I predict that the business of domain leasing will grow significantly in the next few years as more domain owners choose to delay capturing a domain name’s appreciation.  It is an area of specific interest to me because I do not foresee capturing the value of some keyword generic .tv names in my portfolio for a few years. 

In its basic form, domain leasing involves a periodic or fixed payment ("Lease Payment") made by the person leasing the name (the “Lessee") to the domain owner (the “Lessor") for a specific time period (the “Lease Term"). 

During and for the length of the Lease Term…

Did you play Monopoly when you were a kid? 

Did you play it alot?

Do you remember how you felt initially about buying Boardwalk (Mayfair) and Park Place (Park Lane)?

They were too expensive, right? 

Big news Adapt.tv raised $10M and prepares to release new ad technology that would allow them to insert overly ads onto streaming video clips, and has begun experimenting with this ad technology with Metacafe, according to Beet.tv.

What are overlay ads?

The ads are “akin to the banners you see running at the bottom of a news or sports TV program—although the ads don’t stay in place throughout the entire clip. An example is below. These overlays are not intrusive and they provide a hyplerlink where users can click onto a sponsor and then come back to the clip.”

Why does this matter?

Well, their tehnology will give the little guys (a.k.a. narrowcasters; i.e. not youtube, google, brightcove,etc) the ability to monetize the video content they create, giving them another revenue stream they did not have.  Many .tv developers (and potential video site developers) may feel more confident about tackling the costs of video production because they know they can monetize their content in this way.

What is the revenue split?

“The company shares revenue on the basis of the yield of the ads, and the revenue split is 70/30.”

Check out the interview Beet.tv did with Sean Behr, VP of Adap.tv, on the jump…

Frank Schilling, domain guru, made a perceptive remark in his blog worth noting here, “The name drives the value and sells the deal.”

Recently, it was announced that Dictionary.com was acquired for $100 million.  In his blog, Frank implicitly argued that the Dictionary.com business would be worth significantly less had the domain name been DictionaryWeb.net.

Before James left AllThings.tv, he conducted an interview with Quinn Daly, VP of marketing and communications at Demand Media.  The interview was recently cleared for publication. 

In this interview, James digs into the product development plans related to Me.tv, seeks some serious answers to the premium name pricing issues raised in recent weeks, and inquires about the marketing of the .tv extension. 

I look forward to a follow-up interview with Quinn so please feel free to post any follow-up questions you might have and I will be sure to share those with Quinn during that interview.

Text of the interview can be found on the jump.

To follow up on Kevin’s excellent article on the harsh realities facing those of us looking to develop a .tv site, I would like to add the following: Any .tv site that does not include a tv channel, will not only lack the content punch it needs to knock its stronger .com cousin off its perch, but will also, add to the number of developed .tv sites lacking a tv channel.

This hampers the .tv brand and thus the upwards pricing momentum of the .tv extension.

So let me first get the hypocrisy out the way!

We at Allthings.tv do not yet have our own channel that we make use of on a weekly or even monthly basis. We have been fortunate enough to have been able to cover the Always On conference, but short of that (without minimizing Kevin and Claude’s superb efforts) we have not yet featured any more of our own video content on Allthings.tv.

I have had the unique privilege to talk with a variety of people that span the .tv spectrum from those who know nothing about the .tv extension to those who are building extensive online .tv properties.  The reality is that there are quite a few people who straddle the middle ground...they GET why .tv IS the future, they invested in it, but they lack the experience or funds to develop the site or hire professionals to develop it for them.

There seem to be an infinite number of opportunities for someone looking to develop a .tv site, including but definitely not limited to launching a me.tv channel, buying and developing a script of a YouTube clone, or launching a site offering professionally created content.  Given the wide variety of options available, how does one choose which way to go when it seems like a forest out there?

The answer is…

Yes, we have all heard stories of people getting discovered on You Tube. But the odds of it happening to you, given the vastness of the site and the sheer number of videos being uploaded on a daily basis, are slim indeed.

Throw in all that spam advertising to the mix and it’s a jungle out there.

That is the one huge advantage of having a Me.tv site. Your very own address. Your ocean of calm as opposed to the chaos that is the shared You Tube mega complex.

You not only have your own address, but you also have tools that have been designed to turn the pro internet surfer into an amateur web designer.