A Decade of Dot TV

2005 was an eventful year for me in domaining, early in 2005 I founded 3Character.com and in November the Dot TV sub forum on Namepros. Now some may say sub forum ? So what? Today there are a million niches and Eric Lyon does a good job with some input from me and members of adding specialized sections. The place pissed some off why do they have that ? Years later other extensions got their chance and none sustained anything close to a decade. I was spending 20 hours a day on Dot TV in 2005 through 2010, I should have started a dot tv blog in 2005, IDIOT! I kid, I kid.

Back in 2005, the conversation that centered around .TV was very short, it went like this:

What do you guys think about .tv ?

Just about every reply on forums, “It sucks” or “Crazy renewals”

I had been interested in Dot tv since it was founded I knew guys back in 2000 who were talking to me about the extension but I didn’t have the time to get involved. In 2004 that changed I came to Dot TV with just $90, never added another non .tv dollar, and regged 3 names, one of them was the name that would change things.

See Verisign had premium pricing like the new strings of today, and they had premium renewal. So most LLL.tv were $500, and $500 renewal. Some names like WOW.tv and GOL.tv were $50,000 a year. Verisign thankfully did not keep a close eye on .tv and sometimes there were glitches. On December 10, 2004 I put in LCD.tv to see if it was $50,000 like WoW.tv or even more, I considered this to be one of the best LLL.tv along with Sex.tv and XXX.tv. It came back $29.99, it was a regular price, I flipped out and started talking to my dog, “Dante there is no way this is right, they are going to come back and screw me” So I leave WWW.tv and go to Go Daddy, waiting for it to show taken, it is not, I register it for $30. I email John Berryhill who I did not know but he lives close to me, I ask him can they take this domain from me it is a valuable name and they must have mis-priced it.

He said keep quiet for 30 days and then you should be fine. I did and in 2005 sold the domain for $4,200 on Afternic, I needed cash at the time and did not want to sell it but luckily I did take $500 from the proceeds and registered Six.tv which was a premium name. One reason why I liked .tv was because after .com it was the only other extension where I could find Overture with Extension, Six.tv showed 300 plus, so I knew there was traffic. Never had a .tv make that kind of ppc.

On Namepros we had a thread about .tv and more people kept pmming me about the extension, so back in 2005 I asked RJ who owned Namepros at the time if we could start a dot tv sub forum ? He said what ? I said a forum dedicated just to .tv for like minded individuals. He agreed and we were off.

Here is a look at the first mention back on Nov 2005

There has been so much craziness I thought about writing the story, first as non-fiction but some things so outlandish maybe fiction. Who would believe some of the stuff that happened here ?

From the time Mindwrecker called me at Midnight and was like hey it’s Jack, I never knew his first name, we talked til 9 am about .tv, that is a lot of talking about one tiny island nation’s cctld.

The time when someone pmmed me “Hey Eq I am hopping on a plane tomorrow to punch that SOB in the face”
That dispute was over an appraisal, it was the first of two times that I talked one member out of boarding a plane to punch another member in the face.

From the fun with DemandMedia and their attempt to pump energy into .TV to the great landrush/goldrush of 2010 when those pesky premium renewals were going away, to Frank Schilling giving his names back, to Allthings.tv and Everything.tv being born out of this place.

Verisign taking Pets.tv from our member Fleaking and I spent Christmas eve trying to get an answer. Entertainment Studios has gone to build a tv show around Pets.tv. It helped people understand T.O.S. and that any name for any reason in any extension can be taken back in the first 30 days of domain registration.

A special Rest In Peace to Brett Moffitt and James Barclay who were active members back in the glory days. Igal Lichtman passed as well and while Mrs.Jello did not post here he is one of the two greatest .tv investors of all time and helped keep the extension afloat long before anyone here was involved. We messaged on Skype everyday for close to 18 months and he always asked for big money and believed in the extension.

Thanks to @RJ who without him going along with my crazy idea, this would have never happened. Thanks to the first guys that were the reason for forming this place, @Badger @Amcy.org @LanceBlock @Argos @johntv @fleaking

To the next rung of people who came in and really got the place active:
@RPK
@SKG
@Ammudamus
@jeffoverman
@Makis
@domainacrobat
@Finster
@localexperts
@montechristos
@the dot stop
@CateTV
@freedom30
@RogueWriter
@JimboJimbo
@RonnieMckenna
@StoneRoses
@yesonline
@Hire.Domains
@Australia
@dr manos
@MrRhee
@discovernow
@claudedauman
@antonis12
@mindwrecker
@HotDomainsTV
@DU
@elequa
@eyedomainous

I am sure I have left some people off and I am sorry about that. Things have changed a lot and some of the things that people hoped back in 2010 have not come to fruition, to keep it straight forward, the 2010 excitement tapered off, the backorders being held by a few caused some to leave the extension.

I do believe .tv is one extension that has been affected by the new gtld program, I think .tv still makes sense for the right names, short names especially as LL.tv continues to have a market if you buy right. The things that I think have changed except for an outlier sale are names we saw sell for $500 to $1,000 that didn’t go with the extension 100%, a name like CurrencyTrading which I sold for $600 probably gets no interest here.

The other negative effect of the 2010 Landrush was on the secondary market, .tv was a complicated market, the drops happened at 4am, Verisign had glitches back in the day, premium pricing on one, but then a gem slips through, I remember back in 2004 thinking my browser was screwed when I saw LCD.tv for $30 when names like WoW.tv and GOL.tv were $50,000 a year not just one time fee for the domain. I regged it emailed John Berryhill can Verisign take it back ? The name is what launched my whole .tv career which started with $90 and never another non .tv dollar invested.

That kind of stuff changed being on top of the extension didn’t matter as much, there were backorders, and a lot more people got good names, in 2005, you came to the table and you either paid a big premium/renewal or bought from someone who had no premium renewal names. After 2010 everyone had good names and the domainer to domainer market fizzled for the most part.

It is funny we used to do live chat auctions in our own .TV chatroom where people were regging names while the auction was going on, private message me to include and they sold, not for big money but for a quick profit.

I want to thank those over the years who have sent gifts, emails and phone calls thanking me for this place and that without it they would not have ever gotten involved. As far as domaining goes this was the best, most organic thing I have seen in all my years, there were a few trolls, and some debate, but people shared here in a specific niche more info in public (not through email or text) than anywhere else I have ever seen. Research that was specialized because there was no extension like Dot tv with all of the quirks. There were people who came late to domains who made six figures with .TV.

Thank you to every .tver there is debate about most things in domaining, there is no debate that this place created and fostered the conversation on that tiny island cctld that SUCKED!