Before I get to my review, I want to thank Quinn Daly who invited AllThings.tv to cover the relaunch of .tv by Demand Media for NamePros and AllThings.tv, which is a new blog and forum dedicated to Web 2.0 environment, including video content publishing platforms, social networking tools, and the future of the ad model online. 

If you did not get a chance to watch the webcast from the event, you should be able to view it here:

http://alwayson.goingon.com/page/display/12524?param=session/32
http://alwayson.goingon.com/page/display/12524?param=session/33

I strongly recommend watching it if you want to understand more about the impact of technology on music, film, and TV, the direction of technology in the future, what social networking tools are behind ME.tv, and how those tools operate. You may not be riveted to your seat the whole time, but you may learn something. If you have the patience, you may also want to scroll through the record of the text chat that went on concurrently with the video webcast. I say ‘if you have the patience’ because many people used it to promote their sites or solicit investors, knowing that the chat was being broadcast into the conference room where 250-350 business leaders and their associates sat.

On to the review

Initially, I was impressed because Demand Media seized this opportunity to promote the .tv domain extension before an audience that had not previously heard of it. Because many of the companies attending the event offer some of the cutting edge technologies being used across the .tv extension, it surprised me that few knew about the extension. I spoke off the record with many attendees that had never heard of .tv before this event. Many attendees were impressed with the presentation and felt that .tv held a lot of promise. In fact, one attendee mentioned that he registered a .tv domain name on his cell phone before the presentation concluded. Apparently, Richard sold him early on .tv’s rosy future!

The message communicated was loud and clear, the Internet continues to be the number one destination of choice for people seeking entertainment because it is “cool and fun.”

The focus of the event was on the IM Generation, which predominantly uses IM over email to communicate with friends, family, and even coworkers. While the IM Generation is not strictly limited to teenagers and those in their early twenties, those two age groups make up the majority of this group.

The theme behind the IM Generation is empowerment. Why email when you can IM? IM is quicker, easier, and more flexible than email. If I am having an IM conversation with a friend, we can invite another friend into our chat with the click of a button. While you or I may still opt for email because IM may seem like it is for kids, you cannot deny the empowering nature of this technology.

The IM Generation does not limit itself to IM; this generation embraces all technologies and applications which empower them and give them maximum flexibility to create, communicate, and express themselves in ways not previously possible. That is why it should be no surprise that the IM Generation is the predominant user of MySpace and YouTube, two of the largest sites that feature social networking tools.

Why does this matter?

Relaunching a ccTLD (country code top-level domain) is tough work. According to Quinn Daily, Demand Media faces the challenge of “bring[ing] a ccTLD back to market in a way that as many people as possible will want to participate in it.” Demand Media believes that the individuals who make up the IM Generation are the key to a successful relaunch of the .tv extension. I suppose that is why it elected to invest its money to roll out me.tv, which offers free social networking tools for those that register a .tv domain name.

The tools available through me.tv allow any user to launch their own channel filled with that individual user’s own programming, blogs, friends, and network. Everything is on the user’s own site; not somebody else’s space. By combining the elements that have contributed to the success of both YouTube and MySpace, Richard bridged the gaps left by every major social networking and video sharing sites on the Internet. According to Richard, me.tv is not intended to kill the big guys but merely to compliment their existing offerings. Imagine MySpace’s social networking tools untethered from MySpace and provided to each individual that owns a .tv domain name.

It will be interesting to learn how the other guys see it since Richard’s strategy redefines the playing field and one-ups those sites by sending the message that giving away the social networking tools with a user’s own .tv name is the ultimate way to empower users rather than keeping them tethered to the network. Surely, it is more empowering to own Kevin.tv powered with social networking tools than myspace.com/Kevin. Obviously, I would be more likely to promote my own site over my MySpace page (just a note, myspace.com/Kevin is not my page; it was only used for illustration purposes).

The tools are intended for individual users, not those with serious profit motive

These social networking tools were not intended for us, the entrepreneurs, the crowd that fits in somewhere between the individual users and the sites like MySpace and YouTube. As a domainer or investor in .tv, you may feel that these tools are substandard for the purpose you envisioned, or do not offer adequate opportunities to monetize your .tv website if you intend to cover your registration fees but also your future renewal costs (and make a profit on your investment).

However, we benefit in many ways from it. First, we can use the social networking tools on those sites we do not have immediate plans to develop. This could result in more traffic and awareness of your .tv domain name than simply parking your domain name, and using me.tv’s tool could increase the site’s search engine ranking and backlinks. As me.tv offers monetization opportunities, those sites may begin to produce a small return if your traffic is high enough.

More importantly, we can benefit from the relaunch of the .tv extension with these new tools because Demand Media will continue to increase the level of exposure the extension needs to reach critical mass. Demand Media can promote .tv on a level that none of us individually or as a group could accomplish on our own and you can bet this is only the first step.

What does all of this mean?

Assuming Rosenblatt is successful, which I believe he will be if he continues to properly execute his strategy, can you imagine what hundreds of thousands of .tv websites powered by me.tv would mean for domainers like us?

Let me give you a hypothetical to understand what this might mean. If my twelve year-old niece who we call the MySpace Queen tells me she launched her first website and that website utilizes the .tv extension, powered by me.tv, I would be ecstatic.

Kids understand the benefits of the Internet over TV and the Internet is essentially becoming the central provider of household and personal entertainment. You can expect more and more media companies to harness the Internet to find new ways to entertain and grow their audiences.

Because kids already know and understand what TV is, they will inherently get the .tv extension. Richard, I think, sees the IM Generation as the drivers of user generated content and most intensive users of the social networking tools available on the Internet. Richard knows that the IM Generation has the power to make or break a new technology or application.

By marketing the .tv concept in this particular fashion, Richard will unlock the inherent value all of us have recognized in the .tv extension before Demand Media existed. Does this mean we are smarter than Rosenblatt? I doubt it, but it does mean that everyone is on the same team and can expect only positive things to come out of Demand Media’s relaunch of the .tv extension.

I must admit that I had my own personal beliefs about what was required not only to reach the masses with .tv, but also to get them to adopt it as their own. Richard is doing this with the launch of me.tv.

While attending this event, I met and interviewed Richard extensively about the relaunch of .tv, looking for answers to the issues not addressed during the panel discussion that took place earlier that evening.

Specifically, I wanted to know what Demand Media planned to do to increase the exposure and promotion of the .tv extension beyond this event and the launch of me.tv. While many might expect a plan to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on television advertising campaigns, I felt this might not be the most successful strategy.

To understand why, it is important to understand who is using the social media features of sites like YouTube and MySpace. It is the IM generation. During the event, a video of a previously recorded interview with two fourteen year old girls and one fourteen year old guy was shown to the audience. The interviewer asked these interviewees to prioritize cards in order of most important to least important to them. The words on the cards included: Ipod, Internet, TIVO, Radio, Personal Computer, and MySpace. Internet and the Personal Computer ranked the highest and this group recognized that the Internet was more fun and versatile than TV; they see the Internet and the Personal Computer as a multi faceted platform that allows people to watch TV, listen to music, watch movies, and play X-Box like games. “You can have two in one,” according to one girl.

The IM Generation spends most of its leisure time on the Internet, communicating more frequently with each other over instant messenger (rather than email) and using social networking tools at a far greater rate than others. Once a critical mass of the IM Generation learns about and takes advantage of the tools provided by me.tv for registered .tv domain names, then I think you will see the inherent value we see in the .tv extension become unlocked.

Imagine hundreds of thousands of people, linking to, talking about, and emailing from .tv domains. That kind of advertising, exposure, and promotion of the .tv extension is invaluable. It is at that point that I envision the .tv extension’s value increasing on a scale larger than it has to date. Once the youth of today embrace the .tv extension and its new free set of tools, they will introduce/share it with the rest of the world.

That is what today’s youth does, they IM, embed, share, and communicate about everything. That is what they did with MySpace. That is what they did with YouTube. And that is what I believe they will do with the new .tv.