[Kevin]

1st ANNUAL GLOBAL.TV INTERNET EXPO

On September 19th, DOT TV investors and developers met at the 1st Annual Global.tv Internet Expo, the first organized meeting of its kind. This three day event focused on the challenges and exciting developments in the DOT TV extension as well as the strategies related to rapid development, monetization, content creation, and positioning to sell an established DOT TV branded website for a premium price. It drew some of DOT TV's biggest investors and developers to one place, Cincinnati, Ohio.

After the expo concluded, I interviewed Niko Younts, a member of the Global.tv team, and learned more about how this event came into being and his expectations. What follows is that story and my overview of the event...

Like other DOT TV enthusiasts, Niko Younts sometimes sits at his computer for 14 hours straight, only getting up to use the bathroom or to drink some water even if his wrists burn from hours of typing. To say he was nuts about DOT TV would be an understatement.

Over the last two years, Niko emailed and established several relationships with other DOT TV investors and developers. Without any expectation of something in return, he shared his development plans and valuable market research data that took him weeks to compile. Something about Niko's enthusiasm for and extensive understanding of DOT TV impressed David Sams, a DOT TV investor/developer and one of the world's most respected marketing strategists. Hundreds of emails, text messages, and phone calls later, Niko scheduled a flight to meet David in person at his entertainment office in Los Angeles in early July of 2008, but a personal matter forced him to cancel last minute. Niko couldn't immediately reschedule since he was neck deep in his preparations for a Geo Domainer conference scheduled to take place a few weeks later in Chicago.

At Geo Domainer, Niko met other like-minded DOT TV owners willing to share information and discuss the DOT TV brand. However, DOT COM diehards did what they could to prevent others from learning more about DOT TV's potential. "[Attendees were] so segregated..," he said. Niko realized that DOT TV faced greater resistance from those making a successful living on DOT COM than he anticipated. Before leaving, Niko impressed some heavy DOT COM hitters who revealed that they owned hundreds of DOT TV names in their portfolios, making them "closet DOT TV investors" in his mind.


That conference prevented Niko and David from meeting in Los Angeles because he would ultimately become part of the first major effort to organize a conference that catered to DOT TV investors and developers.

At the same time Niko cultivated his relationship with David from long distance, Niko had been developing a relationship with Ben Van Dyk. Ben Van Dyk , a Canadian Real Estate Broker and avid domain investor/developer, also met Niko during one of his intensive personal research projects seeking information, investors, and developers associated with DOT TV. It became evident rather quickly that both shared the same vision and passion for DOT TV.

As their relationship grew, they discussed ideas and strategies, but the need to "educate" investors and mainstream media about the power of DOT TV on a global scale, became more apparent. Ben later invited Niko on board of Global.tv to join a growing team, which included himself and Kevin April, an experienced DOT executive and current director of Global.TV.


Fast forward a few weeks and Niko, Ben Van Dyk, Kevin April, and David Sams agreed to collaborate to plan a serious informal gathering of like-minded DOT TV investors. The concept grew into the 1st Annual Global.tv Internet Expo. This team set a 4 week time table to execute all of the steps required to organize it. Cincinnati, Ohio was selected as the location for the 1st expo because the team's contacts in this region were in a unique position to help them succeed in the short time frame.

Kevin flew into Cincinnati to work with Niko only 8 days before the event at an unfortunate time when Cincinnati had suffered the largest power-outage in its history. Niko and Kevin lost more than two days of work as nearly 900,000 residents were without power. "We literally took our MacBooks and chargers and drove around for hours 'hotspot jumping' trying to stay connected to the Internet, it was unreal."

Few had grand expectations for the 1st Annual Global.tv Internet Expo. Everyone anticipated meeting others involved in the DOT TV arena, but none expected to walk away with the information, knowledge, contacts, and experience that they did. I have attended numerous corporate events, conferences, and industry trade shows and the 1st Annual Global.tv Internet Expo was no different in terms of its organization, presentation, and value for attendees. By outward appearances, few would believe that 4 people who had never met in person could actually pull off an event of this caliber in just 4 weeks. The expo attracted DOT TV investors, developers and domainers from Canada and all over the US, including California, New York, Florida, Virginia, Georgia, Colorado, Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky, Philadelphia and Costa Rica.

While Niko's personal goal was to meet others involved in the DOT TV extension, he accomplished much more than that.



The expo unofficially began on Friday night for those who arrived in Cincinnati early and could escape the work they left their hotel rooms. While enjoying the fresh hors d'oeuvres and open bar, many of us (who already knew each other through social networks) met face-to-face for the very first time.


It was an incredible experience. In addition to the chance to put a name with the face of the people we already knew, we got the opportunity to meet new people, hear about how they got involved in DOT TV, and learn about their diverse experiences in the Internet.

(continued below)

[Kevin]

(continued from above)


Day 1 - 1st ANNUAL GLOBAL.TV INTERNET EXPO

The Global.tv served a wonderful breakfast and allowed many of to continue networking or discussing our DOT TV interests.



After breakfast, everyone received their badge, a Name.com mousepad, a laptop case, and a Verisign stress ball, which was one of my favorites:





David Sams was the keynote speaker who addressed the participants in a room that suited the event well although we probably need a bigger room to fit everybody and their equipment:



*David Sams*

David Sams, the keynote speaker, is an internet entrepreneur, marketing guru, and TV producer, writer, and director among many other things. His involvement with the DOT TV extension extends back to the early 2000s. He sold Hot.tv at the Domain Roundtable auction last year for over $35,000, and that was just one of the many gems in his
extensive premium DOT TV portfolio.

David shares the vision that many of us have. He explained that parking DOT TV domains will not lead to the success of the DOT TV extension (as it has for many in the .com area). Instead, David explained that development, even on a small scale, should increase traffic and frequent updates with relevant content should also generate repeat visitors, something that will exponentially increase the value of a site.

With regard to development, one strategy that David described involved cultivating relationships with established media partners in the industry related to the keyword of your DOT TV domain. By giving up a large equity stake to such partners, those partners will be in a position to supply the resources (man power and capital) necessary for rapid development of the domain. Once developed, the marketing machine of your media partners will help fuel the awareness and growth of the DOT TV website into a cash-cow, which would be a win-win situation
for all parties involved.


Some in the media have suggested that the release of vanity TLDs, like .Coke or .Bank, will hurt the DOT TV extension, but David doesn't see it that way. In fact, he thinks that the opposite is true. As public awareness about extensions other than DOT COM grows, the sooner the strength of the DOT TV brand will be realized.


David also shared a variety of content and monetization strategies in addition to recommending different development platforms, like Ning.com. Overall, the message was clear, DEVELOP NOW even if on a small scale. Parking a DOT TV site does nothing to grow the DOT TV
extension and offers little, if any, value to a DOT TV domain owner.



*Kellie Peterson*


Kellie Peterson currently serves as the Director of Marketing & Operations for Name.com, one of the fastest growing registrars. Her presentation detailed the challenges that DOT TV faces and "Why DOT TV hasn't taken off. Yet."

To sum it up best: Unlike DOT COM, DOT TV's growth has not yet been fully realized. There is little or no direct traffic without branding and there are relatively few developed DOT TV sites out there raising awareness of the DOT TV brand. She sees the DOT TV extension as having enormous potential. She provided evidence to support her vision, including statistics, raw data, and recent trends that she has not only observed over the course of her career, but also during the last year she has been with Name.com.


From outward appearances, Verisign's marketing of the DOT TV extension has been relatively non-existent as of late, which has created a lot of dissatisfaction among DOT TV investors, developers, and enthusiasts who have not been shy at vocalizing their feelings on a few social
networking sites related to domains and development.

When asked about whether Verisign cares much at all about DOT TV in spite of a recent increase in its guerilla marketing efforts on www.tv and YouTube, Kellie explained in detail not only how important DOT TV is to Verisign, but also how optimistic Verisign's outlook is on the
extension. She pointed out that Verisign spent 5-6 hours during a 15 hour presentation discussing DOT TV at a recent Registrar Days event that took place earlier this year.

Although she couldn't share certain sensitive and confidential information, Kellie smiled when asked certain questions, and she said that it was likely that Verisign's commitment would be more evident in the future and that we could expect the company's attendance at the 2nd Annual Global.TV Expo where we could receive more specific information directly from the company.




*Kevin*

Bambi Francisco of Vator.tv was unable to speak at this year's Global.tv but we expect her next year. Instead, yours truly was invited to speak with about 12 hours notice. I selected a (relatively) random two-word DOT TV domain and divided the audience of entrepreneurs and developers into three groups:

Group 1: Little or no development/domaining experience
Group 2: Moderate no development/domaining experience
Group 3: Very no development/domaining experienced

I asked Group 1 to come up with their best idea to develop the domain ExpressYourself.tv without much time to think about it, just their first instinct. I subsequently asked the same of Group 2 and then I gave Group 3 an opportunity to share its thoughts. Everyone had great ideas and it was amazing to observe everyone put their unique creativity to work. After each group had an opportunity to speak, the floor was open to innovate and discuss those ideas I had written on the board.


It wouldn't be fair to expect anyone to come up with the top use for a domain like this without giving them a lot of time to critically think through all of the different potential uses of the domain. We simply lacked the time to have an exercise like that, but the limited time we did have was sufficient to deliver an experience that would encourage people to really think out of the box when they explored different development ideas and strategies for their own DOT TV websites.

With a lot more time to think about different concepts, many would have come up with the same top-notch use for the domain that its owner, Craig Davidenko, had envisioned, which was a fan site dedicated to the music artist, Madonna, one of the largest music icons who is most known for expressing herself (indeed, Express Yourself is a song on one of her most popular albums and she has been aggressive at pushing the envelope of expression in her music videos).

Prior to the conference, Craig approached Madonna's publicist about creating a fan site and was waiting to hear back. I wasn't aware of this when he asked me, point blank, what is the best development idea I could think of for his domain, ExpressYourself.tv...much like I did to the audience during my presentation.


The ideas shared by the table of entrepreneurs shot out like water from a fire hose; it was really an incredible experience. Building on Craig's idea for a Madonna fan site, the group came to the conclusion that ExpressYourself.tv should not only operate as a fan site that hosts video uploads of fans lip syncing or performing Madonn's songs, but also feed online contestants into a recurring Express Yourself television show that searches for America's next music talent (possibly the next generation's Madonna) where such contestants would perform on live television for Madonna and other music artists who would serve as judges. The website could also sell individual digital songs, entire digital albums, apparel, and other Madonna memorabilia.

The audience left with an enhanced ability to evaluate the branding opportunity that any particular DOT TV name represents (even if its not a GEO or a single, generic keyword).

In addition to a very nice dinner, the Global.tv team planned an incredible evening of entertainment and an opportunity to get to know each other better:




Day 2 - 1st ANNUAL GLOBAL.TV INTERNET EXPO

The second morning started with another great meal, networking, and discussion between domainers and developers.







*Robert MacEwen / Jaime Atkins*

Popular blogger and internet marketer, Robert MacEwen, and his colleague, Jaime Atkins, are making waves in Costa Rica with regional DOT TV sites that focus on tourist hot-spots, including samarabeach.tv. Robert held a round table discussion on how to monetize websites, where as Jaime talked about the cultural differences that must be accounted for when launching web platforms overseas. It was interesting to note that when developing websites in foreign countries, one has to often "dumb-down" the technology used: Web 2.0 bells and whistles are not as easily accepted as they are here, as the technology in areas like Costa Rica is still catching up to what we're used to in North America.

[Kevin]

*Chris Kouba*

Chris Kouba knowledge and experience seems limitless. When it comes to starting and successfully operating in the Geo DOT TV space, Chris is THE MAN you want on your team.

Chris has over 25 years of local newspaper and Internet experience. In 1994, he was named founding editor in 1994 for PilotOnline.com, one of the first U.S. newspapers on the Internet. He launched the HamptonRoads.com city guide for the Norfolk-Virginia Beach region in 1998, and in 2005, he launched HamptonRoads.TV, one of the first local online-video portals in the United states.

During his panel discussion, Chris discussed the "other side" of the Internet, and traditional media's goals, functions, and overall comprehension (or lack of), of the Internet space. In addition to HamptonRoads.TV, his former company owns Richmond.TV, Baltimore.TV, and a handful of others. Chris presented several examples of DOT TV success, shared the intricacies of operating a DOT TV site, described how and why the DOT TV model is different than the established DOT COM model, and explained how valuable an end-product it can be both
financially to the company and to the community it serves.


*Antonis Polemitis*

Antonis is a Managing Director with Ledra Capital, a venture capital house in New York City that has invested heavily in higher-education and, most recently, the DOT TV platform. Antonis provided insider information about what investors are looking for and gave a valuable run-down of what to do (and not do) when attempting to raise capital.

Antonis' talk was especially interesting because he concentrated on the DOT TV market, which is unique from the .Com world. The general conclusion was that DOT TV developers are on the right path and that they are at the forefront of a paradigm shift that is happening online.

Stay tuned for the videos!

More images:

Chris Kouba and George Pickering discuss their different experiences in the online world.




George Pickering and Ammar R. share their development goals and strategies for their DOT TV properties.



Kevin April, Ben Van Dyk, and Niko Yaunts pose for a picture after a long first day of activities.



David Sams and Antonis Polemis pose for a picture as the conference wrapped up.

[Niko]

Thank you Kevin, for your participation and continued support. Your presence elevated the 1st annual GLOBAL.TV EXPO, and we are anxious to announce the "news", coming soon.


NY

[Ammudamus]

Kevin,
Great presentation and summary of the 1st Global.TV Expo. Thanks to Niko and Global.TV's active participation and efforts in putting together this event.


Best,
A

[macewan]

Kevin,

Truly an awesome dot tv experience being in the presence of dot tv knowledge leaders. One I will not soon forget.

Cheers,
macewan.tv