Dot TV Domain Names: Are they ready for prime-time?

For starters, dot TV is technically the internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, which in the earlier part of this decade entered into an arrangement with a worldwide corporate entity with US headquarters at Mountain View, CA (dot TV, a VeriSign company), to advance the domain extension while having an agreed-upon percentage share. And given the association of the acronym TV with television and the apparent trend towards convergence between TV and the internet, this has served as a rationale for the natural usage of the extension by new media-rich websites.

A search of the internet will show that there are established personalities and corporations or organizations that have embraced the idea of and the inherent value of a dot TV domain name or website as part of their online presence. Examples include Mercedes Benz (developed site at mercedes-benz.tv), Audi (developed site at audi.tv), BMW (bmw.tv to date redirects to bmw.de), the National Basketball Association (nba.com redirects to nba.com), Major League Baseball (mlb.tv redircts to mlb.mlb.com), Oprah Winfrey with her own.tv (for Oprah Winfrey Network which redirects to health.discovery.com/own, and "indie" sites such as tvphilippines.tv and tvthai.tv. Whatever the phase of development, the point is the wisdom of having a dot TV domain name either as a supplement or as a stand-alone part of web presence is being recognized.

But are the dot tv domain names and the dot TV extension itself really ready for prime-time? The biggest proof of the pudding is awareness by the majority of internet users themselves. When searching, do they use dot TV domain names or sometimes also use the hybrid dot tv.com domain name instead? Or do they still confuse the dot TV domain name and append the word com to the dot TV domain name? In perspective, a most appropriate graphical description of the role of the dot tv extension and dot tv domain names would be: "If the dot com is Main Street, then dot TV is the superhighway that bypasses downtown but complements the delivery of information and services for the internet audience."

As in the real world, domain names may be seen as virtual real estate properties on the internet. Getting pertinent or premium domain names can mean the difference in the direction of your organization or planned business or business model. Domain names are key as they serve as one of the building blocks in building websites. If one is interested in buying their own dot TV domain names, there are several resources, including godaddy.com (which is famous for its Super Bowl commercials), channelme.tv, and enomcentral.com.

The important thing is to have the domain name. For it can be said, that in essence when it comes to the web, "action (or most everything) starts with the great domain name."