The future of .mobi: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MTLD and a goodbye for now post...

[JeremyPadawer]

I want to thank all of you for a great 2 1/2 years.

I'll make the goodbye short and sweet.

MTLD MUST ACT NOW:
MTLD needs to take drastic action to create awareness in the .mobi domain name. .Mobi is a marketing driven opportunity. I have always said that .mobi offers no technical benefit, and that adoption, development and awareness is key.

The window of opportunity will close as other standards are adopted. Browsers that immediately identify mobile devices is a huge issue. The opening up of the TLDs is an enormous issue. If Richy Rich decides to buy .mobile (or whatever) and seriously markets the extension, then .mobi is trumped.

Today .mobi is still uniquely positioned as an alternative to .com in the mobile space. That is meaningless with no viable marketing plan.

WHAT SHOULD MTLD DO?
Superbowl ad... Spend $6MM on two Superbowl ads promoting .mobi as the de facto standard for mobile domain names. Moreover, they should then announce the definitive .mobi auction on Sedo.com, including sex.mobi and the top-100 non-allocated mobi domain names. They could potentially pull a significant portion of that $6MM spend with the results of that hyped auction.

At this point, there hasn't even been a single ad on television reaching out to the masses. This is STILL A DOMAINER EXTENSION, 2 1/2 YEARS LATER. That is unacceptable.

Remember what the Superbowl did for Godaddy.com?

DOES MTLD HAVE THE CASHFLOW TO MARKET THEIR EXTENSION?
At one point they certainly did. 1MM registrations plus a warchest of valuable domain names. Mid to Late 2007 was RIPE for a large, coordinated marketing effort. They let the opportunity pass. The city to city meetings were limited to domainers; the TRAFFIC conference mostly domainers; the Webby awards (big deal). Overall, with the revenue driven and the big, supposed supporters of .mobi, I was disheartened by the lack of marketing support. How much did they really spend? Did MTLD truly reach beyond the domainer? How?

I feel a bit duped. Wasn't there a promise of a coordinated marketing effort?

So, did MTLD have the money? In my opinion, yes. They drove significant money from registrations, they raised significant money from their auctions, and they supposedly have big backers.

So, let's see the list of print ads, television spots, newspaper ads, radio, anything beyond domainer that truly established the .MOBI brand.

WHY THE HELL DID MTLD NOT DEVELOP THE KEY DOMAINS:
Sex.mobi - still doesn't resolve. That is a joke. Forget putting the accountability on the domainer, the ACCOUNTABILITY is on MTLD. The key names were never developed. At least put up a "COMING SOON" link or a mobilie search engine redirect, or something. Nothing was unacceptable and truly signaled to any non-domainer that this is a not-yet-live extension.

STOP BLAMING THE DOMAINER:
I see on mobility, NP and the like the same tune... develop, develop, develop. Agreed, that would be one part of it. But, domainers are just a small part of the potential. Limited and/or ineffective reaching out by the brand-holder is, in my opinion, the biggest part.

So, what's next?

MTLD is still breathing. They still have a warchest of names.

Do something cash flow positive and establish some non-domainer awareness. BIG AD. BIG PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN. TIE IT TO AN AUCTION TO GET SOME $ BACK.

Do it NOW.

I believe the time is running out.

SOUR GRAPES?
None. I love .mobi still. I want to see it work. I want to see so many of my friends who invested deeply and never sought any ROI to have assets with value. I feel differently about MTLD, however. I do not trust that they have a coordinated plan to reach beyond the domainer.

So...

Best wishes my .mobi friends and BE CRITICAL... PUSH MTLD...

All my best,
Jeremy Padawer

[pchip]

I agree Jeremy, it would seem that a lot more should be done in terms of marketing .mobi towards non-domainers. I myself have never seen anything on tv related to .mobi execpt during a ufc even in which they mentioned it. I've never seen the ufc mention it since that day. A superbowl add would be awesome. Talk about reaching just about everyone in one shot!:sold:

Most people (non-domainers) still have no clue that .mobi even exists.

I agree that more of the premium held back domains should be developed by now (2.5 years later). In fact, I couldn't even tell you which ones are developed.

Sorry to see you leave, take care!

pc

[Javier Marti]

Do something cash flow positive and establish some non-domainer awareness. BIG AD. BIG PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN.


I agree.
But are they listening?
They have a point when they say that there are not enough .mobi developed websites. But they cannot afford to wait until there are "enough", as that time may never come. It is time to promote and go to the market with what you have. Small businesses will take care of building the network of developed websites quickly if that's what the public is demanding.
Once the public is aware of .mobi, they'll start asking companies "what is your dotmobi website?" "do you have a .mobi I can see this information from?"
Again, I repeat it -in case mtld reads this: it would be key to get some of the most visible players on the web today to adopt .mobi
So far we mainly have newspapers and banks "promoting" very shyly their dotmobis. Coming 2009, lots of banks will go out of business, and with them their websites, so pass that. Newspapers are slow to react to change and hesitant on how to develop and promote their future right now, so you cannot depend on that either. Car websites? Who is buying cars now? Who will be buying new cars next year? Very few people.
The key, imho, is getting websites developed in sectors that people massively use, and do it as soon as possible. The auctions are not so important. Forget about the money for a moment. Just put a foot on the door, and then the money from registrations will come in a very short period of time.

[coast]

Jeremy, it is very sad to see you go. I don't work for MTLD, and have been critical in the past of some of their actions. I, too, have lost a lot of money, money that I was warned not to spend on .mobi names. Knowing what I know now, I would have saved most of it for development and not volume.

That said, however, I completely and respectfully disagree with most of what you've said. I have never read anywhere that MTLD promised any kind of marketing efforts whatsoever. I wanted them to, I wished they would, but they never claimed to have money set aside for mass marketing, and have, in fact, told members that they didn't. They have been clear that they are a business-to-business program, and they have voted with their salary dollars over and over again to invest in development tools, like ready.mobi, device atlas, mowser, and the like.

.mobi is NOT a domainers tld. It is a corporate, small business, and developers' tld. Had I understood that two years ago, like I said, I would have spent my money differently. I've been posting on NP for a year that this is a developers' tld and not a domainers tld. Since mobility and NP are primarily for domainers who want to make money from parking and flipping, and the parking and flipping dollars aren't there, this tells me the market is not favoring domainers. On the other hand, every single time I post on mobienthusiast.mobi, I see evidence that the slow-moving behemoth of corporations are finally adopting .mobi as their own.

Jeremy, your influence has been felt by many. As a pioneering leader in the future of .mobi, you've garnered a well-deserved following. I believe a lot of people will read your posts and dump their names, pointing out that a giant in the .mobi supporter community proved the naysayers right.

Did I say proved the naysayers right? Yes, I did. The fact is, anyone who is investing in .mobi for a quick flip or parking revenue is in the wrong tld. Anyone who doesn't want to develop or hold for the long term is fooling themselves.

It's taken me a year to come to this conclusion - a year of reading almost every mobility post, mobile marketing emails, advanced google searches, blogs, and twitter. I wish I had my investment dollars back, like many of us do. But, the fact is, we all knew it was risky when we started, and sometimes risk means loss. It did in this case.

.mobi is at its best when developed, or used as a redirect to a .com with an unruly url that nobody wants to type into a phone. I've never heard MTLD say otherwise.

Do I agree with everything MTLD does or says? Absolutely not. I'd like to see all of the premiums developed. I'd like to see the RFP process have some sort of rhyme or reason. I'd like to see the investors use their .mobi names, and advertise them. I've even proposed a brigade of unpaid interns to do social media, which wouldn't cost them anything. But, was it promised to me? No, it was not.

Additionally, I have learned that ICANN forbids MTLD to reach out to end users directly to pick up dropped trademarks. This is a huge limitation. MTLD's customers are and always have been the registrars. Furthermore, due to recent changes, MTLD is also the only registry that even talks to domainers in the first place. If you ever have a chance to talk with Pinky, he'll tell you that in the old days it was a huge fine and other sanctions that would hit the registry if you even talked to an end user.

I wish you well in your future ventures, and if you ever decide to reframe the issue, I am sure you can make it work to your advantage.

[gogo]

Additionally, I have learned that ICANN forbids MTLD to reach out to end users directly to pick up dropped trademarks.


True but it does not stop a third party from doing this with their implied blessing.

Has there been any consumer awareness marketing? Yes, an excellent website produced as a professional marketing campaign in several languages, called why.mobi.

Funny, that was created here and funded by Andres. Not MTLD.

I've said before that I get no clear sense of what MTLD are trying to achieve and how, and I have always felt they could say more and not hover in a haze of implied "commercial confidentiality". The small businesses initiative is good and the new mobithinking showcase is very good, but I agree with Coast that they could very cheaply use social media to get people to ask for .mobi sites - what other simple term is there to ask a company or service you use to have a workable mobile presence?

Sending out press releases about people demanding dotmobi sites costs almost nothing and could be part of an effort to build the brand / trustmark.

[mediaadvantages]

My question would be why can't they create more sites that would be the next MySpace, Facebook or Twitter of the mobile era. If you can create a mobile search engine among other sites as part of your business and you have some of the top executives in the mobile industry, why don't you have the most innovative mobile site for social networking? It would only make sense, or maybe it only makes sense to me.

I also don't understand why they wouldn't try to build a partnership with the NCAA and ESPN. ESPN already supports .mobi and the more time is spent on the internet for Males 18-34 during March Madness than anytime of the year. The partnership with ESPN could include the main sponsor of the bracket contest that is accessable on a mobile phone. Again....I don't know anything about marketing a product so I must be wrong. :(

[Binaryman]

Bad news, bad news.......Have some good news
See my good news post: http://mobility.mobi/showthread.php?t=25068

With all respect I dont agree with any of the things you say Jeremy. Fact is now is the wrong time to market .mobi in the way you suggest.
It has often been said in the past that .mobi should have come onto the scene much earlier then it did and that browser and device technology would overtake .mobi and make it obsolete. Rubbish...I believe .mobi came right on time and that browser technology wont make one jot of difference to .mobi's success.
I also believe Mtld is fully aware of this and has a carefully aligned plan in place that is geared towards the ultimate success of .mobi
I also believe that the big companies who back and endorse .mobi will continue to do so and will in fact eventually do so in a more visible way.
Right now is still to early to embark on a big Superbowl type of campaign for .mobi.
I believe that the time for .mobi will come soon after the global financial crisis comes to an end and recovery has started to take place. Look at the year 2012 as the year where global markets will be in a solid upswing and consumer confidence will be in an upward curve. That will be the time when mobile internet will finally start to make it's big impact and will become the standard and most used way to access the internet.
I also dont believe that Icann would allow someone to register the extension .mobile and go into competition with .mobi
It would not be in their interest to do so and Mtld does have enough clout to make serious representations to oppose that. Mtld could always register .mobile itself if it came to that.
Mobile is the future and that is a fact and .mobi will have a big role in that.

[jaybee]

Now is the time for a lot of end users to be able to get hold of .mobi names for 'affordable' prices, IMO. And also lots of development.

[gogo]

I also believe Mtld is fully aware of this and has a carefully aligned plan in place that is geared towards the ultimate success of .mobi
.

I have never even heard them say that they have a plan or a strategy.

If they do have one, surely they could at least say that it exists?

And if it exists, what harm would there be in telling us what it is? It's not like there is a coherent competitor waiting to get a strategic advantage - I don't think other extensions have marketing departments, do they?

[Binaryman]

I have never even heard them say that they have a plan or a strategy.

If they do have one, surely they could at least say that it exists?

And if it exists, what harm would there be in telling us what it is? It's not like there is a coherent competitor waiting to get a strategic advantage - I don't think other extensions have marketing departments, do they?

I never said I heard them say it. I said I "BELIEVE" they have such a plan. And they have never said that they dont have such a plan either. I dont see why they would have to bring out a statement saying they have such a plan. I am sure if you ask them directly they would tell you there is a plan. It's quite obvious from everything they have said and done up to now that they have a plan of some kind. Obviously they must have already had a plan right at the very beginning when they dreamed up the whole .mobi thing and the backers would also have needed to to see a plan of some kind otherwise .mobi would never have even gotten off the ground.
Why is everyone all of a sudden so damn negative! Is what Jeremy Padawer says the holy word here?

[newdomainer]

I think it's as good a measure as any to see how Fred (for example) who has been here through thick & thin is now as upbeat as anyone having been through a period of extreme doubt....

If mTLD had another £10,000,000 of spare cash I'd guess that they would spend more on awareness... but they have chosen to spend more money than I would like them to on flash offices in Dublin & more than a small contribution to global warming via more international flights than you can shake a stick at...

But! They have released some useful information for developers and done many other things that should help the extension.

I believe that they should lower the registration and renewal costs to align with dotcom; They have no reason to charge more as there is, as Jeremy says, no technical advantage to using dotmobi. This would lower the drop rate, increase the numbers of new registrations and increase revenues so that mTLD may improve their marketing...

Jeremy does echo many of our sentiments but Coast is also right... as is Javier.. If you suddenly tell 100 million people about dotmobi & they go looking for the dotmobi version of their favourite site - what will they find?

The extension needs to be marketed at a grass roots level... take advantage of the upside of dotmobi... the availability of names that are taken in many other extensions - that includes affordable names on the after-market..

Low cost hosting - low cost maintenance, low cost development and global access on any device..

There are many positives.... we need to target end-users on a local basis - small businesses, individuals etc.. that spreads the word via the most powerful method - by mouth!

We have a large enough number of BIG name end-users to use on any promotional material we care to produce... we need to concentrate on grass-roots end users.

Contrary to some misconceptions about 'domainers' not developing.... I would argue for the role that pure-play domainers take.... e.g. if a domainer gets 6 end-users using dotmobi without developing any sites themselves.. compared to a buy-to-develop kind of approach where one or two sites may be developed with the number of users (visitors) may be far smaller.. development may be key... but it's development that is going to create 'visitors' and 'awareness' that counts - not just another narrow focus, self-indulgent mini-site... we need millions of small businesses around the globe to take their dotmobi and build 1 or 2 page contact & promotion sites.. small companies - electricians, plumbers, gardeners, retailers, spas, sports centres, gyms, hairdressers etc... because these 'little guys' can still get domains that have long gone in other extensions... this is where I see growth.. (at very low base cost).

In fact, to that end..... why don't mTLD (because we know you're reading this) - why don't mTLD create some generic email templates for small businesses that can be personalised by us domainers / developers and sent by the 1,000's to potential end users.. I know mTLD aren't allowed to contact end-users (potential or otherwise) but I'm sure that doesn't stop them from equipping us with templates & content for mail-shots / emails / flyers etc.. that we can use...

Just a thought.. ;-)

[Pred]

I want to thank all of you for a great 2 1/2 years.

I'll make the goodbye short and sweet.

really? i thought this was the third time in as many weeks? :rolleyes2:




MTLD MUST ACT NOW:
MTLD needs to take drastic action to create awareness in the .mobi domain name. .Mobi is a marketing driven opportunity. I have always said that .mobi offers no technical benefit, and that adoption, development and awareness is key.

The window of opportunity will close as other standards are adopted. Browsers that immediately identify mobile devices is a huge issue. The opening up of the TLDs is an enormous issue. If Richy Rich decides to buy .mobile (or whatever) and seriously markets the extension, then .mobi is trumped.

Today .mobi is still uniquely positioned as an alternative to .com in the mobile space. That is meaningless with no viable marketing plan.

WHAT SHOULD MTLD DO?
Superbowl ad... Spend $6MM on two Superbowl ads promoting .mobi as the de facto standard for mobile domain names. Moreover, they should then announce the definitive .mobi auction on Sedo.com, including sex.mobi and the top-100 non-allocated mobi domain names. They could potentially pull a significant portion of that $6MM spend with the results of that hyped auction.

At this point, there hasn't even been a single ad on television reaching out to the masses. This is STILL A DOMAINER EXTENSION, 2 1/2 YEARS LATER. That is unacceptable.

Remember what the Superbowl did for Godaddy.com?

DOES MTLD HAVE THE CASHFLOW TO MARKET THEIR EXTENSION?
At one point they certainly did. 1MM registrations plus a warchest of valuable domain names. Mid to Late 2007 was RIPE for a large, coordinated marketing effort. They let the opportunity pass. The city to city meetings were limited to domainers; the TRAFFIC conference mostly domainers; the Webby awards (big deal). Overall, with the revenue driven and the big, supposed supporters of .mobi, I was disheartened by the lack of marketing support. How much did they really spend? Did MTLD truly reach beyond the domainer? How?

I feel a bit duped. Wasn't there a promise of a coordinated marketing effort?

So, did MTLD have the money? In my opinion, yes. They drove significant money from registrations, they raised significant money from their auctions, and they supposedly have big backers.

So, let's see the list of print ads, television spots, newspaper ads, radio, anything beyond domainer that truly established the .MOBI brand.

i disagree about the superbowl ad, complete waste of money at this stage, it would be like their entire years budget

however cheap print ads, maybe some posters, TALKING to local businesses. labour is cheap now so you could definitely hire keen staff to go and talk to local businesses. they certainly need to do something in this area i agree. but start from 'bottom' up :biggrin:




WHY THE HELL DID MTLD NOT DEVELOP THE KEY DOMAINS:
Sex.mobi - still doesn't resolve. That is a joke. Forget putting the accountability on the domainer, the ACCOUNTABILITY is on MTLD. The key names were never developed. At least put up a "COMING SOON" link or a mobilie search engine redirect, or something. Nothing was unacceptable and truly signaled to any non-domainer that this is a not-yet-live extension.

pretty common knowledge they are not allowed to do this, against icann rules. amazed you're not aware of this




STOP BLAMING THE DOMAINER:
I see on mobility, NP and the like the same tune... develop, develop, develop. Agreed, that would be one part of it. But, domainers are just a small part of the potential. Limited and/or ineffective reaching out by the brand-holder is, in my opinion, the biggest part.

So, what's next?

MTLD is still breathing. They still have a warchest of names.

Do something cash flow positive and establish some non-domainer awareness. BIG AD. BIG PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN. TIE IT TO AN AUCTION TO GET SOME $ BACK.

Do it NOW.

I believe the time is running out.

you saw what the recent auctions did. a flop. everything is screwed right now. ALL markets, thats exactly what they shouldnt do. if you bang a load of premium names up and sell off cheap and get a pittance because noone has any cash and people are only buying the safest of buys, ie, strong .coms with traffic, and even then paying peanuts :rolleyes2:, then you weaken the market further.
remember, similar to what you tried at sedo and ebay.
didnt work did it?
hold and develop and work some other fields too.




SOUR GRAPES?
None. I love .mobi still. I want to see it work. I want to see so many of my friends who invested deeply and never sought any ROI to have assets with value. I feel differently about MTLD, however. I do not trust that they have a coordinated plan to reach beyond the domainer.

So...

Best wishes my .mobi friends and BE CRITICAL... PUSH MTLD...

All my best,
Jeremy Padawer [/quote]

do you really think we dont? its unheard of for a registry to even communicate with domainers. at least they have done that. i would say i'm prob the most highly critical of them on this board though, but they simply dont get involved here. a few are privy to discussions with them. i know what they should be doing and it is the opposite of the showboat superbowl ad you're talking about.
its sending out small teams of people on foot on a basic wage, no high powered salaries, and going and coldcalling at local small businesses in the highstreets and telling them how they can get a mobile domain for £5 and build a free website or for just a few pounds, and tell them all the advanatages. when they see how cheap and useful and how it can drive business and how the mobile web WILL be huge and how there is a big list of major players on board people will listen.
far better to start from ground up and have a couple years worth of work down at grassroots than spunk 6 million on a poxy superbowl ad

i really feel you have so much wrong, but tbh there is still a large amount of faith required and vision, which i still have and many others. i also keep my eyes focused on newly developed .mobi sites daily and feel my finger is on pulse with it.
no miracles will happen in next year or so, and mobi wont eclipse com but it will carve out a niche, im sure of that. the newly available drops and cheaper prices for endusers can only help. in fact its the opposite of .com in that sense and for many top cctlds. theres simply no bloody domains left in those areas.

the time of regging drops will end soon. then time to have our own little clearouts, but development has taught me one thing, i have about 30 sites in diff. extensions, maybe more. its all very well developing sites, but for a site to be successful you need work on 'her' :embarassed:, every day and put blood, sweat and tears into it. too mabny domainers and mobility mebers are knocking out sites left right and centre. that is great and i applaud them, but you're better off putting all the time into 1 or 2 sites in my honest opinion and THAT will make mobi a success along with the big endusers

have you seen the bank threads recently? how many are coming on board? things like this make me sure that we are on right road. but now, if i can survive next year :embarassed:, i plan to practice what i preach and foucs on one main .mobi site and one .com site. they will have most of my attention. it should be fun

lastly, i want to say Jeremy that i feel this whole post by you was quite insulting. also you insist on pasting the same thread on np. why?
you've bailed out of mobi, publicly, sold off cheap. now on your way out of door, you ask a lot of noob questions that have been asked or are irrelevant in many parts. you lost the faith, you clearly arent watching new sites coming on board daily etc
do me a favour, dont keep attacking .mobi as for many this is a large part of their hope for the future. i dont see how it can go lower in domainer circles as we're down to regfee in many parts. i am a holder anyway as am in for longterm and i have had little interest of lowballs on some great .coms i own and one look around forums shows NOTHING is selling so i know the only way is up, but people round here are pretty downtrodden at moment, so someone like yourself who has publicly sung for mobi, then bailed bigtime and dumped then returned to twist the knife is unlikely to be remebered fondly.

thing that annoys me though is there is ample opportunity for people in coming year or so to get back in mobi dirtcheap if they want , kills me . like now. we've been in since dayone. someone on sidelines could get in now with greatnames for regfee. that kind of hurts.

anyway, i wish you well.

[newdomainer]

Remember... we all have different time-scales, different priorities.... and these can change significantly overnight at times...

It's like selling shares in a company.... after you made a loss... regardless of what happens next... your perspective changes..

[gogo]

to be honest we have had endless speculation about what MTLD could/should do and whether mobi will/will not succeed and how to make it happen....not sure any of this achieves anything, it is impossible to assess MTLD without benchmarks and basic info.

Would someone like to propose some benchmarks?

[newdomainer]

to be honest we have had endless speculation about what MTLD could/should do and whether mobi will/will not succeed and how to make it happen....not sure any of this achieves anything, it is impossible to assess MTLD without benchmarks and basic info.

Would someone like to propose some benchmarks?

Are there any meaningful benchmarks?

We have 1 million domains registered
We have many multi-nationals using dotmobi

It is my view that it will take years to build out enough dotmobi sites for the extension to be considered a success... dotcom didn't happen overnight, nor did any of the country codes... but look at .co.uk & .de now!

It's a case of slowly, slowly catchee monkey! - as long as mTLD remains in play... & we keep plodding away... it'll get there

(wherever 'there' is?) :dontknow:

[Javier Marti]

What an interesting thread

>> I believe .mobi came right on time and that browser technology wont make one jot of difference to .mobi's success.

Binary, the risk of technology evolving or Google making partnerships with telephone makers and carriers and somehow channeling the new users to websites of their liking exists. It may be low, but it exists.

I think domainers are looking in the wrong direction regarding potential dangers. It is not competitive extensions. It is other ways to access information that bypasses domains somehow.

>> I also believe Mtld is fully aware of this and has a carefully aligned plan in place that is geared towards the ultimate success of .mobi

Ultimate...you mean in 2050? ;)

>> I also believe that the big companies who back and endorse .mobi will continue to do so and will in fact eventually do so in a more visible way.

Except Nokia...they cannot do it in a more "invisible" way, so you may be right. Regarding partner's endorsement, the only way is up!

>> year 2012 as the year where global markets will be in a solid upswing and consumer confidence will be in an upward curve.

Interesting conclusion. What is it based on?


>> Knowing what I know now, I would have saved most of it for development and not volume.

Thanks God you read my book early ;)

>> .mobi is NOT a domainers tld. It is a corporate, small business, and developers' tld. Had I understood that two years ago,

Exactly. It never was. Domainers came into dotmobi with old domainer thinking, without a clue on why this extension was powerful. Lots of people bought dictionary words and based their purchases in old Internet trends that worked 10 or 6 years ago. Lots followed misguided advice by old domainers. Where are those guys now? What do they have to say? If they were so good in business...why dont we hear of them? If domains were such a solid and easy investment...why not everyone is a domainer? Why have we not seen a domain bubble similar to other financial bubbles?

>> mobility and NP are primarily for domainers who want to make money from parking and flipping, and the parking and flipping dollars aren't there, this tells me the market is not favoring domainers.

Exactly
When I said things like this before, people thought I had something against domainers. I don't!

>> Jeremy, your influence has been felt by many. As a pioneering leader in the future of .mobi, you've garnered a well-deserved following. I believe a lot of people will read your posts and dump their names,

If they do, they deserve what they get. Nobody should invest any money in any venture until they are at least familiar with it. Hearsay is not good enough.


>> pointing out that a giant in the .mobi supporter community proved the naysayers right.

The naysayers where as wrong as they have always been. Their point of "we dont' need a mobile extension" was and is still wrong. Mobi makes sense. If it fails will be because of


poor management and promotion
financial crisis
technology advances that make domains irrelevant

>> Anyone who doesn't want to develop or hold for the long term is fooling themselves.

There is also the re-sale angle, Coast, if the extension becomes really popular. But it will have to be names that make sense and can be used easily by businesses/corporations.


>> It's taken me a year to come to this conclusion - a year of reading almost every mobility post, mobile marketing emails, advanced Google searches, blogs, and twitter. I wish I had my investment dollars back,

Do you remember when I told you to get rid of so many names and concentrate in only the good ones? Focusing your energy/time was and still is good advice.


>> Fred (for example) who has been here through thick & thin is now as upbeat as anyone having been through a period of extreme doubt....

The bipolar weekly posts of Fred's doubts are legendary

>> contribution to global warming via more international flights than you can shake a stick at...

Travelling is fun for those who travel
>>I believe that they should lower the registration and renewal costs This ...would increase revenues so that mTLD may improve their marketing...

Gary, if they depend on this to improve their marketing, they should fold up and go, or set up a charity ball.

>> looking for the dotmobi version of their favourite site - what will they find?

At the beginning not much. But building mobi sites is easy, and even more so now with Mowser.
In three months we would see massive, exponential growth and things would only go up from there. As I said, users would also put strong pressure on their sites to become mobile throug dotmobi.


>> In fact, to that end..... why don't mTLD (because we know you're reading this) - why don't mTLD create some generic email templates for small businesses that can be personalised by us domainers / developers and sent by the 1,000's to potential end users..

Because you would need a proactive and creative mind to think of such an idea.

>> really? i thought this was the third time in as many weeks? :rolleyes2:

Knives flying in both directions... :rolleyes2:


>> however cheap print ads, maybe some posters, TALKING to local businesses. labour is cheap now so you could definitely hire keen staff to go and talk to local businesses.

Good thinking. There are lots of things they could have done at low cost. Anyone remembers that we had a thread about this giving them ideas? Some ideas, like mine of printing .mobi logo in the millions of Nokia phones sold annually, didn't require much or any money upfront.


>> you saw what the recent auctions did. a flop. everything is screwed right now.

I never understood Jeremy's timing and choice of medium for his latest auctions. Interesting experiment to watch though.

>> sell off cheap and get a pittance because noone has any cash and people are only buying the safest of buys, ie, strong .coms with traffic, and even then paying peanuts :rolleyes2:, then you weaken the market further.

It reminded me of a name I bought once here in chat, where I was bidding against myself to help push somebody's name price higher. However, my risk was in 5 dollars increments. I belive Jeremy lost a bit more. I guess he is fine with it. I suppose he could foresee the potential risks in his actions.


>> i really feel you have so much wrong,

Talk about constructive criticism. :eek2:

>> knocking out sites left right and centre. that is great and i applaud them, but you're better off putting all the time into 1 or 2 sites in my honest opinion and THAT will make mobi a success along with the big endusers

These are early days for the mobile web. It is better to find an RSS Joomla site than nothing. Give it time

>> have you seen the bank threads recently? how many are coming on board? things like this make me sure that we are on right road.

The good thing about banks promoting dotmobi is that people still associate quality/permanence to banks. They feel banks "are here to stay" (how wrong they are) and they pass this credibility to the extension they do business in.

>> lastly, i want to say Jeremy that i feel this whole post by you was quite insulting. also you insist on pasting the same thread on np. why?

Good question

>> circles as we're down to regfee in many parts. i am a holder anyway as am in for longterm and i have had little interest of lowballs on some great

Long-term: the only viable strategy, imho

>> .coms i own and one look around forums shows NOTHING is selling so i know the only way is up, but people round here are pretty downtrodden at moment, so someone like yourself who has publicly sung for mobi, then bailed bigtime and dumped then returned to twist the knife is unlikely to be remebered fondly.

If I ever write another book abot all this, that paragraph will make it there, just for historical reference's sake!


>> thing that annoys me though is there is ample opportunity for people in coming year or so to get back in mobi dirtcheap if they want , kills me . like now. we've been in since dayone.
someone on sidelines could get in now with greatnames for regfee. that kind of hurts.

You can be sure this will happen. Some build the train from scratch, and others will come late and use it to take them to places....life is so, unfortunately. I still think many will say they saw it from day one. I want to see Gerry's reaction to that!
But we here at Mobility know who is who, I think...and the Internet archive doesn't lie...

[pcaero]

Great Post Javier

[JeremyPadawer]

Addressing a few criticisms above... so that my singular most important message comes out.

Why criticize MTLD?
It's my opinion that there is a critical period for awareness (beyond domainer) that is lapsing... and, more importantly, that this is potentially FIXABLE.

Why a Superbowl ad?
Forget the Superbowl ad... what about a coordinated marketing / promotional plan to reach beyond the domainer after 2 1/2 years?

What is the single most important message?
.Mobi is a marketer's domain. There is no technological benefit. Again, check my oldest of posts, and I make this very clear. Unless in-roads are established with the non-domainer community on the .mobi BRAND, it's done.

The new TLDs could be crushing, and do not underestimate ICANN's lack of foresight.

Why double post?
I've been active on both mobility and NP.

Why do I care?
500 hours of registering, buying, selling, communicating with friends/family, developing long-term friendships around this extension. I might be out of the .mobi speculation pool, but this doesn't mean that I am out on the concept.

Is the change in valuation just based on our current global economy?
No. It's based on 30 months with very little awareness beyond Mr and Mrs Domainer.

Jeremy

[gogo]

the single most crushing new domain would be .m

and the next would, will, be voice activated internet use on phones.


and Jeremy is right, it is about marketing, mobi cannot take anything for granted.

[andymoore]

Less respectfully I disagree, develop only being one part of it is IMHO total detritus as any tld isn't worth squat without developed sites for the consumer.

It's on our shoulders to develop and take those sites to market, our failures in that can not be blamed on MTLD's plans.

[Pred]

Great Post Javier


here here

[Javier Marti]

The new TLDs could be crushing, and do not underestimate ICANN's lack of foresight.

Could you explain how exactly could they be "crushing"? Didnt' we discuss this already? What new mobile extensions could take dotmobi's place now? How much would its backers have to invest to do it? How long would it take them?

Unless Google or Facebook or similar creates and supports from day one a new mobile domain extension they favour (THAT could be the end for .mobi) who and how could dotmobi's place be taken away?

Maybe the threat of something "crushing" would be what MTLD needs to be more proactive, but I still cannot understand your rationale of terror about new extensions and how they would spell an end to dotmobi. Care to explain?

[JeremyPadawer]

Could you explain how exactly could they be "crushing"? Didnt' we discuss this already? What new mobile extensions could take dotmobi's place now? How much would its backers have to invest to do it? How long would it take them?

Unless Google or Facebook or similar creates and supports from day one a new mobile domain extension they favour (THAT could be the end for .mobi) who and how could dotmobi's place be taken away?

Maybe the threat of something "crushing" would be what MTLD needs to be more proactive, but I still cannot understand your rationale of terror about new extensions and how they would spell an end to dotmobi. Care to explain?

I don't want to derail my message of MTLD reaching beyond the domainer in a meaningful way.

Examples can be challenged, but here's just 1 of 1,000,000 potential outcomes.

Facebook.com identifies a huge opportunity in developing a mobile web community. They buy .m from ICANN. They pump the idea of developing your own .m site throughout their 100MM user base.

Done deal.

Microsoft, Facebook, Google, eBay, Myspace, and one of a hundred others could take that same tact. Leverage existing userbase, develop massive .m community.

Again, this is just one outcome. It could be Donald Trump. Who knows. Bottom line, "ENTITY A" has money, sees a marketing opportunity and takes it.

MTLD has not done so meaningfully.

Go ask 100 people on the street about .mobi. A single big time campaign could change that drastically.

Jeremy Padawer

[coast]

The naysayers where as wrong as they have always been. Their point of "we dont' need a mobile extension" was and is still wrong. Mobi makes sense.

I don't think Jeremy's departure means the naysayers are right about the argument you outlined here, Javier. They will think they were right about everything, though, when they read this swan song. I meant they were right in the sense that the resale value right now is practically worthless for all but the best names, and even those are selling at a loss due to financial concerns. MJ predicted a drop in value for the first junk dump, which is what we are seeing now, with the added "bonus" (ugh) of a global financial mess.

Yes, I am very glad I read your book early. I wish I had read it even earlier. I receive expiration notices from my registrar on a daily basis to remind me of advice I heard late in the day from you, Scandiman and DomainTalker to focus on quality and not quantity. In bits and pieces it didn't seem like I was buying the equivalent of several premium names. Too bad I didn't buy premiums instead. Live and learn. Fortunately, as Pred has said, now is a good time to buy better names than the ones I had.

Back to the naysayers... .mobi is extremely helpful, as I said, to let people know that they are accessing a mobile website. In my most recent blog post I wrote: "Target’s mobile website is a good lesson for marketers, too. The full site address is http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/mobile.jsp — quite a lot to type on a mobile phone — and by registering the .mobi name, they are offering a convenience to site visitors who only need to remember the store name (Target) and the mobile domain extension (.mobi)." You can read the rest here: http://mobienthusiast.mobi/target-mobi-hits-the-mark/

Additionally, .mobi makes sense to every marketer and non-technical person I have ever met. I got a twitter message the other day from an accountant in Louisville, Kentucky, who was annoyed that wikipedia wasn't using its .mobi. During a recent podcast interview, a mobile marketing book author said she was going to be recommending .mobi to her readers and clients. This is not about domainers, it's about real people, and real people are just now learning how to move beyond the walled gardens that they thought were the internet. It's going to take some time for people without iPhones to get there, at least in the US.

There is plenty going on behind the scenes that is making these mobile sites take on .mobi aliases. All you have to do is write to MTLD and they will answer your questions, and if the info is confidential they will tell you that, too. See if you can name one person at Verisign, let alone get anyone to answer your emails.

This thread is turning to so much deja vu... I gave this up over at the other forum. It's exhausting.

[JeremyPadawer]

This thread is turning to so much deja vu... I gave this up over at the other forum. It's exhausting.

Coast,

In all fairness, there is nothing deja vu regarding my INTENT.

Much of the criticism on the other board comes from people who desperately want to be right RE: .mobi as a failure.

I, on the other hand, sincerely want it to succeed.

Jeremy

[think]

Some quick points:

1. The economy is in horrible shape globally and prices for domains are being effected across the board.

When JJJ.com sells for $16,500 on Sedo you know things are bad not just for Mobi but for all domains. The whole domain market is going through growing pains that make the industry more complex and difficult to be profitable without development.

2. MTLD has done far more than any other registrar to add value to their extension period. No one even comes close. Try and name one thing another registrar has done to promote it's TLD offerings.

3. When enough development is ready on both Mobi and non Mobi sites the mobile internet will take off big time and people will know and use Mobi sites.

4. MTLD is coming out with one and two char dot Mobis through RFP which could be huge if large companies stake out these prized domains as some are preparing to.

5. Instant Mobilizer is coming soon and if this program is solid Mobi sites will be popping up like popcorn in a microwave.

All in all I think MTLD is on top of their game, have realistic plans for promoting and marketing, and are doing what it takes to see Mobi succeed. It was only 3 or 4 years ago we were cheer leading to see Dot Coms being promoted on Super bowl ads. Now they are common place. I believe that as Mobi matures and the economy gets back on it's feet we will see Mobi Super bowl ads by large companies.

My 2 cents......

[think]

There are many excellent posts in this thread and thank you for your well thought out replies. Many valid points being made

I hope your exit is short lived Jeremy. You are a spark always and your enthusiasm is much appreciated. Your input and spirit will be missed.

Merry Christmas Mobility!

Peace and love,

C.T.

[coast]

Coast,

In all fairness, there is nothing deja vu regarding my INTENT.

Much of the criticism on the other board comes from people who desperately want to be right RE: .mobi as a failure.

I, on the other hand, sincerely want it to succeed.

Jeremy

Jeremy, I have never doubted your intentions.

I posted what I did based on knowledge that I've gained that I didn't have 2 years ago, 1 year ago, 6 months ago, or last week. Because you have less time to devote to this kind of research than I do, I can see how you have missed earlier conversations about what role MTLD can and will play in the future of our investments.

It is very sad that you feel duped as you said, but who duped you? I don't recall MTLD making any promises, but I did read many, many pro-mobi people writing about what their hopes and dreams for the tld. I just don't think many of those hopes and dreams were in line with the MTLD business plan.

It's my opinion that I have a pretty good grasp of what the reality is of .mobi based on research and discussions with .mobi owners, developers, MTLD, MTLD's tech people (who don't often post here), and mobile novices and experts beyond the friendly confines of mobility and domainer forums.

It is very discouraging to have lost money on this gamble for all of us. When there is a disconnect between what a person wants and what exists in reality, frustration ensues. I was at that point four to six months ago. Then, I decided to align with the truth of what exists even though it isn't what I believed I signed up for in the beginning.

Maybe you will work through this frustration and make the reality of the situation work for you, too. I hope so.

[Scandiman]

I've said it before and I continue in the belief that any mass marketing should be tied to real content or else it will simply be tld hype and fall flat on its face. What exactly should this hype be? What message should be trumpeted to the public masses that have no clue about domains? I have heard this plea for mass advertising so many times, but I have yet to hear solid details beyond "mTLD, go spend ad money at [include posters favorite ad venue here]."

It's been discussed before that mTLD is not in a position to build content for it's own domains, that is not their job and apparently ICANN rules forbid it (note: I haven't personally read the rules). Regardless I don't think having thousands of "COMING SOON" pages would do anything positive for the extension, just as sedo parking pages do nothing positive for the extension.

So if mTLD shouldn't or can't build content then who should? Domain owners. That's you and me and espn and BofA and Chase and everyone else. As Andy aptly said earlier in this thread, "any tld isn't worth squat without developed sites for the consumer." This should be obvious to everyone but apparently deserves repeating so I just added it to my sig (with proper credit provided of course).

mTLD has made a focused effort since the beginning to assist domain owners to create that content. Dev.mobi, Ready.mobi, Site.mobi, Device Atlas, .mobi Certified Developers, and the coming mobilizer product. In this respect they are doing so much more than any other registry to support their own extension. I expect Mobilizer will have a positive impact on driving registrations among those with no interest in domain trading. I'll take this effort to support real content over domain hype any day of the week.

I'm pretty sure there were no promises made for a coordinated marketing effort, at least not of the scale you are desiring. I would be seriously concerned it mTLD got into the hype business, but a coordinated marketing effort between multiple .mobi sites would be cool and worthwhile, such as an mTLD coordinated ad effort highlighting cool sites, Weather.mobi, ESPN.mobi, BofA.mobi etc. Connecting the .mobi brand to real content that is useful to consumers. Such an ad campaign might work well for the Mobilizer product, helping potential users see that some serious content already exists in the .mobi namespace.

[pcaero]

2. MTLD has done far more than any other registrar to add value to their extension period. No one even comes close. Try and name one thing another registrar has done to promote it's TLD offerings.

.TV has been pretty good with their efforts..

It is very discouraging to have lost money on this gamble for all of us. When there is a disconnect between what a person wants and what exists in reality, frustration ensues. I was at that point four to six months ago. Then, I decided to align with the truth of what exists even though it isn't what I believed I signed up for in the beginning.

It's only a loss if you sell for a loss. No different than the stockmarket...
Have I bought names that today look overpriced? Yes
But it's all relative. Will my investment come to fruition? Time will tell


I'm pretty sure there were no promises made for a coordinated marketing effort, at least not of the scale you are desiring. I would be seriously concerned it mTLD got into the hype business, but a coordinated marketing effort between multiple .mobi sites would be cool and worthwhile, such as an mTLD coordinated ad effort highlighting cool sites, Weather.mobi, ESPN.mobi, BofA.mobi etc. Connecting the .mobi brand to real content that is useful to consumers. Such an ad campaign might work well for the Mobilizer product, helping potential users see that some serious content already exists in the .mobi namespace.


I think we can all agree, their is a place at the table for .mobi
Question is : Will we be at the head of this table?, or maybe somewhere in the middle?, or yet down at the very end...???

One thing is for sure... It's gonna take time, maybe more time than some are willing to wait...

[gogo]

A company creates innovative recyclable disposable cups which offer unique benefits.
Tests show consumers liking them.

They try offering them to suppliers in the catering trade. Slow and low takeup.

They know that competing technology will soon bring out an equally good product.


So what do they do? Offer better terms to the trade, who may still not be interested?

Or try to get the product into the hands of consumers, who may then demand the product in shops and from caterers? Until consumers have seen the product they can't imagine it, let alone ask for it.

[TLD]

Jeremy, certainly wish you luck. You are posting to be constructive and help this community, thank you.

I want to clear up a couple of things as I am heavily involved in the new TLD movement. I am launching TLDForum.com soon and will post about it. I have just been given the position to head Social Markets for .nyc

1) There will be no single letter TLDs given out. They are restricted.
2) There will be no double letter TLDs given out. Restricted for ccTLDs.
3) No confusingly similar extensions will make it.

.mobi and .tel have great positions against future registrants in the space. .device could be a potential candidate, though mTLD might oppose. .mobile wouldn't make it. .mob presents an interesting openning. .m is restricted.

As for .mobi and the future. mTld should consider hiring one or more of us. They need some new input, but generally are a very hard working bunch. Trey, Caroline, Pinky, Vance and Amy are amazing. They are super bright and hard working. They don't treat this as a 9-5 desk job, they are putting their lives into it.

As far as .mobi having shelf life, it isn't going to happen. Too many devices, user preferences and ways employed of saying mobile (m./mobile., .com/mobile), but the 'size of the pie' may be effected. We want .mobi to have the biggest market share for users that sink money into m-commerce. Let's figure out the best ways and consult with the mTld.

Jeremy stick around for next couple weeks and help us. You have a lot to add from your life experiences and bright mind. Many here think in all types of ways and we have a big global advantage as well.

PV

[keithmt]

Jeremy, you were the first person to say that .mobi was a long term play.
If memory serves me right you were talking 5 years minimum before .mobi gained mass awareness.

So why the rush to exit?

In terms of developed sites, there has been significant growth over the past 2 years.
It seems as though new companies are going .mobi on a daily basis.

It would be nice if the masses were all using .mobi tomorrow but we have to be realistic.
Until there is a clear cut way for consumers to surf the mobile web, .mobi has as good a chance as anything else!

Happy holidays and best wishes on your future investments :)

[Pred]

people shouldnt get too carried away and panicky about the new tlds that could come out.
it amazes me how gullible some domainers are.
look. .tel is next to useless, i know it doesnt involve having hosting etc and can offer a basic indexing system for business and contacts, but trust me, its going nowhere fast
some brandable cctlds will always do ok, .tv, .me etc
i like .tv but has been monumentally screwed over the years and they got insanely greedy, even richard rosenblatt f*cked it, so altho is doing well imo and is popular in uk to an extent, it has been royally shagged by its 'managers'

cctlds will continue to do incredibly well imo, but launched special tlds launched by individuals or small startups etc will all bomb imo. things like .club or whatever

prob the timing of .mobi was just about right all things considered, when you consider all the 'backers', and things are still in slowmo, what makes you think a gathering like that would ever 'back' anything else again with any gusto at all?

there is also the angle of overload for the consumer, they are starting to get confused now imo, domainers too simply do not want anymore tlds and wont buy them. there'll be the usual noobs poking toe in but to a large extent noone has the funds for next couple of years to even speculate imo even if they wanted to.
all this helps mobi

add to this:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/comments/2008/ICANN_081218.pdf

basically icann are getting a little collared now its good to say. this runaway train they want to create simply wont happen, its greed driven and i think most people are too smart to get involved at any level. i hope

to sum up, i still see .mobi as unique. it has a oneoff registry, who whilst i may moan regularly about them, are still better at what they do than any other before or likely after, altho they could still be MUCH better

secondly, mobi offers a function, a use, a brand and a doorway to the moibile net. it also offers a chance to endusers big and small to nail the name they cant get in com as they have been warehoused for donkeys by a select few in .com. and .cctlds also

what i love about .mobi is you can have a fullblown pc site and a mobile version. its not just that you cant afford the com, usually you cant buy for any price

you may see a few interesting .me sites spring up in tiume as so brandable but i guarantee you will hunt high and low and see no .asia , or .tel or whatevernext

this is the key difference. we see bofa.mobi, coke.mobi, bmw.mobi
all adopting and creating different, useful targetted sites

you will NOT see bmw.asia, coke.asia or anything else or with any other NEW launch
i avtually dont think people buying these realise, domainers

that is why i truly believe in this space. i believe right here, right now, in this narrow band, is THE place to be
History will jusge me :coo2l:, but come back to the pred in 3 years. that is around the timescale i predict to be able to say to certain focks from 2 years ago and more recent, i told you so b*tch.
when i say timescale, i mean, a far more built out .mobi arena, mobile net also consisting of all different mobile extension landscape, but mobi having a sexy chunk. also for .mobi to be known and heard of by a sizable chunk of population. again it wont be anywhere near the numbers of say .com in US, or .nl in netherlands, or .uk in uk, but will be a hefty chunk all the same
i also expect some big boys to be using the extension and or/ some serious alexa heavyweights too. top 500 entries by mobi. maybe 20 or more. which would beat any other cctld to the best of my knowledge

this is the first of pred's visions
amen :biggrin:

[Scandiman]

people shouldnt get too carried away and panicky about the new tlds that could come out.
it amazes me how gullible some domainers are.
look. .tel is next to useless, i know it doesnt involve having hosting etc and can offer a basic indexing system for business and contacts, but trust me, its going nowhere fast
some brandable cctlds will always do ok, .tv, .me etc
i like .tv but has been monumentally screwed over the years and they got insanely greedy, even richard rosenblatt f*cked it, so altho is doing well imo and is popular in uk to an extent, it has been royally shagged by its 'managers'

cctlds will continue to do incredibly well imo, but launched special tlds launched by individuals or small startups etc will all bomb imo. things like .club or whatever

Something may stick to the wall but most of these new comers will slide off just as they have thus far... .info, .biz... .coop or .aero anyone? It will all depend on the content and some awareness. A social network TLD may work well, imagine every domain is part of the network and if the registry provides tools to build your page then anyone with 1/2 a brain can build their page. It's an expensive experiment though but imagine if Myspace were a tld, it would have 100 million registrations if each user needed to reg their domain to be a user. Many tens if not hundreds of millions will be gambled and lost in the quest for such a success story and maybe some local TLD's like .nyc might have some success. ICANN will be the big winner no matter what.

Remains to be seen how any of this impacts .mobi if at all.

[coast]

.mobi is still going to show up as mobile in the zone file. Phone carriers are still going to whitelist .mobi from transcoding. These are procedural but reinforces the concept that .mobi is mobile.

In any new sites I create, google spiders my .mobi sites before I'm even done building them, whereas my .com new sites sit sad and lonely for a week or three or more before spiders take any notice.

.mobi isn't going anywhere but forward.

[Javier Marti]

>> As for .mobi and the future. mTld should consider hiring one or more of us.

True. Gerry, Scandi, Andres, Coast...to name but a few could have greatly helped them.

>> They need some new input, but generally are a very hard working bunch.

Hard work is not enough. Sometimes is not even necessary. Smart work is better.

>> Trey, Caroline, Pinky, Vance and Amy are amazing.

I know Caroline and Pinky. True, nice people

>> They are super bright and hard working. They don't treat this as a 9-5 desk job, they are putting their lives into it.

Do you have proof of any of this?
I am just trying to be ojbective. I have never seen them working in their environment, nor objective proof of their intellectual capacity. Have you?
I am not saying they are not. Just that, for example, the total collapse of the financial and political world reminds us that most of the people we think are bright are not so bright at all. An MBA and having worked for XYZ does not mean anything for me. Results do.

>> Jeremy...If memory serves me right you were talking 5 years minimum before .mobi gained mass awareness.
So why the rush to exit?

Good question

>> Until there is a clear cut way for consumers to surf the mobile web, .mobi has as good a chance as anything else!

Exactly. At some point the human tendency to go with what is easy, or known may start to play in .mobi's favour.


>> when you consider all the 'backers', and things are still in slowmo, what makes you think a gathering like that would ever 'back' anything else again with any gusto at all?

Chances are very, very small.


>> there is also the angle of overload for the consumer, they are starting to get confused now imo,

>> domainers too simply do not want anymore tlds and wont buy them.

Domaining in the old way is out anyway, imo.
Moreover, even if domainers had big money, how many are they? Can a bunch of people's speculative buys keep a tld alive on their own? Who would they sell to? At what price?

>> this is the key difference. we see bofa.mobi, coke.mobi, bmw.mobi
all adopting and creating different, useful targetted sites. you will NOT see bmw.asia, coke.asia or anything else or with any other NEW launch

Exactly. At one point momentum may be on the side of .mobi. We are slowly getting closer to that point, if we have not passed it already.


>> History will jusge me :coo2l:,

Your avatars "judge you" more than history could ever do

>> again it wont be anywhere near the numbers of say .com in US, or .nl in netherlands, or .uk in uk, but will be a hefty chunk all the same

Why do you think .mobi wont' be as big? You mean in number of registrations or public awareness?

>> i also expect some big boys to be using the extension and or/ some serious alexa heavyweights too. top 500 entries by mobi.

wow. Risky predictions you do, don't you? ;) I also expect the laws of gravity to continue pushing things downwards and not the other way round in the next 3 years. There you have my similar prediction!

[Pred]

>> again it wont be anywhere near the numbers of say .com in US, or .nl in netherlands, or .uk in uk, but will be a hefty chunk all the same

Why do you think .mobi wont' be as big? You mean in number of registrations or public awareness?

>> i also expect some big boys to be using the extension and or/ some serious alexa heavyweights too. top 500 entries by mobi.


wow. Risky predictions you do, don't you? ;) I also expect the laws of gravity to continue pushing things downwards and not the other way round in the next 3 years. There you have my similar prediction!

glad you agree with almost all i say. always reassuring coming from you :coo2l:

you didnt quote me correctly on last point though. i said 20 .mobi websites in top 500 alexa. not mobi having top 500 alexa lol
still a lofty prediction i guess, but imho i am being conservative in my expectations.

i totally agree things are on a downward slide for years to come, not this area though, yes initially as the fallout from the worldwide **** is affecting EVERYTHING currently, and all the drops and domaining suffering, but .mobi will be successful on enduser adoption and registration, promotion and of course domainer > enduser sales, which is what its all about also.
most of us are domainers/ developers. we need that lifeline of enduser cash until developed sites start paying which could take years.

about economy, i actually think we will crawl out of this current financial mire, START, around time of olympics, 2012. before the US

BUT, i say this hand on heart and after years of always searching, always wracking mind what area to be in, there is no better area than mobile intenet.i am convinced of this everyday. whether .mobi has a huge part, only time will tell. noone can no predict, we can but take our cards and be proactive as possible, but some will come down to luck and faith, for sure.
everything else is screwed right now, if we had loads of money of course there are many areas now to be involved in, now and coming months/years etc
real estate for one, for sure fortunes will be made again, but this area of mobile internet will be monster and i will be talking less in new year and working a lot harder on developing my mobis as this year have developed about 25 webistes, only a couple are .mobis and whilst fine , neither were meant to be big hitters or large traffic generators, that is the aim for next couple of years



Why do you think .mobi wont' be as big? You mean in number of registrations or public awareness?

complicated one, i'll try to explain

two different things. something most american domainers dont get.
as the american country code is .us but has never really been accepted, by public or domainers, .com is basically their country code
for rest of world though, in uk, netherlands , germany etc, their country code is bigger than com. thats not to say .com isnt important, in fact there are many stupid endusers who dont realise the global reach of com or fact they are leaking traffic like a bitch. amazingly sometimes the com is sitting unregged. so what im saying is many/ most domainers are american and use com, but it is also world known. the chances of mobi getting as well known in my opnion are almost none. its not a competition, never has been , its not a vhs/ betamax comp. where one has to die to make way for other, i have always said that, BUT .mobi is more comparable to com in the sense that its a global tld, so even if 10 million mobis sell for example and only 4 million .fr have sold. it doesnt mean .mobi will be really well known in france or even europe, whereas .fr will be benchmark in france still and also will be known in netherlands, belgium pretty well etc

probably best way of explaining this is i expect registrations to really spike in about 18 months onwards, when dust has settled a bit, when massv drops are finished , when media interest etc picks up more in mobile net, when everyone is losing the pcs and moving to netbooks and mobiles exclusively. as its a global tld, for businesses to be adopting and taking their .mobi we would need to see significant .mobi registration to show it is well known and being taken. im talking 4+ million regges and up. thats the min imho, based on other gtlds, also ADOPTION and useage by some major players

again it wont be as well known in native countries, their cctld will come first as is the case for most major countries, internet speaking.
.ca, .com.au, .de, .uk, .nl etc


one big trick many of these businesses miss though is they think local. even successful businesses with their respective .co.uk, .nl etc in their own language, even if they have translation flags at the top to use and translate site, is most people in most countries dont have a clue about other countries cctlds so by not having the com they will lose tons of business i guarantee, internationally. hardly anyone in uk will know german tld is .de etc , if businesses had the com, they could at least give a trustmark to people or have a site that auto recognises which country visitors ip is from and translate or whatever. this is where .mobi 'could' be incredible, on a number of fronts. becuase the .coms are warehoused and offer little chance of getting, businesses could get their respective .mobis and give a truly international mobile site to any global visitor accessing their site, by auto detect.
im really keeping my dreams and hopes in check also i believe.


ok, too much talking, christmas eve, got a shedload of stuff to do, done nothing so far :eek2:

merry christmas guys :adore:

[vikrantjain22]

Can you all come to a conclusion so that I can decide weather to hold or to sell
Decide and let me know. I will be back.

[gogo]

Can you all come to a conclusion so that I can decide weather to hold or to sell
Decide and let me know. I will be back.
That's easy Vik, sell all to me at reg fee and have peace of mind.

Does anyone have ideas on here about how to get end users - both mobile net users and site owners / creators to demand dotmobis?

One suggestion made before is for MTLD to do what many big industries do - influence the influencers behind the scenes, ie the press, web designers etc.

Yes big pharmaceutical and petrochemical companies lay on free stuff for journalists, doctors etc to influence them when they advise others... so by influencing (educating, informing?) those who inform and influence others you get a big return on a small, concentrated effort.

[gogo]

Any of you that are worried about your mobi domains or want to get rid of them to a good cause, just PM me and I'll send around a little guy in a red suit to take them away tonight and put them in cold storage until I can find a use for them.

[coast]

That's easy Vik, sell all to me at reg fee and have peace of mind.

One suggestion made before is for MTLD to do what many big industries do - influence the influencers behind the scenes, ie the press, web designers etc.

Yes big pharmaceutical and petrochemical companies lay on free stuff for journalists, doctors etc to influence them when they advise others... so by influencing (educating, informing?) those who inform and influence others you get a big return on a small, concentrated effort.

It's a great idea, Gogo, but giving out freebies would require making an end run around the registrars. I believe that would get mTLD in hot water with ICANN.

I think mobiforge and mobiThinking are their most recent attempts to influence web designers and marketers. The top people at mTLD are always traveling and talking to people to try to influence them. Andres' initiative to get dropped trademark names to trademark holders is probably as much as we can hope for at this point in this area, unfortunately. The big hole in the internet is a near complete lack of social media conversation from the marketing side which only costs time, and even that could be mitigated by unpaid interns working for university credit.

That said, I believe a lot is being done behind the scenes that isn't immediately visible because it takes time for companies to (1) agree to listen in the first place (2) make a decision (3) pay for it (4) plan it (5) build it (6) promote it. I see new .mobi's spotted on this forum every day.

The fact is, I don't see this necessarily helping name investors in the short term. There is nothing that would convince me that there is a "magic solution" to suddenly make all of our names worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars bid in last year's premium auction. I just don't see it in the short term, or even the medium range. Nope, develop or die (or hold the names for a really, really long time).

[gogo]

It's a great idea, Gogo, but giving out freebies would require making an end run around the registrars. I believe that would get mTLD in hot water with ICANN.

I think mobiforge and mobiThinking are their most recent attempts to influence web designers and marketers. .

Giving out free holidays in Dublin or wherever would probably be a nono and could backfire. But targetting press packs, press releases, information and seminars at opinion formers is hard to criticise - someone else very knowledgeable suggested on here before targetting info at the techno squad who see no technical advantage in .mobi and have no grasp of the consumer and so write uninformative articles - I complained to a very reputable mag about their useful series of articles on creating mobile sites and domains which did not even MENTION dotmobi.

I don't know what MTLD are trying to achieve - as a private company presumably their objective is profit, although unlike a publicly listed company shareholder return is not paramount. MTLD could choose to make no money or lose money as long as the private owner(s) supported that. If MTLD's objective is profit, then marketing is part of that.

So is MTLD after the highest possible level of .mobi registrations and renewals?
Or the highest possible absolute number of sites? Or the highest possible percentage of registered names being developed? Or the highest possible market penetration in terms of the percentage of the total of mobile sites which choose to use a .mobi name.

Domain resale prices are obviously not a concern of MTLD, except possibly as a driver of registrations and renewals.

But my question still stands, what can be done to make consumers and end-users demand dotmobi?

[Gerry]

I'll be here if anyone needs me.

Not going anywhere. :biggrin:



http://cottonskids.com/images//card%203.jpg



Christmas Card to Cotton's First Grade Classes.

[Pred]

I'll be here if anyone needs me.

Not going anywhere. :biggrin:



http://cottonskids.com/images//card%203.jpg



Christmas Card to Cotton's First Grade Classes.



a christmas *******!

awesome.

where's mobi ? do you still have or just sir.cotton?

:adore:

[Gerry]

a christmas *******!

awesome.

where's mobi ? do you still have or just sir.cotton?

:adore:Doggie update can be found here: http://mobility.mobi/showpost.php?p=89203&postcount=20

Where's mobi?

On the web, in my house, in my yard and in my heart! :laugh:

[Accent]

.....

I don't know what MTLD are trying to achieve - as a private company presumably their objective is profit, although unlike a publicly listed company shareholder return is not paramount. MTLD could choose to make no money or lose money as long as the private owner(s) supported that. If MTLD's objective is profit, then marketing is part of that.

So is MTLD after the highest possible level of .mobi registrations and renewals?
Or the highest possible absolute number of sites? Or the highest possible percentage of registered names being developed? Or the highest possible market penetration in terms of the percentage of the total of mobile sites which choose to use a .mobi name.....

The force behind the beginnings of .Mobi is Nokia. The other "sponsors" were brought on board (such as they are) because ICANN rejected Nokia's first application.

Nokia wants .Mobi to provide content for their devices so they can sell lots and lots of phones. Profit for the registry is not very important, the big money is in the phones and service plans.

[mediaadvantages]

I think what people want to see is a public effort by MTLD and they don't feel that is happening. When I say public effort I'm talking about digging through the news to find articles relating to domaining, the internet in general, advertising, mobile, website developing and other types of news stories and forums, and then creating a comment or emailing the person that wrote the story to do a follow up related to .mobi. I know that if I want to get one of my sites noticed and marketed by word of mouth, thats one of the first things I do. Creating a comment on an AP story about recalled toys that discusses the site and also has a link seems to do wonders for me. About half my traffic comes this effort and doesn't take much time to search the keyword, open up the story and paste my comment in each one.

[capt. ahab]

Great thread everybody. Interesting points all around.

My 2 cents .... The game really begins when we all have our own " phonemoney".

Booyaa !!! Happy Holidays everyone.

[Binaryman]

I think what might help a lot also is if the guys from Mtld would interact with us a bit more on this forum.

[vikrantjain22]

Since nobody is leaving I guess I have to stay back also.
Guess you all have to bear with me for some more time. :)
Happy Holidays to all.

[mobiClick]

It would be great to see some more high profile advertising done by mTLD to promote the dotMobi brand and bring it to the masses. When I talk to non-domainers, most have never heard of a .mobi extenstion. (in Canada)

I have great expectations for the .mobi domains. But, some prime, mainstream awareness advertising by mTLD would really help to solidify the .mobi brand. Especially against the trillion other GTLD's bound to start popping up everywhere.

[Javier Marti]

MobiClick, I think you wanted to post this in another more recent thread with a similar name.