Ex-MySpace chairman, Verisign to promote .tv sites

By Kenneth Li

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The former chairman of MySpace.com is throwing his weight behind the ".tv" domain category, betting that it will gain popularity as more users watch, create and post videos online.

Richard Rosenblatt's Demand Media will unveil on Wednesday a deal with Internet security and dot-com registry VeriSign Inc. (VRSN.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to begin marketing .tv as a preferred Web site domain for online videos, in the same way .org is used for non-profit groups.

Users can begin registering domain names from Demand at ChannelMe.tv on Wednesday.

Rosenblatt's broader plan begins next March, when Demand will provide users with Web software to upload and share homemade videos, grab professional content from licensed sources and blog -- potentially creating their own mini MySpaces.

"Video is becoming more personal," Rosenblatt, chairman and chief executive of Demand, said in an interview. "It's less about the big amorphous Web sites and more about people creating their own channel."

The explosion of video-sharing sites like YouTube, which Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) purchased for $1.65 billion in November, highlight a growing interest in creating and viewing video on the Web.

Santa Monica, California-based Demand hopes users with .tv addresses will link them to pages they have already created on sites like MySpace or YouTube in order to simplify Web addresses that are otherwise hard to remember.

To date, .tv attracts mostly vanity Web sites and the odd Hollywood media site.