As Online Video Surges, the .TV Domain Rides the Wave

Amazon said it would pay $1.1 billion for a website that streams people playing video games. The website is called Twitch -- but its address is not Twitch.com, but Twitch.tv. It’s a distinction easily overlooked, but one that highlights an inexorable shift in how people -- especially young people -- consume video. Today, as video is watched on smartphones and laptops rather than on living room couches, the .tv suffix -- owned, improbably, by the tiny South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu -- has become for some companies a chance to signal that they are showing video the way people are increasingly used to seeing it.