Many dot tv enthusiasts argue that the number one thing that the dot tv extension can benefit from most is a commercial on broadcast television or Verisign’s doing away with the premium pricing structure, but I believe the dot tv extension can benefit more from a general increase in the number of those interested in buying, selling, and developing domain names.

As the stock market and real estate markets (traditional sources for investment) fail to generate returns,…

...investors and average families will continue to search for reliable non-traditional investments to add to their investment portfolios.  In the past, investment in domain names wasn’t reliable or mainstream and the general population simply didn’t get the business model, but everyone is waking up to this industry as more and more domain name stories or website success stories are reported by the mainstream media in newspapers, magazines, and television networks.  For example, its the articles in prominet newspapers like this one that will continue to raise awareness of the lucrative domain industry: Coins in the new realm

“These names will pay for themselves within two years,” Mr. Buck said, as he sat in the ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel with a business partner who wore an identical gray suit and shirt with the company logo. “The world is only now beginning to discover how important it is to have these assets.”

For the first time, people outside the traditionally insular and sometimes underground world of domainers, as they call themselves, might agree with him.

The practitioners’ fundamental assertion — that names of Web sites can be valuable, cash-generating assets just like stocks, bonds or property — appears to be gaining a broader acceptance that veteran domainers are not accustomed to and may not be totally comfortable with.”

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As a result, over the last few months, private equity and venture capital firms have poured money into the largest companies in the field. Last year, Demand Media and Oversee.net, two companies based in Los Angeles that own hundreds of thousands of domain names each and offer hosting and advertising services to other domainers, raised nearly $400 million from investors.

“We think this is definitely a legitimate industry and a legitimate business,” said Robert L. Morse Jr., a partner at Oak Hill Capital Partners, which invested in both companies and is backed by the Bass oil family of Texas. “As with many early-stage markets, it is going through a transformation to professionalism.”

Investors are so confident in the growth of online advertising — and the ability of domainers to capitalize on that trend — that they plan to soon start selling shares of domain-name companies to the public, even in today’s volatile market. Last September, NameMedia, a company based in Waltham, Mass., which has a huge portfolio of generic domain names, filed to go public on the Nasdaq stock market.

“This industry could probably be an oasis, in the grand scheme of things, relative to the rest of the economy,” said David Liu, managing director at Jefferies & Company, one of the firms underwriting the offering.

And videos like this:

When it comes to the dot tv extension, domainers have mixed opinions.  Many experienced domainers (those in the business 3 years or more) rank the extension low on their totem pole of valuable domain name extensions or extensions that represent good investments.  Meanwhile, it seems that domainers with less experience (and those just entering the business) feel the extension has some serious promise.

That should be no surprise either since we are slowly moving out of the dot com era, which really represents the period when everyone was just beginning to learn about what the web was about and what it meant to us as a society.  Now that everyone knows and understands how to surf the Internet, buy things online, and sees the power of video on the Internet (e.g. YouTube and Google’s acquisition of that website), it is becoming more apparent that the public’s IQ related to domain name extensions is also increasing and so the dot tv extension is poised to do well.

What is even more persuasive although anecdotal evidence of this trend is that today’s youth instantly recognize the power and value of a dot tv name over a dot com name when it relates to video:

“When I asked my daughter what she thought of .tv (dot tv) or .com (dot com) for a video site, she asked me why on earth would I use .com (dot com).” (Paraphrased from a NamePros post).

What is the moral of the story?  Fresh blood in this industry will get .tv before the old blood decide to change its perspective on this domain extension.  Thus, as the domain industry is filled with fresh blood, the demand for dot tv domain names and the exposure of the extension will grow by leaps and bounds!

I will leave you with what I say all the time...if the Internet started today, what extension would you buy?  Anybody that suggests that any other extension than dot tv should be used for a video site isn’t being honest or has an agenda.