WineGuy
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I want to point out a few things I have been observing lately regarding the 'right' direction one should take in monetizing/developing our .TV domains.
First off, ME.TV/ Demand Media. There are mixed opinions on the value they bring to the table with their platform and promotion of the .TV tld. Some are impatient to have new and more tools released for their ME.TV hosted domains. Some see no benefit in using the platform at all as they assume that if you leave the ME.TV platform, all your 'friends' would stay behind with ME.TV and not be exportable or capturable. And of course many feel the premium tagging of certain domains with the subsequent pricing associated actually slows the development of the .TV tld.
I want to say that so far I am impressed by what has happened in the last 23 days since the .TV relaunch. An untold number of new .TV registrations. To date 1455 ME.TV channels activated and probably double that number in the wings ready to flip the switch. Numerous premium sales. Numerous non-premium aftermarket sales, several in the $x,xxx range. Over 170,000 visitors to one .TV alone, CarsonDaly.TV. A lot going on in the press and I have even noticed member growth here in NamePros .TV forum with a lot of new faces. All because a $200 million media company put it's stamp on the .TV brand.
Even so, many seem to denounce Demand Media or are impatient with the speed in which they seem to move. I, like everyone else using the ME.TV platform, would like to see the release of V2.0 ASAP. But I can also see the other side of the coin when you are trying to create a stable platform and community for users and publishers. Release too soon with bugs and well you know that story already. Release tools or functions that can easily be hacked and now you have to hire a whole team of security and we all get spammed. If we want to monetize the ME.TV platform NOW, we need to figure out how to do it with the tools at hand, and that will just make us stronger marketers and relationship builders in the future with any additional tools coming down the pike. Hell, most of the people screaming for new tools have no idea how they will monetize their sites anyway. I keep seeing mention of Google Adsense (not in this forum) as people's solution to monetization.
Again, I place myself in the shoes of management over at DM, and knowing the aggregate experience there has already pulled off several successful online ventures not to mention MySpace, helps me to stay grounded and continuing to flip switches on new ME.TV sites as I have time. I write this today because I noticed a few trends with my sites and others hosted there, and also because some are showing impatience with new tool releases etc, nobody can blame them for that but.....with my sites I have seen a daily traffic trend starting an aggressive climb. Yesterday I sat at 1549 for total 23 day traffic, this AM at 10:30 AM it sat at 1747 and climbing. However I have seen a leveling off on 'friend additions' on my sites and the major site CarsonDaly.com. So so does this mean more traffic is coming in from search engines because of sites becoming indexed? Or are we just visiting each other's sites? Either way I see traffic increasing on a daily basis. I attribute that from being CarsonDaly.com friend number 300# or so? Anyway I threw a few up a few sites right away on May 1st and I believe that helped build this traffic trend and I don't belive it is too late to ride the coat tails of any other promotions DM and ME.TV has in mind. How many times in history can you potentially build wealth and help others do the same with a $25 investment and the help of a $200 million company who's entire existence is to make money from making profitable moves you can have a hand in. Example - is Hottys.TV worth more or less than the $25 I paid to register it?
"I want to keep all the friends I make on the ME.TV platform, collect more info on each of them and I want to be able to download the list and take it with me if I leave. If I can't do that then I will build my own site! Those Me.TV tools have a lot to be desired" Is this really practical, can you take your friends list with you with the MySpace platform or any other platform out their except for one you own personally. The legal ramifications of privacy issues alone are huge. I am not sure I want to even deal with that or have to hire an attorney for that purpose, however, I am sure that I want to be able to have a two way conversation with the relationships I have created through the ME.TV platform, just like we do on MySpace or any other social platform, that is the whole idea with social sites and so far I can do that with ME.TV, sans the ability to incorporate links, affiliate or otherwise, into my communications at this time. On the other side of the coin, what must DM be thinking, hmmm? "Of course we are going to give you that ability, but first we also want to make sure some schmo isn't going to hack your account and spam the 10,000 people in your friends list. We want you to be able to conduct commerce just like we want to be able to monetize our platform, we just have some bugs to work out or holes to close up first and frankly want to allow those folks that take this platform seriously that very option ASAP. How do we know you are serious? Well by the thought and effort that you put into your channel NOW, before you are given more powerful tools. How many videos do you have up, have you produced your own video intro for your site yet, have you started your blog, invited friends from within the network, are you using what has been given to you to build your site's traffic and friends list?" If I was DM/ME.TV, those are the factors I would be looking at and would be offering tools for the lowest common denominator to use and those that wanted more need to step up to the plate and ASK.
To those of you that are wanting and waiting for V2.0 tools, how many of you have actually done any/all of the following:
1. Actually activated and put up a ME.TV site and used all of the tools, all of them, not just the ones you think you want to use.
2. Visited the ME.TV forum at http://www.me.tv/forums and posted your own opinions or desires on or for the progress of ME.TV tools, management, etc. Has your voice been heard?
3. Communicated with ME.TV personnel, Richard Rosenblatt, Carson Daly or Quin Daly by email or through the messaging option on each .TV sites messaging feature?
4. Invited people from your personal contacts list or from other social site accounts you have to come visit or join/contribute to your new .TV channel?
Simple activities but certainly powerful enough to build your traffic, brand , reputation with DM and your channel. If you haven't used any of the tools you don't have much of a right to ask for more.
Premium tagging and pricing. I really have little opinion on this but sorta see it as fair from the standpoint that it gives anyone an equal chance to own the biggest and best keyword domain in this tld as long as DM/ENOM still holds it as an unregged premium. If you respond to this by giving me an argument that you can't afford the pricing or that it is priced too high, my belief is that either your own negotiation, partnering and capital raising skills or the market demand for a domain will determine the correct pricing for any .TV that has been marked premium. If you can't raise the cash or negotiate a price reduction for a premium .TV domain and someone else does they must have wanted it more than you, that is the market determining efficient pricing. If a month down the line DM/ENOM announce a lowering of prices for certain premium .TVs, that is the market determining efficient pricing. One thing I know for certain is this, the domains I have hand regged are worth far more than what I paid for them partially because of the premium model and premium renewals.
Finally, some .TV speculators want to cash out some of their top .TV domains and recoup some of their investment and they have every right to, so do I. I am sure that when the right offer comes along for one of my .TVs I will be happy to accept it and be glad to recieve some ROI on my trust in the .TV tld. But I am currently sensing seller weakness from those that want to "create and promote" other new outlets for their .TV portfolios including newly branded end user auctions, if I sense it/weakness, potential buyers will too. I believe these .TVers may jumping ahead of what looks to be an already naturally occuring upward sales/price trend for .TV no doubt initiated by the organic growth in online video and the efforts and promotion by DM/ENOM. Such a public auction, if not "professionally" promoted and conducted or successful, could help to "injure" this tld before the company who has millions at stake has brought out their "big guns" to complete their plans, 'whatever they may be'. I will hope that if a group follows through with their plans for such an auction they would try to get some feedback/buyin/assistance/leadership from DM/ENOM.
There, I'm done. I only wanted to bring some of these points up, hopefully to help us all focus on the progress made with .TV the last few months. We all have been waiting patiently, some much longer than others, for a critical mass to be reached which would mean more profit and success for any involved in .TV. I feel we are at a critical point where whatever direction we embark on could as easily be the end of any true success achievable with .TV .
Cheers!
WineGuy
First off, ME.TV/ Demand Media. There are mixed opinions on the value they bring to the table with their platform and promotion of the .TV tld. Some are impatient to have new and more tools released for their ME.TV hosted domains. Some see no benefit in using the platform at all as they assume that if you leave the ME.TV platform, all your 'friends' would stay behind with ME.TV and not be exportable or capturable. And of course many feel the premium tagging of certain domains with the subsequent pricing associated actually slows the development of the .TV tld.
I want to say that so far I am impressed by what has happened in the last 23 days since the .TV relaunch. An untold number of new .TV registrations. To date 1455 ME.TV channels activated and probably double that number in the wings ready to flip the switch. Numerous premium sales. Numerous non-premium aftermarket sales, several in the $x,xxx range. Over 170,000 visitors to one .TV alone, CarsonDaly.TV. A lot going on in the press and I have even noticed member growth here in NamePros .TV forum with a lot of new faces. All because a $200 million media company put it's stamp on the .TV brand.
Even so, many seem to denounce Demand Media or are impatient with the speed in which they seem to move. I, like everyone else using the ME.TV platform, would like to see the release of V2.0 ASAP. But I can also see the other side of the coin when you are trying to create a stable platform and community for users and publishers. Release too soon with bugs and well you know that story already. Release tools or functions that can easily be hacked and now you have to hire a whole team of security and we all get spammed. If we want to monetize the ME.TV platform NOW, we need to figure out how to do it with the tools at hand, and that will just make us stronger marketers and relationship builders in the future with any additional tools coming down the pike. Hell, most of the people screaming for new tools have no idea how they will monetize their sites anyway. I keep seeing mention of Google Adsense (not in this forum) as people's solution to monetization.
Again, I place myself in the shoes of management over at DM, and knowing the aggregate experience there has already pulled off several successful online ventures not to mention MySpace, helps me to stay grounded and continuing to flip switches on new ME.TV sites as I have time. I write this today because I noticed a few trends with my sites and others hosted there, and also because some are showing impatience with new tool releases etc, nobody can blame them for that but.....with my sites I have seen a daily traffic trend starting an aggressive climb. Yesterday I sat at 1549 for total 23 day traffic, this AM at 10:30 AM it sat at 1747 and climbing. However I have seen a leveling off on 'friend additions' on my sites and the major site CarsonDaly.com. So so does this mean more traffic is coming in from search engines because of sites becoming indexed? Or are we just visiting each other's sites? Either way I see traffic increasing on a daily basis. I attribute that from being CarsonDaly.com friend number 300# or so? Anyway I threw a few up a few sites right away on May 1st and I believe that helped build this traffic trend and I don't belive it is too late to ride the coat tails of any other promotions DM and ME.TV has in mind. How many times in history can you potentially build wealth and help others do the same with a $25 investment and the help of a $200 million company who's entire existence is to make money from making profitable moves you can have a hand in. Example - is Hottys.TV worth more or less than the $25 I paid to register it?
"I want to keep all the friends I make on the ME.TV platform, collect more info on each of them and I want to be able to download the list and take it with me if I leave. If I can't do that then I will build my own site! Those Me.TV tools have a lot to be desired" Is this really practical, can you take your friends list with you with the MySpace platform or any other platform out their except for one you own personally. The legal ramifications of privacy issues alone are huge. I am not sure I want to even deal with that or have to hire an attorney for that purpose, however, I am sure that I want to be able to have a two way conversation with the relationships I have created through the ME.TV platform, just like we do on MySpace or any other social platform, that is the whole idea with social sites and so far I can do that with ME.TV, sans the ability to incorporate links, affiliate or otherwise, into my communications at this time. On the other side of the coin, what must DM be thinking, hmmm? "Of course we are going to give you that ability, but first we also want to make sure some schmo isn't going to hack your account and spam the 10,000 people in your friends list. We want you to be able to conduct commerce just like we want to be able to monetize our platform, we just have some bugs to work out or holes to close up first and frankly want to allow those folks that take this platform seriously that very option ASAP. How do we know you are serious? Well by the thought and effort that you put into your channel NOW, before you are given more powerful tools. How many videos do you have up, have you produced your own video intro for your site yet, have you started your blog, invited friends from within the network, are you using what has been given to you to build your site's traffic and friends list?" If I was DM/ME.TV, those are the factors I would be looking at and would be offering tools for the lowest common denominator to use and those that wanted more need to step up to the plate and ASK.
To those of you that are wanting and waiting for V2.0 tools, how many of you have actually done any/all of the following:
1. Actually activated and put up a ME.TV site and used all of the tools, all of them, not just the ones you think you want to use.
2. Visited the ME.TV forum at http://www.me.tv/forums and posted your own opinions or desires on or for the progress of ME.TV tools, management, etc. Has your voice been heard?
3. Communicated with ME.TV personnel, Richard Rosenblatt, Carson Daly or Quin Daly by email or through the messaging option on each .TV sites messaging feature?
4. Invited people from your personal contacts list or from other social site accounts you have to come visit or join/contribute to your new .TV channel?
Simple activities but certainly powerful enough to build your traffic, brand , reputation with DM and your channel. If you haven't used any of the tools you don't have much of a right to ask for more.
Premium tagging and pricing. I really have little opinion on this but sorta see it as fair from the standpoint that it gives anyone an equal chance to own the biggest and best keyword domain in this tld as long as DM/ENOM still holds it as an unregged premium. If you respond to this by giving me an argument that you can't afford the pricing or that it is priced too high, my belief is that either your own negotiation, partnering and capital raising skills or the market demand for a domain will determine the correct pricing for any .TV that has been marked premium. If you can't raise the cash or negotiate a price reduction for a premium .TV domain and someone else does they must have wanted it more than you, that is the market determining efficient pricing. If a month down the line DM/ENOM announce a lowering of prices for certain premium .TVs, that is the market determining efficient pricing. One thing I know for certain is this, the domains I have hand regged are worth far more than what I paid for them partially because of the premium model and premium renewals.
Finally, some .TV speculators want to cash out some of their top .TV domains and recoup some of their investment and they have every right to, so do I. I am sure that when the right offer comes along for one of my .TVs I will be happy to accept it and be glad to recieve some ROI on my trust in the .TV tld. But I am currently sensing seller weakness from those that want to "create and promote" other new outlets for their .TV portfolios including newly branded end user auctions, if I sense it/weakness, potential buyers will too. I believe these .TVers may jumping ahead of what looks to be an already naturally occuring upward sales/price trend for .TV no doubt initiated by the organic growth in online video and the efforts and promotion by DM/ENOM. Such a public auction, if not "professionally" promoted and conducted or successful, could help to "injure" this tld before the company who has millions at stake has brought out their "big guns" to complete their plans, 'whatever they may be'. I will hope that if a group follows through with their plans for such an auction they would try to get some feedback/buyin/assistance/leadership from DM/ENOM.
There, I'm done. I only wanted to bring some of these points up, hopefully to help us all focus on the progress made with .TV the last few months. We all have been waiting patiently, some much longer than others, for a critical mass to be reached which would mean more profit and success for any involved in .TV. I feel we are at a critical point where whatever direction we embark on could as easily be the end of any true success achievable with .TV .
Cheers!
WineGuy
