As you could probably tell by the lack of new blogs for the last few weeks, I decided to take a break because I wanted to step back and survey the domaining environment without having much if any involvement in it AND I wanted to return with a fresh perspective.  That is not to say that I wasn’t already overwhelmed with the additional consulting and development work I agreed to do for other people.

First things first…

Dot tv (.tv) remains strong and continues to attract new domainers and developers almost daily.  I have seen more advertisements that include a dot tv web address in online videos, television, and print publications than ever before.  Who would have thought that DNJournal’s cover story would include a piece on a domain billionaire who is less known for his speculation in the dot tv extension than he is for his acquisition of 1800dentist.com.

Hartnett continues to add domains today and said he is mostly a value investor, looking to acquire names at prices that represent solid values in the current market. “When I am a buyer I want to buy from people who have to sell, then it helps them as well as me” he said. Hartnett added, “You make your money in domains when you buy them not when you sell them and you do that by buying them at the right price.” Hartnett takes the opposite approach when selling. “Then I ask for a high price because I would rather shoot for the sky and land in the trees than shoot for the trees and land in the mud,” he said.

Though he is basically a value investor Harnett also admits to speculating occasionally, most notably in the .tv extension where he is believed to be the largest private owner of .tv domains in the world. Hartnett owns or co-owns a total of 17,000 .tv names. On the co-owned domains Hartnett works with four partners, one in each of four different verticals.

“They produce almost no revenue whatsoever,” Hartnett said, “but I am attracted to them for several reasons. TV, like the word “global” is the same in most widely used languages around the world so there is instant recognition. There is a convergence of computers and the television set and it is happening faster than anybody thought. I feel that text is going to be on .com while

visual content is going to settle more on .tv. Basically it just supplements and glorifies the existing website. If you have the .com and it is working well, having the .tv is only going to give it a deeper and more vertical integration. Would people rather read the story or watch it? I think ultimately they would rather watch it,” Hartnett said.
“Why can’t we have a .tv site for every product, so I can see a demonstration on how to use it instead of digging through a manual?,” he asked. “Why can’t we have one for every disease, so if I want to learn about ulcerative colitis I can sit there and watch a program about it? It is an educational thing that you can apply to almost every field. I think .tv is a great extension for that.”

When succesful dot com guys begin speculating and taking out large positions in dot tv, then that should tell you something.  Dot tv may have no future, but its potential future is so great that even the successful dot com guys don’t want to make a mistake of not having some investment in the extension in the event it takes off...even if those investments are labeled ‘Pure Speculation.’

It feels good to be back and writing about dot tv and I look forward to writing more.