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VeriSign Buys .tv
Mike Damm writes: "As everyone is so worried about Microsoft these days, another monopoly is slipping through the cracks. VeriSign has paid the country of Tuvalu $45 million in cash for The .TV Corporation, as stated by this press release. Same great service, different obscure TLD!"
You could've hired me.
Didn't anyone tell Verisign that the dot com bubble burst? What? Do they expect to get $10 million a piece from NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX and CNN and run away with a $5 million profit? I don't get it. IIRC, domain speculation has pretty much gone bust too, and this seems to be that...
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Why should it matter to us that Verisign bought the thing in the first place? The only reason you might need to worry is if you feel like the TLD is some sort of hot commmodity that will increase VeriSign's market position. Then, you have to ask yourself if you even care about their market position. ;-) )
Personally, I don't think that the ".tv" domain will make any kind of big splash without a major marketing push. People look for ".com", then ".net", then ".org". Anything beyond those major TLDs rarely crosses the mind of most surfers. Hell, most people (who don't deal with it every day) have to be *reminded* about ".gov", thus the success of www.whitehouse.com (link intentionally left un-linked.
~.Evanrude
I believe that one of the conditions that Tuvalu originally gave Verisign, Network Solutions, or whatever it was called back then, for the right to sell .tv names was that the Tuvalu govt would get some royalties to be put back towards developing Tuvalu's own Internet/IT infrastructure.
Is this $45 million a one time lump sum, and is so, does this mean that Tuvalu itself has completely given up ownership of its domain (so if a Tuvalu company wanted to register, they'd have to go through Verisign like everyone else?)
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
When the country of Tuvalu finally sinks under the sea (which may happen in 50 years, maybe sooner), I hope that ICANN doesn't bow to pressure to let the domain continue after the ISO3166 country code is withdrawn...
:)
I'm rather taken aback that the British parliament recently launched a web site at www.parliamentlive.tv. The home page just says 'live webcasting of parliament' without even mentioning which parliament they broadcast.
I think it would be reasonable to assume that they must be broadcasting the parliament of Tuvalu...
Tuvalu is a democracy. Queen Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch, represented by a governor general, who has mostly ceremonial power. Actual power is in an elected council and prime minister.
Tuvalu is also quite poor; a group of sandy islands with few natural resorces and little industry. The gov't gets much of its money from selling stamps and coins. And now, from selling its TLD for $45 million. Great deal for them, probably.
IIRC, they (Tuvalu) sold the rights to a company that formed the .tv corporation. Verisign looks like they just bought the company, which in theory would mean that Tuvalu got no money from the deal (unless they retained some sort of interest in the company that was formed).
In other news, Microsoft buys .NET TLD from Verisign for 4.5 Billion.
as a few other people have pointed out, Tuvalu is a country of a few small islands and a population of around 11,000. the country has hardly any natural resources, and covers only 26 square kilometers. According to countrywatch, they have no real resources of revenue and have established a trust fund to try to make sure that their country has money to survive into the future. the article at this page says that the country's largest source of revenue is from the .tv domain. their only other real source of revenue (aside from fishing lisc) is a phosphate mine that is going to be depleted this year.
i guess what i am trying to get at is that they arent doing it because some corporation has forced them into doing it, but they did it because they needed the money. domains may not be popular forever and at least they are trying to be self sufficient instead of simply sitting back and relying on others to foot their bills. the US$37M in their trust fund wont last forever. US$45M goes a long way. and they are doing some pretty neat things with it (education for life programs, etc...). ok so it may not be the best way to finance a government, but when its the only one you've got....
"There's a sucker born every minute" -- P. T. Barnum, I believe.
Sometimes I think the reason most smart people don't get rich selling, as you say, crap, to the dummies, is that most smart people can't imagine anyone that stupid. Sadly, such people exist. Frighteningly, they vote.
You could've hired me.
I remember the exact same article. The guy teamed up with them to get exclusive marketing and registration rights to the .tv TLD and he would share the profits with them. I never thought it would fly.
.fm .am out there Fromosia (sp?) and some other place.
There's still
--- RFC 1149 Compliant.
Can you explain why you think that Verisign doesn't have a monopoly on .com domains? They get $6/year on every .com domain registered, regardless of who you're paying.
</SARCASM>