Demand Media Launches ME.TV to Give Users Power to Become Masters of Their Own Social Media Domains

By Derek Iwasiuk
DomainInformer.com
May 03, 2007

Demand Media, Inc., the next-generation web media company, introduced on www.me.tv the first integrated suite of proprietary social media tools that allows anyone to own, program, and share his or her own personal video-centric website with social networking features completely controlled by them. These tools will be provided free with the purchase of a .TV domain name at www.me.tv or through an eNom reseller. eNom, a Demand Media company, is one of the largest domain registrars in the world and hosts the ME.TV network.

“As social media and web based video reaches a broader audience, users will seek simple integrated tools that empower them to develop their own ‘video’ web presence,” said Demand Media co-founder and CEO, Richard Rosenblatt. “With ME.TV every user can ‘stake claim’ to their own piece of Internet real estate and participate in the next evolution of Internet media. Broad based adoption requires simple, powerful, and affordable tools and we believe we have done that with ME.TV.”

The platform was unveiled last night to an audience of hundreds of leaders from the technology, new media and traditional entertainment industries during the keynote presentation of AlwaysOn Hollywood. As the online user’s experience becomes more personal and community focused, the desire to build one’s own space and control one’s own social network has increased. Additionally, the proliferation of video content on the web continues to explode with millions of users creating, viewing and sharing video content. With these behavioral shifts in place, Demand Media is focused on transforming .TV into a major extension that surfers will recognize as the place to find video content.

“For the entertainment industry, I believe content creators of all sorts are now empowered to create their own media hub,” said Carson Daly, host of NBC’s Last Call with Carson Daly, who launched his .TV site, www.carsondaly.tv with the ME.TV tools and joined Richard Rosenblatt on stage during the AlwaysOn keynote. “The sky is the limit. New creativity is discovered every day online using tools and technology that give the power to the people, so there really is no stopping how talent can reach out and connect directly with their audience.”

ME.TV Channel Template features include:

• Channel Builder: Seamlessly integrated with a .TV purchase, users can create a full-functioning video-centric website “Channel”, including a choice of pre-designed themes and easy-to-use video management tools.
• Grab It® Bookmarklet: Users can browse top video sites and with a single click “grab” embed code and links for their favorite videos, allowing for quick and easy programming of their own .TV Channels. All “grabbed” video links are displayed live in the user’s .TV content archive, which can then be used to create custom playlists.
• Social Networking Tools: Each .TV Channel is its own social networking site, featuring private or public profiles, blogs, message boards, on-site messaging, user ratings, favorites, friends lists, comments, and photo albums.

In December of last year, Demand Media announced a strategic alliance with VeriSign, Inc., to leverage Demand Media's new media platform, industry relationships and web 2.0 expertise to increase .TV registrations. Verisign manages the underlying domain name registry for .TV including the back end operations and management.