.tv When it comes to geo.tv's the only thing that matters is the true generic

[DomainAgency.com]

Recently, much talk has gone on about the .tv geo space. Many people seem to think there is big profit in alternatives to the pure generic form of the city name.

For example, lets use the name Denver.tv (a name I don't own) as an example.

denver.tv is the only name IMO that has extreme long-term value built in without any development The category killer for someone who wants the most prestigious name in that market hands down. Meaning, could someone come along and brand mydenver.tv and make it a successful site? Sure, but no matter how successful mydenver.tv gets it will only inherently increase the value of the name denver.tv.

Now lets talk about the development of denver.tv. First you need a fraction of the money to start with to brand the name. You will have the huge advantage of top optimization and the generic denver.tv will always carry credibility in the marketplace whether developed or not. If denver.tv is developed into a successful site, will it increase the value of a zillion possible denver.tv alternatives like:

mydenver.tv
edenver.tv
denvertv.tv
idenver.tv
denverco.tv
denvercolorado.tv

You get the picture.

If you are a monster company that wants to get into the geo.tv market you can do one of two things.

Make a credible offer and buy the generic (still very affordable, but increasing rapidly) or
Pick one of several alternatives that are all on an equal level.
To a company any alternatives will have very similar value. The company will have to spend major money in branding to buy the added credibility the name would have already had if the name was the generic version.

I understand that the market for the big city generic names is growing and may not be at everyones comfort level. But don't fool yourself into thinking that as the value for the generics shoot up, the alt names will follow suit at a similar pace, the won't.

The only real benefit to buying alternatives to the generic is to develop them. Now you could happen to own a name like mydenver.tv when a major company decides to go with that alt brand and make a few hundred bucks, but that is at the high end of your realistic payday. For the generics, the sky is the limit long-term.

There are still many other sectors of the .tv market where you can get pure generic names for $200 in the aftermarket that will stand to gain huge when .tv takes off in the next 12-36 months.

Point is unless you are planning on developing yourself your money is better off spent elsewhere IMO. However, if you have a chance to get into the pure generic city.tv name market then by all means it will cost some money but it is still dirt cheap in terms of where the market is going.

Geos have always been a key trail blazer of an extension and a good indicator for the entire TLD. Geos are the first to sell and are often trailblazers in terms of the setting the bar. Geos are the closest thing to merging the traditional model of buying and selling real estate. The fact that a person can own the name of an entire city has always fascinated me.

The possibilities are endless and endless types of people will have numerous different ways to monazite them. That's one key reason their value is so big. We all know why they make obvious portal sites but the beauty of .tv geos is that they have the old school affiliate broadcast tv channel model build in. Just like the local affiliate TV station for your city Although in the old business model only the big cities had affiliates and the smaller cities got the signal from the bigger ones nearby. Now ALL cities big and small can have their own affiliate station. You can carry local content or you can carry national content and now you have a micro niche build into the name in terms of gathering user generated content from the people of these cities to share with other members of their community. This explosive combination will send pure generic geo names through the roof.

We saw an example of how geos pave the way for .comers to start investing into another TLD with Rick Schwartz's purchase if nashville.us for $23,000. You don't think he's looking at that going, nashville.com (multiple millions) and nashville.us $23,000 hmmm, very low cost, very huge upside. Nashville.us is almost certain to hold its value and climb and if .us does take off in the next 5-10 years, nashville.us will be a 6 figure domain easy.

 

[equity78]

All I can say is I do not share your opinion in any way

GEOtv.tv wil do just fine and geotv.com probably does better than GEO.tv IMO

 

[DomainAgency.com]

GEOtv.tv will do just fine

I agree that geotv.tv will do fine, but the bottom line is the pure generic will do head and shoulders above just "fine".

and geotv.com probably does better than GEO.tv IMO

is like saying sportstv.com probably does better then sports.tv

Equity, there was ONE major buyer of many of the city+city initials .tv names and he was creating a "false" market. Now the same guy who bought is trying to sell them all and if he does he is certain to take a loss. Why? Because he was the market.

 

[equity78]

I would say the Frank Schillings of the world would say Sportstv.com is better than Sports.tv by a longshot depends on which side you are on.

Local created the market for Geo.tv as well and he actually bought more CityState.tv not tv.tv I favor the tv over tv and depends on the city I will take Sandiegotv.tv or Bostontv.tv over some other cities that are pure generic in all honesty I believe if you do not live in the GEO anything other than the top 25 are not worth it not sure how much interest people outside of Laredo have in Laredo or other places that are small

Just my opinion

 

[localexperts]

All right, lets test this hypothesis, I'm going to put a pure GEO .TV on the block

to make a point.

DAYTONA.TV for sale offers start at $2,500. Very reasonable. Post your offers in thread on .TV marketplace.

My hypothesis is the entire GEO .TV market is very small and I won't get any offers above $2,500 because that is the price point where domainers fall off the economic demand curve, leaving only end users above this price point. Since there is one end user on this board, my hypothesis is the ENTIRE GEO .TV "bubble" is a "false" market.

DAYTONA is a great brand (Kind of like MALIBU) - The beach, the race, cars...etc

Added DESMOINES.TV and SARASOTA.TV to expand the scope and see if the market is real or false.

 

[DomainAgency.com]

not sure how much interest people outside of Laredo have in Laredo or other places that are small I believe if you do not live in the GEO anything other than the top 25 are not worth it

Okay lets take a closer look at this example since you brought it up.

As of 2005 The city population was 231,470. Laredo is part of the Laredo / Nuevo Laredo metropolitan area with a total population of 599,268.

Quite a big micro niche if you ask me. See Equity I'm seeing hardcore proof in meetings that I'm having with companies in the entertainment industry that everything is trending toward micro niches and advertisers will pay a premium to reach a specific targeted audience. The population base of Laredo caters to people of a specific common interest right off the bat. I have already seen interest in this type of names on a local level from numerous players within those size of cities.

Since there is one end user on this board, my hypothesis is the ENTIRE GEO .TV "bubble" is a "false" market.

This is a point that has no legs. There are several big companies that already own pure geo names like Landmark and MLB. I get offers all the time from domainers and non domainers for prices 20% more than I have paid clearly establishing a solid floor in the market that keeps moving up.

see my point above of the geo market in general. It is an undisputed fact that this market has historically performed well across all TLD's

More and more people are developing awesome sites for pure geos.

atlanticcity.tv is a great example of another one along with:
boston.tv
hamptonroads.tv
tulsa.tv

these are by far the most user friendly and best of the geo.tv sites on the web. More are on the way and are in development. This will only give more people ideas IMO and lead more people to want to get into the game.

To me daytona.tv at $2,000 is a way better buy long-term then daytonafl.tv for $200 Now you paid around $900 for it if I'm not mistaken (the info is avail on the site), Now trying to flip it for $1,000 is the test, not sellng it at $2,500. My point that a rising floor has been built into the market and is on stable footing in which you can make a 10-20% profit now.

There is more to say and more info related to this that will be revealed at a later date.

 

[localexperts]

Is Landmark and MLB.TV actively buying cities

or did they purchase any premiums when they were released this round.

In fact, neither MLB or Landmark has done anything with those domains with the exception of HamptonRoads.tv (Landmark's base market).

Without buyers, there is no market.

MLB and Landmark are GEO .TV owners. Not buyers. Not sellers. They are not part of the market. They are on the sidelines.

You purchased DaytonaBeach.tv for $2,500.

So I set the price for Daytona.tv accordingly. Now lowered.

I see no reason to continue this discussion, unless its purpose is to "make a market" for GEO .TV domains.

 

[DomainAgency.com]

You purchased DaytonaBeach.tv for $2,500.

This was bought at a premium because of a large group of cities I own in that specific area. In other words I paid that price because

1. The seller didn't really want to sell the name for reasons I can't mention so it had to be worth his while and
2. It increases the overall value of several other cities I already owned and my entire overall portfolio. My purchase was for an bigger overall development strategy I have that geared toward the longterm.

While $2.500 may seem like a lot I paid a premium now for the above reasons and my feeling that this is a prime geo that has no premium reg fees. Overtime that $2,500 will seem like a joke IMO.
Therefore you can't accurately measure the "value" of daytonbeach.tv without taking into context other factors.

By the way George, it is nice to see you finally come to my way of thinking on the alt geos and scaling back to manageable proportions.

 

[MillersCrossing]

This entire thread smacks of hidden agendas....so I will dip my feet only very lightly in these waters...

Geo.TV is no different to any other really good premium/non premium name.

I have the following geos - SANJOSE.TV - clearly my best and one which is currently with the CHannel Local network - which STILL needs to find its feet, and one to which I have STILL some faith will work out, given Georges experiance in making money in the real website turf - .com.......

I bought SANJOSE during the 70%/50% discount and have paid for two years upfront at $500 a year
I was offered about three months ago $20,000 for the name. I should have taken it, and used the monies to pay down debt or for development of other sites......

But like Poodle and equity agree, there is an inherent value to top 25 and in this case top 10 city names...I know that over the next five years if it should not work out with Channel Local, (I hope it does...a developed site is my end goal these days for every name except two) then I should get a similar or higher offer....but at todays market ..I do not believe I would get 20k....if some one wants to offer me - lets talk...!!!

Other than that, I have QUEENS.TV, not strictly a city site, and CAMBRIDGE.TV, a city site, but not top 25 by a long shot. $500 on both those yearly.

I diversified my geos by buying islands/countries, THAILAND.TV, (my favorite and which I think one day i WILL BE VERY HAPPY WITH THAT BUY AT $1000 A YEAR) WAIKIKI.tv AND OMAN.TV, these two $1000 year premiums , owned in partnership.......

But my real diversification is in other areas entirely, education, IT, DIY, comedy, business, video.......because I do not see the geo namespace as being particularly head and shoulders above anything else....In the .com world, the geo is so successful because of type in traffic, no other reason....it does not exist yet, nor for many years to come with .TV, so how much more inherent value does a GEO.TV have over lets say a geotv.tv AND certainly at the moment TV.COM is commanding higher prices and is sought after by more major organisations that .TV.........

At the height of the geo mania a few months back, I offloaded alot of my geos, cause I just do not believe that they are ready yet for the big time.......

As far as commanding 20% plus to what I paid for them., I belkieve I could sell SANJOSE tomorrow for 15k.....but that is because I know of a real end user for that name......THailand, I could certainly command 10k, so Poodle is right again with the profit margin, I paid 1200 for two years , to be followed by $1000 every year.....

The rest I am unsure how to price them for todays market value.....

 

[nrmillions]

Recently, much talk has gone on about the .tv geo space. Many people seem to think there is big profit in alternatives to the pure generic form of the city name.

For example, lets use the name Denver.tv (a name I don't own) as an example.

denver.tv is the only name IMO that has extreme long-term value built in without any development The category killer for someone who wants the most prestigious name in that market hands down. Meaning, could someone come along and brand mydenver.tv and make it a successful site? Sure, but no matter how successful mydenver.tv gets it will only inherently increase the value of the name denver.tv.

Now lets talk about the development of denver.tv. First you need a fraction of the money to start with to brand the name. You will have the huge advantage of top optimization and the generic denver.tv will always carry credibility in the marketplace whether developed or not. If denver.tv is developed into a successful site, will it increase the value of a zillion possible denver.tv alternatives like:

you are saying that no matter how successful mydenver.tv were to get it would only raise the value of denver.tv. That should mean that if you develop denver.tv you are only going to increase the value of denver.com. The true generic for denver would be denver.com, not denver.tv. I think any .tv name needs to be developed and branded to have a high value. People are going to go to a .tv site looking for videos so if the vidoes are not there and there are only ad links then they will probably leave. Denver.tv and eDenver.tv would both get little type in traffic compared to denver.com. Most of the type in traffic would come from .tv domainers checking to see if the name is for sale or whats there. Also if you owned denver.tv you would lose traffic to both denvertv.com and denver.com since a lot of people dont know .tv exists yet and would assume that the site is at denvertv.com.

 

[DomainAgency.com]

you are saying that no matter how successful mydenver.tv were to get it would only raise the value of denver.tv. That should mean that if you develop denver.tv you are only going to increase the value of denver.com. The true generic for denver would be denver.com, not denver.tv. I think any .tv name needs to be developed and branded to have a high value. People are going to go to a .tv site looking for videos so if the vidoes are not there and there are only ad links then they will probably leave. Denver.tv and eDenver.tv would both get little type in traffic compared to denver.com. Most of the type in traffic would come from .tv domainers checking to see if the name is for sale or whats there. Also if you owned denver.tv you would lose traffic to both denvertv.com and denver.com since a lot of people dont know .tv exists yet and would assume that the site is at denvertv.com.

You are making the assumption that the geo.tv space will not dramatically go up in awareness as the TLD continues to gain notoriety. If geo .tv are successfully used as a broadcast affiliate for that specific market, you will see a dramatic shift in the value of geo.tv names. I'm betting this will be the case and I have solid reason to base that belief.

People like:

Boston.tv and atlanticcity.tv clearly believe the same thing and our putting serious money behind that line of thinking.

 

[MrRhee]

why the major fallout? what are you guys trying to establish? what agenda(s) is being promoted? I thought a few of you major GEO portfolio owners were forming an alliance, now it seems like you are at each other's throats (?) - is everyone going separate ways?

did I miss something? anyone have a thread/link?

.

 

[localexperts]

Look at Associated Cities as an example, for years that network has been plagued with dispart owners who have differing viewpoints on which direction to take the business. If they were all on the same page, they would all be on the same platform.

Having different people from different backgrounds come together in some type of configuration is never an easy thing to accomplish.

In theory it is great: put all the cities together to form a national network.

In practice unless you are all have a common view of the future, it is tough.

I still have nationwide advertisers and users, so I'm plowing forward with MY vision of the GEO .TV future which can start making money now, but still needs some more time to get out of beta mode when our toolset is complete.

Millers is correct, we still need to get our legs.

 

[MillersCrossing]

To further my point, I have around 50 type ins a month for THAILAND.TV, almost all I am sure by domainers and that is my most popular site out of all of them....

So money will need to be spent marketing THAILAND.TV as much as THAINLANDTV.TV.....THe only reason a company would buy the generic off me is so they STAND A CHANCE of becoming the eventual winner in the race for traffic ONCE marketing dollars are spent........

 

[SLL]

My 2 Cents - First Post

Thought I would throw in my 2 cents and see if my first post seemed halfway intelligent. :hi:
I agree with Poodleman almost 100%; city.tv should have much less risk and more reward than citytv.tv or citytv.com simply because more people will only type in the city they are interested in and nothing else. But of course you are paying for this reduced risk and greater reward with a higher starting price.
But these names are not like gold coins. There is no real market value, and not much natural traffic that would get anyone too excited (except for my adult dot tvs which seem to do well with no effort). The market is "shallow", as Poodleman inferred.
A dot com city is much easier to understand because its floor is the value of its traffic and thru development the potential of dot com city names is fairly well understood.
If you develop a dot tv city name, do you know what you are going to see as far as traffic? Will they come, or will it be too expensive to get them to come?
This is obviously why dot tv city names are much cheaper than many of the alternatives. As in any business undertaking you must weigh the risks with the potential rewards. If there is a 90% chance that dot tv flops and you lose your $2,500 for Daytona.tv, then maybe there is a 10% chance that dot tv is huge (for video?...or see latest Google news) and the name will be worth $100,000 in 3 years. By the sheer mathematics you are getting a great deal paying $2,500. This analysis is very similar to how you would break down an offer on "Deal or No Deal".
This being said, I do not own any Geo dot tv's because I was late to the game. Only own premium adult and gambling dot tv's. I have recently purchased some Geo dot us which I felt were a good deal.
Most of my "stuff" is travel-related dot coms with sizable traffic.
I would agree that regional/city is the way to go as I see this with my travel/hotel dot coms all the time. I would also agree that any development of Denver.tv will benefit Denver.com (the "true" generic).
Hope I didn't fry too many brains.

 

[antonis12]

My two cents:

1. geo.com

(obviously the gold standard and far superior to .tv, but somewhat irrelevant to this discussion, because if you could afford to build these types of networks in geo.com, then why are you in this thread and not in the Caymans with Frank Schilling? Seriously, we are probably talking about a 10 to 50x markup vs. the .tv)

2. geo.tv

(the best .tv by a good margin, in my opinion)

2. geotv.com

(most domaineers today would take this over geo.tv, but I like geo.tv better in the long run. If .tv "works", it is a more intuitive name. Obviously this is the gamble that everyone here is taking. if .tv does not "work", then this same problem is true for all our .tvs)

3. geotv.tv

(no real equivalent in .com. you would never see geocom.com. Good defensive registration for geo.tv. Has some value, but will have huge bleeding in development to geo.tv. I agree with EQ that at some point you would rather have largegeotv.tv vs. smalltown.tv, but where to draw that line, I have no idea).

4. citynamestateinitials.tv, eg. bostonma.tv

(I don't love it. I think this was a case where Local "inflated" that market a bit temporarily, albeit at pretty low levels. The reason I don't love it is that you don't see those sites being successful in .com)

5. mygeo.tv, igeo.tv, egeo.tv, coolgeo.tv, etc

(at this stage, worthless)

Just my opinion. Obviously if you are local and willing to hustle, you can make any of these work, just look at portlandme.tv for example. Because he was local, he was able to get the local TV station partnership.

 

[DomainAgency.com]

My two cents:

1. geo.com

(obviously the gold standard and far superior to .tv, but somewhat irrelevant to this discussion, because if you could afford to build these types of networks in geo.com, then why are you in this thread and not in the Caymans with Frank Schilling? Seriously, we are probably talking about a 10 to 50x markup vs. the .tv)

2. geo.tv

(the best .tv by a good margin, in my opinion)

2. geotv.com

(most domaineers today would take this over geo.tv, but I like geo.tv better in the long run. If .tv "works", it is a more intuitive name. Obviously this is the gamble that everyone here is taking. if .tv does not "work", then this same problem is true for all our .tvs)

3. geotv.tv

(no real equivalent in .com. you would never see geocom.com. Good defensive registration for geo.tv. Has some value, but will have huge bleeding in development to geo.tv. I agree with EQ that at some point you would rather have largegeotv.tv vs. smalltown.tv, but where to draw that line, I have no idea).

4. citynamestateinitials.tv, eg. bostonma.tv

(I don't love it. I think this was a case where Local "inflated" that market a bit temporarily, albeit at pretty low levels. The reason I don't love it is that you don't see those sites being successful in .com)

5. mygeo.tv, igeo.tv, egeo.tv, coolgeo.tv, etc

(at this stage, worthless)

Just my opinion. Obviously if you are local and willing to hustle, you can make any of these work, just look at portlandme.tv for example. Because he was local, he was able to get the local TV station partnership.

Antonis, I agree 100% with everything you stated above. You have some very impressive properties and you are someone whose opinion I hold in great esteem.

 

[equity78]

Well I will tell you I am glad to see this thread as it has brought out good ideas and quality posting from everyone here. GREAT JOB to everyone who posted.

 

[TheBulldog]

I would LOVE to own DesMoines.tv since I own all the suburbs surrounding it. But alas, I can't afford what you would ask.

 

[boboski]

What about geo with channel i.e. seattlechannel.tv (not mine but is owned bySeattle City gov www.seattlechannel.tv)

IMO this is a great use of "channel" for geos.