.TV Sells 500k in First 24hrs of Official Relaunch

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070503006472&newsLang=en

Quote:

Examples of premium domains that were sold in the first day of availability include:

-- bands.tv          -- history.tv              -- skateboards.tv
-- bridal.tv         -- Malibu.tv               -- weekend.tv
-- earth.tv          -- punk.tv                 -- yearbook.tv
-- fitness.tv        -- realtor.tv

The problem of course is that most of these registrants have no idea how much their renewal fees are going to be.  The reason .com got to be numero uno is because renewals were predictable. You could operate a website without the heavy hand of over-regulation.  While .TV is regulated in a similar manner as .com (anyone with a credit card may buy one) The cost of renewals is murky:

Reader sends mail:

>
>
> turns out anyone buying a premium .tv domain name has no idea what next year's renewal will be on it.
>
> enom front line phone folks say that Verisign hasn't told them what the renewal costs will be, and they (enom) have no idea when they will know.

> Rosenblatt shouldn't have done this kind of deal without knowing what the renewals will be.  Unbelievable.

>
> i was gonna buy a premium domain for a few hundred bucks, but decided against it when i found this out.  i asked the guy on the phone if he would buy a 300$ domain, that might be 10,000 to renew a year later.   he said, " i doubt they'll be that much."
>
> kicker is he couldn't gaurantee that it wouldn't be.
>
>
> sheesh.  what is this, 1996?
>

I've said it before:  Name-spaces are like countries.  The best and brightest people move to those where the governance is consistent, equitable and where the taxes are low.

Note to the registry operator:  This may seem obvious, but the reason .com secondary market prices are robust is 'because' renewals are predictable.  You can't sell Books.tv for $10,000 and charge exorbitant renewals.  Only suckers buy into that. .TV tried exorbitant prices and renewals the first time around and managed to ensnare a few suckers and little else. This time around people need to know where they stand.  Publish your renewal costs prominently and keep them consistent well into the future, 'that' is how to build a great namespace. If you want to bring incremental revenue, apply some nominal transfer tax when names change owners but without equitable consistent renewals your namespace will never reach its full potential. JMO

Comments

[Sahar Sarid]

It's not hard to make 500K on your release day when there are tens of millions of dollars invested in the product, both cash and PR value (recent and past). The issue as indicated is their business model, renewals. I think the first release was horrible and this one isn't showing much better signs. I saw a name I thought was cool for 100K but then just the thought of paying 100K renewal fee (If I read it right the other day it indicated on their site renewals are the same as registration fee) got me to think of how much revenue needs to be generated to cover renewals? It's ridicilous.
But, I trust they will figure it out. They have great team in place, just wrong model. As we all know, when starting nothing is concrete, everything is adaptable and changeable until the right model is found.

***FS*** We'll said as usual Sahar.

[Tia Wood]

I heard that they only allow renewals for .tv for one year at a time. So there is really no way to lock in a flat renewal fee for a few years, is there? They have a tight grip on this, don't they?

***FS*** I did not know this. If this is true it's an embarassment. Why anyone would front-run a namespace that would sell their registrants into a lifetime of oppressive renewal-fee servitude is beyond me.

[Rob Sequin]

Verisign is the registrar so they would be responsible for the pricing. Enom is the retailer and they can mark up the pricing.

So, verisign could raise the renewal fee and enom could mark it up.

I have tried to call verisign but they will only put me through to a sales rep.

[Cameron Johnson]

I just picked up a few, but not without plenty of problems. Just want to warn people that if you go to reg a name already in their system, some names will have a ghost record which won't allow you to follow through. They resolved it for me a few minutes ago, so I don't know if it's gone for good, but...

I suspect all the well-deserved criticism will prevent them from gouging upon renewal, but one never knows with VeriSlime. I know that I will be screaming loudly if they try to gouge me come next year.

[Rob Sequin]

I have just successfully renewed my May 1 Premium Name.

I have posted the contact info of the person that will renew May 1 Premium Name renewals at my site http://exclusively.tv/news/the-first-renewal-of-the-may-1-premium-dot-tv-domain-name-is-complete-9921/

She gave me permission to post her contact info so give her a call. I did not ask her about other people's names but I was able to renew my little Boca.tv for $100 which was the same as initial reg fee.

So, hopefully the renewal issue has been put to bed.

(Frank if you want to remove that link above:

You can find the article with her contact info on the News page at http://Exclusively.tv

***FS*** Rob, the problem is that most folks buying a name for $10,000 are amortizing that 10k over the life of their ownership at predictable 7-8 dollar renewals. A lot of folks do not understand that "this time next year", the registry may charge them "the same" as this year. If folks understood that, they'd be paying much much less (if anything).

[Steve M.]

The fact that so-called "big-name," "well-known," "reputable" people are running this .tv dog and pony show changes nothing.

With unstated and uncertain (and one-year-only) renewal fees, this needs to be labeled just what it is...flim flam.

Some .USA's anyone?

[Steve M.]

ps...and whoever bought realtor.tv (no doubt for many $1,000's--if not 10's of 1,000's--of dollars) will regret they've done so.

The National Association of Realtors; who owns the Realtor TM; is very protective of this trademark...and has slapped down numerous others either uninformed (or foolish) enough to register such domains.

[Antonis]

1/ Verisign to date has always had the following stated policy re: renewals:

a. Premiums renew at the original purchase price unless dropped (at which point Verisign can reprice)

b. Non-premiums will not be reclassified as premiums unless they drop

To the best of my knowledge from 2000 until 2006, they have held to these commitments.

There are some tremendous names that are on non-premium renewal fees and always were because they were misclassifed up front (e.g. food.tv at $24.95/year)

2/ To me this is a perfectly reasonable and fair model because it is predictable.

Sure, some names might be over-priced if you capitalized the cost of annual premium renewals, but the simple answer is to not buy those.

Other names are completely reasonably priced even with $500 or $1,000 annual renewals. It is no different than a high purchase price with an installment payment or financing plan (just value it as a perpetuity and realize that you are effectively paying $5 to $10K for a name)

3/ I don't understand what happened in the relaunch and why now, of all times, they have decided to go greedy, but it is pretty poor thinking.

The namespace has a lot of promise right about now, but they are risking marring their relaunch badly with this change and I believe they underestimate the sophistication of buyers/investors/developers at this stage in the domain world. There are a lot of places in the TLD world that one can choose to invest...

4 / It will interesting to see if DemandMedia can turn this around. As mentioned earlier, they have a great team in place

[me...]

Hey Frank .. astute observations as ever ... nuff said!

.TV is an extension with obvious potential but there is definate uncertainty.. re the undefined / unconfirmed annual renewal costs ..

Tell me who would plan a business around that .. just my views .. of course .. I like the extension but it seems somewhat vunerable .. with this mindset ...

Domain holders - Both investors and end user developers need surety of guaranteed renewals prices ... and set for a up to a max of a set term 10+ years ..

without this .. where is it ?