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Certain domain names naturally lend themselves to a particular use. HardDrives.com, for example, is naturally suited to be an e-tailing site that sells hard drives, whereas a site like DenverRestaurants.com would tend towards a directory of restaurants in, yes, Denver. Such natural tendencies are true not just for domain names but for TLDs as well. Case in point: .TV sites, which readily lend themselves to video content, although there are, of course, many .com and .net domains that are equally well suited for video content.
The vast majority of .TV sites remain parked because of the challenge of implementing such sites in a cost-effective, scalable way. The solution: epik | Video.
With the epik | Video platform, we can quickly implement a video domain by building a topic-specific collections of high quality videos gathered from across the Web, most notably from Youtube and Vimeo. These videos can be organized and displayed in subcategories for ease of navigation within the site. For example, baking.tv, a how-to video site for baking enthusiasts, is organized into sections about cookies, muffins, cheesecakes, etc., helping to create a focused experience for the user.
Visitors can browse through the videos, search against keywords, and share particularly useful videos through sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. Videos can also be rated and commented upon.
epik | Video site monetization comes from Adsense- and Shopzilla-style affiliate elements.
How do users benefit from visiting a site like baking.tv that aggregates videos that can be found elsewhere on the web? The keys are curation and selection. Developing a worthwhile video site requires separating the wheat from the chaff. Consider someone interested in videos about the paranormal in general, and of Bigfoot in particular. If they simply visit Youtube, they will certainly find a lot of videos about Bigfoot. Unfortunately, they will also discover numerous videos of Bigfoot video spoofs, user car commercials with salesmen in unconvincing Bigfoot costumes, clips from a bad 1987 movie called Harry and the Hendersons, and a lot of other extraneous or low quality material.
This is where Epik | Video comes in. We don’t simply grab every video available. Rather, we sort through videos from across the Web and remove those that are off-topic, of poor video quality, or otherwise don’t make the cut. The result is a set of high quality, relevant videos that give visitors what they want while saving them time and effort.
Our ability to do this in scale is based on tools we’ve developed that let us search the Web for videos based not only on keywords, but also criteria such as video source, duration, ratings, whether the video is HD or not, and many others. This results in a "short list" from which our operations team selects the best videos for inclusion. This tool, by the way, will be made available in Q1 to domain owners so that they can continually refresh their site content with the newest videos on their own.
For many domainers, epik | Video is an ideal platform for build out a video-centric domain name and/or TLD. However, other domainers may want to explore the serving and monetization of premium video content. For this, we've developed epik | Video Plus and epik | Video Pro.
epik | Video Plus allows site owners to upload video content they create directly onto the site, and to create Premium channels only available through a paid subscription. The cost and limitations of this subscription is determined entirely by the domain owner. To use an analogy, if epik | Video is basic cable, then Video Plus allow the domain owner to create HBO. And, of course, a Video Plus site might offer a mix of free and premium content—it’s all up to you.
We believe that this model makes particular sense for site owners who have not only a domain name but their own original content, for example, self-help videos, yoga lessons, etc. With Premium accounts, these videos can gain a wider audience without having to give them away for free.
Even more interestingly is epik | Video Pro, which gives site owners to ability to sell premium channels to third party owners of content. If, for example, you had a site about skateboarding, you could approach various skateboard manufacturers about having them put up skateboarders performing tricks with their products. It increases their exposure on the Web while providing you with additional, unique video content. And you share any revenue from those videos with your premium channel partners. For those who have the right domain names, Video Pro can help turn your site into a thriving business.
epik | Video is available today. Video Plus and Video Pro will be available in Q1 2011.
