A common misconception in the industry, partly due to the brilliant world of marketing, is that some domain name extensions are or were meant to be used or associated with some technological item. I.E dotWS is known as dotWEBSITE and dotTV is known as dotTELEVISION. But the truth of the matter is they aren’t. They actually are associated with regions. dotWS is for Western Samoa, while dotTV is for Tuvalu. Wow, that is amazing, isn’t it?

Now that doesn’t mean you should go and dump your dotWS or dotTV extension. Registrars and service providers are not going to stop marketing these any differently. The fact is, perception has become reality for many. If you mention a dotTV URL to someone they will likely automatically assume it is a video or tv related site.

The misconception means great things financially for the extension and the nation of Tuvalu. The Tuvalu government receives a quarterly payment of US$1,000,000 for use of the top-level domain. They don’t even have to worry about the technology behind providing the extension, they have licensed that out. The domain is currently operated by dotTV, a VeriSign company.

Of all of the extensions there are to choose from these days, with the rise of user generated video sites, dotTV is one of my favorite extensions.