Are .tv domains the new .com for video?
Cory Bergman May 4th, 2007
I remember when .tv domains went on sale a few years ago. Very few people felt they were worth the money. But now with just about every conceivable .com domain sold out (have you tried recently?) and video sites popping up all over the place, .tv domains are picking up steam fast. Richard Rosenblatt, who built MySpace, has launched a new company that will provide video and social networking tools (he retained licensing rights to much of MySpace’s backend) for people who buy .tv domains through me.tv. And if you ask him, .tv is the new .com, especially for video sites. Agree?
Adds Jeff in comments: “There’s an interesting situation here. Domain squatters (the guys who are milking the traffic and really have no intention of selling their names) have a whole lot of the .com’s locked up. This leaves a bunch of .tv names available that largely don’t have any trademark issues to deal with. The squatters aren’t trademarking anything to speak of - it’s too expensive and the USPTO does a pretty good job of approving names only for specific intended use. In addition, .tv names are much more expensive for squatters to finance (5X or 6X more than .com’s) so they don’t much bother with the .tv’s for now. If you’re doing something in video grab a .tv now.”
8 Comments Add your own
1. !nvitedmedia | May 4th, 2007 at 5:00 am
hey, i asked the same question a few weeks ago.
do hope you get better response than i did.
2. !nvitedmedia | May 4th, 2007 at 5:14 am
for yucks, i just entered a few .com’s as .tv’s; google, yahoo, thebostonchannel.
my friends at thebostonchannel might wanna take a look.
nope, that ain’t me.
3. Jeff | May 4th, 2007 at 6:46 am
I registered a few .tv names a year ago to protect some of my .com names. Soon after I came to the same conclusion - if you have any kind of site that is video related you should grab the .tv extension immediately.
There’s an interesting situation here; Domain squatters (the guys who are milking the traffic and really have no intention of selling their names) have a whole lot of the .com’s locked up. This leaves a bunch of .tv names available that largely don’t have any trademark issues to deal with. The squatters aren’t trademarking anything to speak of - it’s too expensive and the USPTO does a pretty good job of approving names only for specific intended use.
In addition, .tv names are much more expensive for squatters to finance (5X or 6X more than .com’s) so they don’t much bother with the .tv’s for now.
If you’re doing something in video grab a .tv now.
4. Jeff Bailey | May 4th, 2007 at 7:13 am
Saw it. Bought it. Use it for our blogs.
5. !nvitedmedia | May 4th, 2007 at 8:24 am
along these same lines i wonder how the .mobi regs are going.
6. Giannis | July 31st, 2007 at 12:31 am
Cool!
7. Antonis | July 31st, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Cool…
8. Makarios | August 7th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Nice…
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