sites out there using .com such as YouTube. Like other people have said I think this is a brandable end user extension rather than a type in traffic domainers extension. Development is key. .tv is very similar to .fm IMO since they are both brandables and one represents online video and the other online radio and both have a few very large sites. There cant be anymore excuses though saying that online video is just picking up and this extension needs more time to gain recognition. The extension is not new and has been around for 7 years and online video has been very popular for the last 2 or 3 years so its not something new. The pricing issue is also something that definitely hurts the extension right now and has also made me nervous to invest too much. Hopefully they will straighten things out.

 

[DomainBuyerBroker]

I would think that the Fall might see a marketing blitz by Rosenblatt and Demand Media. I don't think they are going to give up on the extension.

 

[dcmike77]

Unfortunately I disagree with many of the point of RoBash, but I'd have to agree that neither of us is an expert here. What you're missing, IMO, is that .tv can be treated as an extension of the cable box. In other words, with devices like AppleTV or web-enabled set-top boxes, people will go to a .tv "channel" and watch the video on there tvs. While they could also go to a .com or any other extension, the .tv's are much more likely to contain video and be automatically formatted to your television. Therefore the number of cable stations would be unlimited.

But rather than going into a long debate about this, the point of this thread is to mainly focus on what some of the reaction and discussions were during the silent auction specifically.


Nonetheless, thanks for your input.

 

[domainacrobat]

I think its funny that folks are comparing .mobi and .TV? Buy .Mobi? Do not buy.TV ? LOL!

No need to argue my point because it will get way off topic. I think .com oversaturation and lack of exposure were to blame. Demand media has really done nothing in the way of marketing whatsoever. If he is planning on a 2 billion IPO by years end he has alot of work to do. I would contend that the next six months will be very important for both demand media and .TV. While his efforts may only be to generate revenue and interest in his company it willl in turn generate interest in .TV regardless. He was able to take imall.com and myspace.com from in debt and turn them into two massive $500 million sales. Im sure he knows where DM is at business wise and where they need to get to. Look for January to be a bold month. Most investors have a fresh budget with thousands at their disposal, if DM is able to pull off its deadline December 2007 for its IPO, it should coincidentally generate interest at just the right time.

 

[MillersCrossing]

3. .TV single-word premiums are not only competing with .com, net and .org domains but are also up against 50 or more regional-specific TLDs. How many single-word domains can the market stand? How can 60 people develop a domain with the same word and all expect to do very well. If we're talking about the advantage of great generic names getting good key-in traffic, where does a surfer go? Does he go to music.com, or music.net, or music.mobi, what about music.co.uk, music.co.ca, music.cn, music.us, music.ws, music.cc, music.com.au, music.nz ... I'm sure you get the drift.

5. MOBIs could be set to take off with the pending release of the new-generation cell phones, which means if people can't get into the hunt with .com/net/org names then they will go for .MOBI names.

6. There is also a gold rush to acquire .CN names, which again means people are going to be less interested in buying .TV names and other lesser extension domain names. It's my understanding that there have been more .cn names registered in four months than .TVs registered in the past 6 years. Some pundits are saying .CNs will become more expensive than .com's in a few years from now.

7. ICANN is set to release six new TLDs next year and one of those is .TRAVEL. That will have a bearing on some domainers thinking in how (and on what) they spend their money. It's also bad news for all those people who own geo .tv names. Not only will they have to compete with .com geos and regional-specific names but they'll also be up against .Travel geos.

9. Most people are going to the Internet to GET AWAY from television so the last thing they are going to want is something that smacks of TV.

10. For all those people who use the argument that .TV is synonomous with video, have a look at the high volume of .com websites that are now streaming video (and have been for some time). Especially the music and music video sites.

Rodash,

Check my quote above ......I left in all your arguments that are wrong. The parts that are right I did not quote.

I can't however be bothered to explain why all your above points are wrong (noi offense, just feeling lazy!) so see if you can work it out for yourself.....I will give you a helpful hint though, point number 9 is the most ridiculous argument of them all.......

Here is another helpful hint - go read Antoniss post a few times in this thread....it may help calm your nerves...

 

[start me up]

Like other people have said I think this is a brandable end user extension rather than a type in traffic domainers extension.

this hits it on the head.

most domainers do not want to develop sites they want to park it or at best make it into a MFA site and put up for sale sign and hope to cash in.

stats just out show that people do not go to the internet to get away from television, they actually watch TV and surf at the same time.

when the dust clears there will be those who bought into .tv early, developed quality content, monetized and made a fortune. it may or may not be with the me.tv tools. there will be domainers who think they can just sit on their names and get appreciation on their investment at auction. there might be a few. but I think .tv is all about content development.

what have you done to enhance and promote your .tv content today?

 

[HBK216]

I agree with those who feel this is an extension geared towards development & end users. In my opinion those looking to "domain" the .tv extension are barking up the wrong tree unless you have real premium notch names. One can always find the right buyer at the right time for names that don't fit that mold but it is a risky proposition.

I do like that many around this forum are focusing on development projects as that can only help this diamond in the rough known as .tv

 

[[email protected]]

sitting around hoping someone calls you with a checkbook is rarely a good idea

Friend of mine just got back from a vacation in Europe. He said in France out of the 800 channels on the TV in the hotel, 600 of them were .tv's? He thinks the US is waaaaaaaaaaaaay behind because of bandwidth. Germany had 30 Mb connections a few years ago, for instance. Ask BDM1 about this, he'll speak to this.

The set top boxes to bring the Internet to your TV are just hitting the market. I would say it's a little early for someone to say that .tv is a dead end road. That is funny actually. The smart people at Netsol know this or they wouldn't have paid what they paid for the entire domain extension.

At the end of the day, the premiums will bring BIG money, cause you have the CBS's and such not really jumping in with both feet at this point. They are like most BIG companies when they are faced with "eating their young", sloooooooow to do so.

Vista might be the last copy of Windows we see, for instance. At some point the smart people at Microsoft will have to answer the Internet. It's the BIG leveler.

I talked to a high-level executive from one of the largest newspaper companies in the World recently and she said that they give "print" 5 more years. They are already plotting a course and they have started "eating their young". They teamed up with Monster.com so they weren't left high and dry with their print job ads, as proof.

The "real money" is made in developing any domain name, period. Oh, there are people who double, triple, 10X their money, but that is not BIG money. That's a dinner story with your family about how shrewd you were with this investment. Depending on where you eat out, the profit might not even cover the check?

What have you done to add value to the .tv domain names today?

 

[RogueWriter]

Friend of mine just got back from a vacation in Europe. He said in France out of the 800 channels on the TV in the hotel, 600 of them were .tv's?

:bingo:

 

[DomainAgency.com]

I think you're right Ray. I was at the SedoPro conference before Traffic last week in New York
(http://www.dnjournal.com/articles/e...mohonk-2007.htm)
and the pricing structure was one of the reasons Sedo CEO Tim Schumacher rated .tv a "sell" in a presentation covering what he thought would be the best domain investments over the next five years. I would tend to be more in the "hold" category because I think there is a lot of potential there. However, for a breakthrough, I think eNom and Verisign will have to use all of the keys needed to unlock the doors that currently bar wider usage - uncertain pricing being the biggest of those.

Demand media needs to make a statement on this issue and soon. The fact that they haven't to me indicates that there is dissension in the ranks between Demand Media and Verisign.

 

[TheBulldog]

At the end of the day, the premiums will bring BIG money, cause you have the CBS's and such not really jumping in with both feet at this point. They are like most BIG companies when they are faced with "eating their young", sloooooooow to do so.

This is true. I have a connection at one of the big three that is high up in the web development side.
Basically there is zero rush into tv for them. They are focused on content only for their dot coms.

That too me says a lot. It boils down to the US is seriously lagging behind in bandwidth because of overused telecom regulations that also impact cable and satellite. In Europe the us of .tv is pretty well known. Here, it just hasn't caught on.

Again, I will also point the finger the folks running the show at the top not understanding what actually will drive a market.

And to the thought of a 2 Billion IPO? I seriously doubt he will pull that off with only basically 5 months to go. Has anyone gone to check the SEC to see if he has even filed for this yet?