If you are allergic to .mobi let me tell you how silly it is as a businessman. If you sell black shoes and black shoes sell well because they are the primary color, don’t think you are a prisoner to black. One day the BROWN shoe comes out. It will never sell scream all the black shoe salesman. Meanwhile the brown shows are selling very well and the profit margins are pretty good. But you are a BLACK shoe salesman. That BROWN shoe is for idiots that know nothing about fashion!! Meanwhile folks are making money selling the BROWN shoes for whatever reason and they are taking some of the market from the black shoe guys. (And frankly who cares their reason because the reality trumps everything else)
Nobody is forcing the BLACK shoe salesman to sell BROWN shoes. But the BLACK shoe salesman has had a knee jerk reaction to BROWN shoes without looking at the other side. The BROWN show salesman are not any smarter. They just do the same thing in reverse. It adds up to a big fat missed opportunity by BOTH sides.
Rick and I are good friends, part of it is because we agree on allot of things but also, a bigger part of it is we’re frank with each other and disagree on many issues as well. So Rick, don’t take this personal (I know you won’t!) 
.Mobi sucks. That is plan and simple. Rick can tell you all day long about the black or brown shoes and that you should sell both if there’s money in both, but while there may be money in both, it is your DUTY to question what is going on. Frank rightfully stated few days ago he questions the validity of .Mobi sales. Yesterday Jay at DomainTools Blog also raises some important questions ,and word is Greg M. of Webmagic, one of the three heavyweights in the first .Mobi auction, is dumping and taking losses (see comment area here). How promising is that?
Here’s another question to ask yourself: What is the story of .mobi? How did it start? Why did it start? It really goes back to a “crowd mentality” issue and other interests you likely do not know about, will never know. There’s this saying “Assumptions is the mother of all f#$^#@s”. If you cannot understand the investment, my advice is to stay out of it. In professional boxing, unless you’re Leland Hardy, it is better to watch from the sidelines then be in the ring. The boxer may win big, but he also may get injured badly. In investments I do believe in taking calculated risks but I don’t believe in “risky investments”.
I do a big favor to .Mobi that I’m even talking about them. Trust me, I know that, they should pay me for this. Even though my take is negative it keeps them in the limelight. Knowing that, I do hope you read the essence of what I write rather then simply the topic, as I really try to help you out.
The bottom line is you should question this thing and question hard, before putting a penny in it. When I look at .Mobi all I’m seeing is smoke and mirrors. Yes, in five years time it may work and be the best thing the world has ever seen, but from where I stand right now, the chances of this to happen are just as good as .Com will end in five years.
Just had my Sunday breakfast, and thought a verbal “food fight” was a good idea. Let’s face it: Domain name purchases are going to be speculative, and that is especially the case when it comes to investing in a new TLD. As I understood it at TRAFFIC ‘06, the .mobi extension was going to include new standards for transiting data via wireless … well, if the industry has caught up with it, or it never does, is something at which we can only guess.
Let’s take this analogy of the brown vs. black shoes … I like it, because while the other guys are fighting, I’ll be selling snakeskin and alligator. Because it’s a niche market, I have the potential to make even more money. Of course, niche markets also tend to be the riskiest … but the greatest profit lay there.
Let’s examine the other potential that investors hate: Waiting … waiting is something that should only be done if you can afford it. If you can’t afford to wait, you shouldn’t invest. .mobi is, from the perspecive of a layman, a long-term investment. Long-term in the domain world is about 5 years.
So … it’s only been a year since TRAFFIC ‘06 … and it’s going to take time for .mobi. If you can’t afford to lead … at least follow with grace. Amen.
Dot com is king and always will be but I see a place on the net for dot mobi and cc domain names, the www is a very large place with room for all players big and small.
—-ANSWER—-
Fair enough, I do too. And by the way, .com may not be king forever, it is for now though. Things do change.
Sahar
“I do a big favor to .Mobi that I’m even talking about them.”
Could you be any more pompous?
Sahar,
If .mobi is so terrible and “sucks,” Sahar, why is ESPN marketing ESPN.mobi?
Why is the largest U.S. bank, Bank of America advertising BOFA.mobi via commercials and throughout their branches?
Sahar, why is TBS.mobi advertised and showing video from various shows on their mobile platform?
Why is NBC readying to launch their corporate .mobi site?
Why is PartyPoker.mobi ready to launch a full-marketing campaign with the PartyPoker brand?
Why is Disney advertising their High School Musical brand around the world using HSM2.mobi via commercials?
Sahar, why is Skype & Three marketing 3Skype.mobi?
Why is Smirnoff.mobi showcased at my local liquor store and at clubs around the world?
Why is Ford marketing .mobi?
Sahar, why are thousands and thousands of BIG and small brands launching and marketing dotMobi sites?
Why did the founders of .mobi hire the Edelman Agency, the most prestigious Madison-Avenue Advertising Agency in the world to advance the dotMobi namespace? (BTW- their clients include UPS, Microsoft, GE, Samsung, MySpace, and many others)
Why have we seen several $xx,xxx and $xxx,xxx dotMobi sales occur within the last year.
Because of the .mobi global reach, I’ve been increasingly experiencing a good amount of type-in traffic.
Sahar, dotMobi is only 14 months old.
How old is .com, .net, .org?? 15-20 years old!
Why is Google promoting .mobi on Google.com?
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=72462
Sahar, dotcom is king, BUT dotMobi is increasingly becoming the most successful, accomplished extension to emerge since dotcom.
Learn it. Love it. Live it.
Sahar, keep talking down the dotMobi market and keep buying your Premium dotMobi domains under the radar.
With Respect,
-Anthony
—-ANSWER—-
“Sahar, keep talking down the dotMobi market and keep buying your Premium dotMobi domains under the radar.” - Would you like me to not approve your comments here? If you cannot back up your accusations please keep them to yourself. I have no problem with everything you say about .Mobi, but keep me out of it, unless you can back it up somehow.
As for me, I do not own a single .mobi domain, never have. In addition, our corporate portfolio for the most part (I would say 99.99%) is .com domains and it isn’t because there aren’t other opportunities out there with ccTLD’s or other extensions, just our preference.
Sahar
Hi,
This is such a great post…I do not even know where to start.
I for one am trying to get out of the ‘camp’ of saying anything ’sucks’ …especially when it comes to the domain and online marketing world…things can change so fast in this industry/world… it can make you look like…you know.
There are simply…good ideas and bad ideas…. bad moves and good moves…we all have/made them and are going to have/make them in the future.
But with regards to this specific subject (.mobi), I think maybe the most important part of this post for people considering investing any sort of ‘real money’ in the space…is this quote from Sahar.
___
“”Here’s another question to ask yourself: What is the story of .mobi? How did it start? Why did it start? It really goes back to a “crowd mentality”?” issue and other interests you likely do not know about, will never know.”"
___
As with anything…only time will tell.
I do wish everyone who is or will be investing in this space, much success…really. Just make sure you arm yourself with all the current information about this extension before investing…and a good place to start is the quote from above.
Peace!
Dan
The black shoe/brown shoe analogy doesn’t really hold, because in this case the value of “black shoes” (.coms) are entirely dependent on the perceived scarcity of black shoes. A better analogy would be a diamond cartel like De Beers that is threatened by the opening of a new mine. If new TLDs take off, the value of .coms declines.
Sahar asks:
What is the story of .mobi?
How did it start?
Why did it start?
Here is the story of dotMobi
Date — Milestones:
2000 .mobi Top Level Domain first conceived within Nokia
November 2003 Nokia invites Microsoft and Vodafone to join discussions
December 2003 Nokia signs agreement with Microsoft and Vodafone
February 2004 Founders invite other companies to join dotmobi initiative
March 2004 10 companies agree to join; dotmobi consortium formed
March 2004 .mobi Top Level Domain application submitted to ICANN
July 2005 ICANN approve .mobi contract; dotMobi (mTLD) appointed as global registry for .mobi
July 2005 dotMobi inaugural board meeting
Jan 2006 dotMobi opens Dublin Headquarters
May 2006 dotMobi launches Limited Industry Sunrise, drawing registrations from hundreds of blue chip companies
June 2006 dotMobi Launches Trademark Sunrise, with thousands of trademark names registered in the first hour of launch
Sept 2006 dotMobi closes Trademark Sunrise with more than 13,000 trademark names registered. A few days later, dotMobi successfully launches its General Registration period with a two-week Landrush
Sahar’s audience can learn more at http://www.mtld.mobi and then decide for themselves…
Here is a very simple exercise to show Sahar’s readers:
Everyone break out your web-enabled mobile phones. Ok, now go to ESPN.com and count how many seconds that dam site takes to load. Look at all the freakin content (I don’t have time to read all this minutia!!) Ok. Then go to ESPN.mobi And, now count how many seconds it takes to load….Very nice, as you can see ESPN.mobi is a stripped down version(just headlines and scores…simple)
And, here is the dotMobi Board of Directors:
Company Director
Ericsson Mr. Hans OVESEN
Google Mr. Dilip VENTAKACHARI
GSM Association Mr. Ben SOPPITT
Hutchison (3) Mr. Christian SALBAING
Microsoft Mr. Matt CHAMPAGNE
Nokia Mr. Timo SKYTTA
Orascom Telecom Mr. Khaled BICHARA
Samsung Electronics Mr. Do Hun KWON
Syniverse Technologies Mr. Jerry EASOM (Chairman)
Telefonica Móviles Mr. Luis Jorge ROMERO
TIM (Telecom Italia) Mr. Gaetano LIGGIERI
T-Mobile Mr. Normen B. KOWALEWSKI
Visa International Mr. Patrick GAUTHIER
Vodafone Mr. Reinhard KREFT
—-ANSWER—-
Thanks for posting that, you are right. This is PART of the story, before they started to command the prices they command now. The shift in pricing was because of TRAFFIC 06 auction. Check out .mobi sales history.
Sahar
As a regular but as of now silent reader of your blog I think this is a topic that eventually requires some action from my side. Please apologize for any typos in this comment, but although living in Ireland for a while now I’m a german national and so posting without making mistakes in English is still a bit of a hassle. So let’s start.
I think the whole .mobi-topic would never have been able to gather that much attention if none of the arguments of the supporters would hold true.
In fact I think some of the assumptions made by dotmobi and the domain investors are important and correct. The idea to set up a standard, that enables mobile devices with a given specification to correctly display webpages that have been designed accordingly seems to be a good idea. Although this “given specification” basically means a very limited screen resolution of 320×240 pixels and the inability to process many common scripting methods, the standard should help to fully use the remaining capacity of these handsets without pushing it and ultimately producing errors resulting in frustrated users. So far, so good. But read on.
Starting from here the second step, i.e. labeling all these pages consistently as “adapted for mobile devices” by using a specific mobile-tld seems to be a logical as well as consequent conclusion, although I still think .mobi is not really a good name for a tld and .mob oder even .mobile would have been much better. But anyway, now we have a new standard and, based on that standard a new descriptive .tld (and probably some more than happy people sitting at the registry and selling heaps of domains at exorbitant prices). Then we have some manufacturers of handsets in the same boat, who may now hope for rising sales numbers for their already developed devices (you know, the handsets with the limited capabilities mentioned above…). And last but not least we have some domain speculators who have already been throwing big money on the table (and massively helped the registry promoting the new tld by doing so) and who are now hoping for even bigger money. Great, everybody should be happy. Or did I miss something?
Yes, unfortunately I did. The party is not complete yet. There a two more groups of players in the big game that nobody seems to care about. First and without any doubt most important: the average internet user. It is he (as well as you and me) who is and has always been fuelling the growth of the internet as a whole by forking out his time and hard earned money viewing and buying stuff online. It is not the adwords advertiser that runs google, it is the customer who buys the goods and ultimately pays both the advertiser and google (and of course he pays for your page too, if you use adsense…). Same for any other example of a commercial page. But has anybody ever asked the average user whether he (or she) is interested in mobile internet? Okay, point to you, probaby some of us have been asked. And I freely admit I would be interested in being able to conveniently browse the net more often and at more places when I’m out and about. But here comes a really tricky question: Why did some companies then assume that “mobile internet” should mean deciphering crippled pages made of restricted code on a tiny display?
I surely would buy and use a device which enables me to access the internet while waiting for the bus or sitting in the park, but only when and if it gives me the opportunity to browse exactly the parts of the net I want to see and I am used to see. There is probably only a handful of pages I really need for my daily life, but it would nevertheless be quite important for me not to be blocked from visiting them by some unfortunate design faults of my mobile phone or whatever device I might be using. It would be completely pointless for me to know that there are some pages I might visit if only I wanted to. By the way, I think there are some pages I could visit even using my rather vintage nokia handset. I never did though and I probably never will, because these pages are not important for me.
So we have to face it: promoting a standard that confines the almighty user to a very limited number of pages which he does not care about and simultaneously blocks him from visiting the internet space he is familiar with will definitely not work. To use the comparison proposed by Rick: it is absolutely pointless to offer black or brown or whatever shoes to a customer who is looking for a bicycle. Don’t ask the phone manufacturers, don’t ask the domain speculators, don’t ask the registry (by the way: can you find any difference between the last two groups? I can’t…).
Ask the user instead. But beware: “do you want a mobile internet?” is the wrong question. Please ask: “do you want to be able to browse the websites you like most whenever you like, no matter where you are - or do you rather want limited access to a small number of crippled pages?”
The answer is a no-brainer.
But that’s not all. I mentioned a second group that has not shown up at the big party. I think this is the most important message I have.
We all - as domainers, web developers, or simply web users - should not help promoting a new development that might turn out to be quite bad for all parties in the long term. The time we all have is limited. This applies to our lifetime but can of course be broken down to every day, every hour and ultimately every minute we have to spend. So if one decides to spend even a small part of his precious time browsing the net this is good for us. If more people browse the internet or start spending more time doing so it is even better. So here one final time dotmobi proves to be right: if more people were enabled to make a better use of their time it would be a great thing. When one could browse the net instead of simply sitting and waiting for who- or whatever this would be great news for us all.
And here comes our part: it is our duty to make every precious minute spent in the internet a pleasure for our visitors. This is the only way to make them and their friends and families come back for more. We can do this by developing great websites (with great names of course) that deliver what our customers want. And with all our might and power we can steer the course the net is likely to take for the years to come. I assume there really is a strong demand for mobile internet access, and again: this is good for us. A huge potential of visitors to our pages is waiting. But this potential obviously cannot be utilized properly with the standards set by dotmobi and the phone manufacturers. The mistake of .mobi is that it has drawn some right conclusions, but it unfortunately started from a wrong premise. So the final result might lead to quite negative consequences and a loss of precious time for the further development of the internet. To make it quite clear: every user spending only a single minute on any artificially crippled .mobi-page represents a lost potential, because he is not likely to enjoy what he does, and this will significantly reduce the amount of time and effort he is going to spend in the internet as a whole afterwards. As I said before: to make a user come back the browsing experience must be enjoyable. In contrast: Would he spend more time on the pages he likes and is familiar with, when he could browse them with all the scripts working and in an acceptable resolution? I think he would.
The downside is: after a couple of bad experiences with the restricted mobile internet which is promoted by dotmobi a user is probably much less likely to invest again in new hardware and so less likely to go “mobile” again, but this time with the real internet.
So the number of users and the time spent online will not be increased by .mobi as much as possible, infact this standard will very likely be slowing down the growth of mobile internet usage. That’s bad news.
So I ask you: why should we allow the huge potential of mobile users to be limited in terms of time spent online by a bad browsing experience and kept away from our existing pages, when we want to show our sites to the users and the users want to see them? Only because some handset manufacturers have decided that a small display which makes browsing feel like reading a newspaper through a keyhole is the best they are willing to offer? Or maybe because some people (although very clever people, that I must admit) want to sell domain names that need to bring an unfortunate standard full of restrictions and confinements with them to constitute their right to exist? No way.
We have to recall that the “mobile internet” the way dotmobi proposes is one option, but there are others. Have a look at mobile phones that are available right now. I will not mention any brands or models, but you will find them easily. If one want’s to go online mobile - but with the experience of the real internet - there is enough hardware available. Right here, right now. Don’t let dotmobi persuade you or - even more importantly - your visitors that there is a need for a new standard. There is no such thing. Don’t build a .mobi-page, it could be used to deceive your visitors that there is a real supply of websites. It is not. And don’t be afraid that you might lose visitors to .mobi-pages when you don’t jump the bandwagon. Those few who try will be back soon.
And finally: If you want to “go mobile” yourself than be sure to buy a handset which is capable of showing you the real thing on a real display. It is good for you and it will show the manufacturers where the demand (and the money) is.
I’m absolutely sure .mobi will have disappeared from the headlines very soon, the alternatives are too good and the customers know exactly what they want.
But please take care that dotmobi doesn’t cause to much damage on their way…
Best regards from Ireland,
Holger
—-ANSWER—-
Hi Holger, and thanks for that.
Great read and absolutely right. In terms of new standards for mobile surfing, there simply is no need for this. Before .Mobi came out I was poinitng people to this device mentioning the future of mobile surfing is really complete pages in the palm of their hands. iPhone and other devices made it a reality much sooner.
Sahar
“Mobi sucks.”
You sure spend a lot of time talking about something that sucks. It begs the question, why?
What has .mobi done to you? What are you afraid of? What do you lose if mobi continues to gain?
What’s plain and simple to me is a lot of people who didn’t invest early in mobi are surprised with its stellar success in one year. Some are choosing to reassess and examine how they want to get involved while others deny the progress, proclaim how bad it sucks and set up red herrings.
I’m not sure what smoke and mirrors you are referring to, I see a well planned out extension with a specific purpose. I see a registry that is providing tools to help developers enter the mobile web space. I see solid sales. I see developers earning real money from their .mobi websites. I see major corporations launching .mobi websites and promoting them. How on earth that is smoke and mirrors is beyond my understanding.
Sahar, is this true? Did you say this in one of your blogs?
Sahar talked about these Mobi names on his blog and had this to say about the Mobi buyers in the summer auction:
“The only one who I believe knew what he was doing, in my humble opinion, is Rick Schwartz. Rick knew very well his purchase was a long shot and took his chances, but it wasn’t as much based on .Mobi as it was circumstantial. The rest of the story about this I cannot disclose, but maybe Rick will one day, maybe he won’t.”?
The reason I asked, is I have never been to your site or blog.
But tonight I read this:
“Sahar, keep talking down the dotMobi market and keep buying your Premium dotMobi domains under the radar.”? - Would you like me to not approve your comments here? If you cannot back up your accusations please keep them to yourself. I have no problem with everything you say about .Mobi, but keep me out of it, unless you can back it up somehow.
Can you explain why, if the first alleged quote is by you, then there is a second set of standards applied to this reader?
“I have no problem with everything you say about .Mobi, but keep me out of it…”
Seems like you are in it.
Everyone is ignoring a change that happened this year that kills .mobi: Full version of Safari on iPhone. You don’t need a mobile browser when you have larger screens and a real browser which every handset maker is working frantically to implement.
It doesn’t matter who is behind this, it’s dead. Ask any iPhone user- the groundbreaking aspect of this device is the wifi access, great screen and real browser.
.mobi buying is fine as long as it is viewed as pure speculation rather than a long term portfolio strategy. If you are a daytrader-type willing to speculate in worthless stocks because they are temporarily hot no problem- do your trading. But remember, when these things go down in flames they go fast.
The brown shoes analogy is simply wrong, IMHO. I think its more like leather shoes (dot coms) vs. trendy paper shoes (.mobi). One will last a lifetime, the other dissolves in the first rainstorm…
Interesting thread and replies, very informative. I have other interests than .mobi, but I do believe that investing in this extension is a calculated, limited risk if you hold to the core domains that are likely to be successful in any extension.
“The bottom line is you should question this thing and question hard, before putting a penny in it. When I look at .Mobi all I’m seeing is smoke and mirrors. Yes, in five years time it may work and be the best thing the world has ever seen, but from where I stand right now, the chances of this to happen are just as good as .Com will end in five years.”
*It is somewhat agreed that .mobi investors are very pleased with the extent that the extension has been embraced only just a year into its lifespan. It is in infancy still and adopted and developed by many of the world’s top companies - and that is just the beginning. I think its a very positive (and bullish) point you make for .mobi investment if its chances of being best and/or as good as .com in five years time are viable. Can you even predict that about another extension by the way with a straight face??
“As for me, I do not own a single .mobi domain, never have.”
*I see you stopped short of never will, and we welcome new mobi’ers if and when you do. Perhaps in five years then.
I’ve never been able to understand the extreme reaction of the .mobi investors. Put up one negative comment on any of the forums about .mobi, and within 10 minutes, you’re being killed, literally, by dozens of abusive comments.
I understand that people have invested in .mobi and would really like to see it succeed. But why the hostility? If you invested all your money completely in .mobi believing it’ll be a great success someday (and there are tons of people like these), then frankly, you’re just plain stupid. If you were smart, you would’ve spread your investments around, concentrated on a portfolio composed of primarily .com names, with the rest divided between ccTLDs, .net, .org, .info and .mobi.
The .tv people are cool. The ccTLD people are cool. The .net people are cool.
But the .mobi people are really just violent sociopaths venting their rage at anyone who says one thing against their holy TLD. At any of the forums, the .mobi section is full of cheerleading comments: “So and So said that mobile internet is the next big thing! OMG! .mobi will be so big!”
On the internet, I guess, the .mobi people are the equivalent of hardline Islamists, ready to bomb anybody who disagrees with them.
Regards,
Sasha
—-Answer—-
True that, however, we’ve seen it before with .eu, some speculators with .info, some with .us, and definitely .tv
Today it is .mobi, tomorrow it is .asia. Everybody wants to be the next .com success story but what to do if chances are slim? A while ago I wrote a post called “Carnegie Says “No”? To New Domain Extensions” (great comments there by the way) and in it, I quoted Carnegie words “One will win, but many lose“. Due to recent events, IDN speculators *may* be that one to win, but .mobi, .asia, .travel, etc, are imho, the “many” that lose.
Sahar
Sasha,
You are being intellectually dishonest.
The .mobiphobics have been pouring their ill-will and hatred into .mobi since Day 1.
Sasha, if someone is punching you, you have to punch them back.
Just because you watch an abused person(.mobi investors/developers) strike back at their abuser(.mobiphobics) does not mean the abused person(.mobi investors/developers) is guilty. The .mobi investors are only defending their property.
Day after day the .mobi antagonists have waged war against the mTLD.
I have received several mean spirited, threatening PM’s just for simply posting news with respect to the dotMobi namespace.
IMO… Many holding .net, .org, .info property feel very threatened by MOBI, the new, accomplished, popular kid on the block. So in turn, they (the anti-mobi group) collectively lash out and kick sand around(rumormonger, bad-mouth) to blur the truth about the new, accomplished, popular guy, MOBI.
I hear the phrases “smoke and mirrors,” “not needed” parroted around to describe dotMobi.
Question: How can those statements be true when the following Facts exist only 14 months after dotMobi was born?:
1.) Major endusers are developing, promoting and/or marketing their brands using the .mobi extension:
Banking:
BofA.mobi (Bank of America)
Deutsche-Bank.mobi
Wachovia.mobi
Barclays.mobi
Insurance:
Ing.mobi
StateFarm.mobi
AXA.mobi
Hotels:
Marriott.mobi
Hilton.mobi
Car Manufacturers:
Ferrari.mobi
BMW.mobi
Rolls-Royce.mobi
FordCA.mobi (Ford Canada)
Transportation:
Amtrak.mobi
AAA.mobi (American Automobile Association)
Sports:
ESPN.mobi
NBA.mobi
WNBA.mobi
Magazines:
Time.mobi (Time Magazine)
BusinessWeek.mobi
CNNMoney.mobi
Alcohol:
Smirnoff.mobi
Internet:
MSN.mobi
GoDaddy.mobi / TDNAM.mobi
Technology:
Cisco.mobi
3Next.mobi
News:
FoxNews.mobi
AlJazeera.mobi
TBS.mobi
Newspapers:
TheSun.mobi
Guides:
Zagat.mobi
Mobile Operators:
T-Mobile.mobi
Three.mobi
Vodafone.mobi
TIM.mobi
Orange.mobi
Mobile Manufacturers:
Nokia.mobi
SonyEricsson.mobi
Telecommunications:
Ericsson.mobi
3Skype.mobi
Weather:
Weather.mobi (The Weather Channel)
Cities:
Helsinki.mobi
Airlines:
SAS.mobi
Clothing:
Polo.mobi
Quikstore.mobi (Quiksilver)
BenettonPress.mobi (United Colors of Benetton)
Airports:
Schiphol.mobi (Amsterdam)
and Apple showcases several dotMobi sites on iPhone.com
2.) Major dotMobi Sales in 2007 (NO conspiracy theories in 2007, just 06, right Sahar
2007 Sedo Auctions:
SportsBook.mobi $126,000
hosting.mobi $101,000
taxi.mobi $ 75,111
dating.mobi $ 73,000
homes.mobi $ 53,700
motels.mobi $ 47,000
hotel.mobi $ 46,000
date.mobi $ 40,000
adult.mobi $ 30,000
kiss.mobi $ 23,777
flights.mobi $ 22,500
holidays.mobi $ 22,500
bank.mobi $51,501
download.mobi $51,500
currency.mobi $47,000
insurance.mobi $42,005
2007 TRAFFIC Auctions:
poker.mobi - 150,000
ringtones.mobi - 145,000
news.mobi - 110,000
shopping.mobi - 55,000
email.mobi - 50,000
scores.mobi - 33,000
buy.mobi - 32,500
podcast.mobi - 25,000
cash.mobi - 12,500
pda.mobi - 8,000
zipcodes.mobi - 8,000
bill.mobi - 3,000
3.) Edelman Agency is dotMobi’s PR & Advertising Agency. The .net/.org./info gang do not have a prestigious outfit advancing their namespace around the world….so sadly, envy exists.
Live and let live.
-Anthony
I think I’ll start a blog. A blog about travelling across Russia. I have never travelled across Russia, and therefore don’t know how good it may be. Nor do I want to - but maybe by writing about not wanting to, I may put others off from doing it too.
My company relies on people wanting to travel across America.
*********
The most vocal people against .mobi - don’t own any, and say what a bad investment. But what if they’d dropped a couple of grand on them 14 months ago? Then they would be able to speak with the benefit of knowledge, like those of us who did.
Less than 20% of my portfolio are .mobis. I own them; I make money with them; they have proven to be a good investment for me - that’s what I KNOW.
*********
Thinking about it, maybe I’ll forget that Russia blog; people will probably realise I’m talking about something I should know about, but don’t.
I still don’t understand why some people have to go out of their way to bash the .mobi extension. It’s like they predicted it would fail a year ago, now they see the big sales and development happening, and it doesn’t make sense to them, so they have to continue posting about why it’s so bad.
I’ve seen in the forums where people talk about .mobi, and out of the blue the bashers come in about how bad .mobi is, insulting the .mobi people for investing in the extension.
People who didn’t buy any .mobi when they could have used their resources to reg many good ones, simply can’t stand to watch the emergence of this extension - and realize they may have been wrong.
Everyone agrees .com is king because it was the first, was used by big company websites, and heavily promoted in advertising. Now we see big companies developing .mobi websites, we see .mobi urls being advertised, mobile use is growing faster than pc use. .Mobi is succeeding for the same reasons .com did, it is getting into the mindset of the public through advertising and developed sites, and I think it will continue growing.
I also have grave doubts about where .Mobi is headed. Handsets, browsers and the experiences they offer get more and more sophisticated all the time. It is now possible to have a more or less full internet experience on a mobile handset. I myself simply use my handset in terms of the sites I visit, the way I would on my desktop.
I also beleive that built in Wifi will become the standard in handsets shortly. This will greatly eliminate data download charges with people able to access their own network at home, or via hotspots while out and about.
.Mobi’s seem too much like the old wap pages of 5 years ago and I think that technology is already evolving far too fast for it. Am not sure how it catch up. I know there are some big names out there with .mobis, but the likelyhood is, that with a good handset, a good browser and the ablility to access the full site for free on wifi there is little need to visit the .mobi version of it.
Consumers should have a choice, and it’s not that crazy that they can use the domain to indicate that choice.
Been to an airline web site on your iPhone recently? It works perfectly. You can read about their new flat beds. You can read about their co-branded credit card. You can read the history of the airline company. All beautifully draped with dreamy cloud backdrops and slick menus.
Right. But you’re mobile. You’re probably in a hurry. Let’s face it, you are only really looking for the flight status of the plane you’re rushing to catch. The fact you’ve gone to the effort of navigating to this company’s site on your mobile suggests that you are on a mission.
In other words, multi-site site design is essential. Not because the browser on the phone is challenged in any way (although of course they still are right now). But because there’s a human being on the other side of that screen who is in an entirely different context to those sat at a PC - and who deserves to have, by default, the functionality most suited to his or her mobility.
So it makes a lot of sense to have both .com and .mobi sites. The former is still available to all - including those mobile users (presumably with time to kill) who really *do* want to read about the new flat beds. But the latter provides, by default, a slick, efficient, well-crafted set of services relevant to the user’s very specific mobile usage context.
2 Threads on this site mentioned that I was taking losses on .mobi names, so I’m posting this in 2 places.
“˜Dave’ claims that I’ve been “˜dumping”¦ .mobi names, some of them for quite a loss’ but as is common on tne Internet, don’t believe everything you read.
His comment should have read “”¦selling a number of .mobi names, some of them for quite a profit”¦”? My private transactions have all been profitable, as have my public ones (ie: mortgages.mobi $25k)
There are a good number of .mobi domains that I’m not selling.
Over the last 11 years, I’ve divested off a number of .com, .org, .net, and now .mobi domains. The names I’ve gotten rid of just don’t fit my particular business plans moving forward. I’ve always been an atypical domainer in that I’m not interested in keeping domains around just because I could. Instead I keep just select names I’m building businesses on, usually names that are amongst the most impressive single word dictionary domains around.