CALL TO ACTION: All .mobi domain owners, particularly Premium .mobi holders

[Andres Kello]

Dear .mobi domain owners,

For over 5 years, the .mobi community has given mTLD / dotMobi the benefit of the doubt, watching in awkward silence as the company tore off — one-by-one — everything that made this extension unique, different, and exciting.

While the Mobility.mobi community was volunteering both its time and money to run an Anti-Cybersquatting Initiative, launch the Why.mobi Awareness Campaign, join the mTLD Policy Advisory Board, and share our views and concerns about .mobi at the company's request (among many other things), mTLD were busy eliminating the Trustmark that made .mobi special, presenting one-way Webinars with empty words to appease the masses, telling us one story about their finances when their balance sheet told another, providing false statements regarding .mobi on their site, fabricating outright false forward-looking statements to its investor base, and getting side-tracked with conflicting interests, among other things, all of which have negatively impacted our investment decisions.

(I strongly recommend everyone carefully read through all the Sticky threads in the mTLD Registry / dotMobi Company, the Private Discussion, and the .mobi News and Discussion section for more information, as a lot of this has already been discussed in great detail.)

mTLD have increasingly shown an apathy and callous indifference towards the extension that so many of us spent so much time and money trying to build, that it is time we — the .mobi community — took matters into our own hands.

If we don't save .mobi, no one else will. And if the company isn't going to make any efforts to commit to their promises — both implied and specific — then we all deserve to get our investments back.

As a result, we are creating a new Roundtable for all disenfranchised .mobi domain owners dedicated to either of those goals: 1) getting this extension back on track, or 2) getting our investment back. Which of those it will ultimately be will depend solely on mTLD.

We've waited far too long. We've pardoned far too much. mTLD have taken advantage of both to become complacent and apathetic. What they fail to realize is that we've got nothing left to lose.

One way or another, things are going to change.

So if you are a .mobi domain owner and feel mTLD / dotMobi are leading this extension irresponsibly down a path to obscurity and want to change things, then please post here. There will be no discussions here, the purpose of this thread is simply to request membership to the Roundtable. Also, no PM's please, this is not the time to be private about your disapproval, discontentment, and dissatisfaction. This is time to speak up.

One week from now, I will invite everyone who has requested membership in this thread to the private Roundtable on Mobility to discuss our next step.

Please spread the word.

Sincerely,

Andres Kello
Mobility.mobi, Owner


P.S. The Server crashed while attempting to send this e-mail to the entire community, so I don't think every member received it. I don't want to re-send the e-mail and fill people's Inbox with duplicates, so please spread the word any way you can to ensure every .mobi owner who is discontent gets a chance to participate in the Roundtable.



Growing List of disgruntled .mobi owners that want change and will be joining the Roundtable:

1. Andres Kello
2. noonoo1
3. cramer
4. mobico
5. XF.com
6. think
7. keithmt
8. amr
9. GijsZePa
10. Dave
11. Tim
12. Accent
13. jaybee
14. blitzpotz
15. CommerceMobile.fr
16. pcaero
17. Tom
18. gogo
19. Pred
20. miellas
21. ChineseDomain
22. newdomainer
23. HipHop.mobi
24. domainsale
25. The mobi man
26. worldonmobile
27. vikrantjain22
28. MOB1
29. rob
30. morse
31. Mukul Sharma
32. DomainTalker
33. gobuy
34. Nametrader
35. mobiClick
36. Mobidomainer
37. Mercury
38. liubang518
39. talas
40. freemarket
41. namelot
42. markfield
    

[noonoo1]

Yes I am worried about dotmobi and am very concerned about a the time, effort and $$$$$ of investment I have put into .mobi, do count me in!

[cramer]

I'd like to join the roundtable.

[mobico]

I am in!

[Scandiman]

I'm interested in getting the extension back on track so I'll participate.

EDIT: After re-reading this entire thread I suspect I'm in the minority in only wanting to further the extension and have no desire for recompense from mTLD or anyone else for that matter regarding .mobi. So I'm withdrawing from the roundtable and will use that precious time in my ongoing efforts to develop and promote .mobi websites and further the extension. I wish you all the best in your endeavors.

[XF.com]

While our focus is mainly .com - we did buy one .mobi name at a Premium:

Jokes.mobi

We complied with mTLD's policy and built a functioning site on this
premium mobile name within a week (much sooner than their requirement).

We're were assuming and hoping that mTLD would heavily support and
promote this extention - but it never did happen.

Now, nearly 4 years later - the extention still isn't moving forward as promised.

Frustrated YES.
I'm in.

XF.com Investments

[Andres Kello]

Folks, the Server crashed while attempting to send this e-mail to the entire community, so I don't think every member received it. I don't want to re-send the e-mail and fill people's Inbox with duplicates, so please spread the word anyway you can to ensure every .mobi owner who is discontent gets a chance to participate in the Roundtable.

Thanks.

[think]

Count me in please

[keithmt]

I'm in and interested in monetary reimbursement. I say that because I strongly feel that it is simply too late to get .mobi back on track!

[Scandiman]

Folks, the Server crashed while attempting to send this e-mail to the entire community, so I don't think every member received it. I don't want to re-send the e-mail and fill people's Inbox with duplicates, so please spread the word anyway you can to ensure every .mobi owner who is discontent gets a chance to participate in the Roundtable.

Thanks.

I'm guessing there's no way to know who got the e-mail, if not then I suggest extending the sign up period an additional week because a lot of people don't visit here every week.

[amr]

I am in.

[GijsZePa]

Good initiative Andres,

I'm not owning a premium domain, but still invested quite some money in the tld. ALthough I can say that I made some money with it... I'm very dissapointed in the current status.

Good luck you all ! I hope that you will succeed in bringing back the tld on track..

Martin

[Dave]

Not sure how much time I'll have to devote to this, but I'd be interested in possibly participating in the discussions at least -- I'm not particularly pleased with how things have gone.

[Tim]

I have lots of sweat equity and skin in the game. I'm in too.

[Scandiman]

Andres, could you explain why this is particularly for Premium name holders? What's so unique or special about them/us?

[Andres Kello]

I'm guessing there's no way to know who got the e-mail, if not then I suggest extending the sign up period an additional week because a lot of people don't visit here every week.

Time is short, so I rather not extend it. Let's just spread the word as much as we can. Folks, feel free to use social networks to point .mobiers to this thread. I might do a follow-up e-mail the day before, but I don't want to lose momentum by waiting another week to get started.

Andres, could you explain why this is particularly for Premium name holders? What's so unique or special about them/us?

Every disgruntled .mobi holder is invited to participate, but Premium holders obviously have more skin in the game and therefore more to lose/gain, so they might naturally be more interested in participating. This is especially true when you consider that for the vast majority of Premium holders, most of their investment in those domains went directly into mTLD's coffers, not some innocent secondary market participants'.

[Accent]

Reg fee and Snapnames/Pool buyers bought the promises also.
I am in.

[jaybee]

I'm in also.

[blitzpotz]

Count on me, Andres.

[CommerceMobile.fr]

I would like to join this roundtable. I still believe .mobi has a great future and is the best solution to the mobile Web. Therefore we should fight to make sure someone works on raising the awareness of this extension with SMEs and large corporations.

[youmo]

Folks, feel free to use social networks to point .mobiers to this thread.

I'm in.

We will need to muster as many people as possible, but be careful we don't blast the internet with negative sentiment about .mobi. It would be counterproductive to scare off what embryonic end-user activity there already is. As Afilias' priorities are somewhere else, having this thread as the number one search result when googling '.mobi' would hurt us more than it hurts them!

[keithmt]

Premium holders obviously have more skin in the game and therefore more to lose/gain,

I respectfully disagree! Mtld auctioned off a few hundred "premium" names. With 1 million plus registrations I see "premium" mobi holders a non factor in the grand scheme.

It's the folks who purchased and continually renewed hundreds/thousands of mobis who've lost the most. Mtld sold a bill of goods to investors but never held up their end of the contract!

[pcaero]

Count me in.


PC

[Tom]

I'm interested to see how this initiative progresses, so count me in.

[Andres Kello]

I respectfully disagree! Mtld auctioned off a few hundred "premium" names. With 1 million plus registrations I see "premium" mobi holders a non factor in the grand scheme.

It's the folks who purchased and continually renewed hundreds/thousands of mobis who've lost the most. Mtld sold a bill of goods to investors but never held up their end of the contract!

Everyone who owns or has owned a .mobi has skin in the game, which is why every disgruntled .mobi owner is invited to participate. By "skin", I was merely referring to the amount potentially invested by an individual. For example, it is no secret that most people who invested 6-figures into .mobi did so via Premium domains, so those individuals might be more inclined to participate in shaping this thing, that's all I was referring to.

We can discuss this more in the Roundtable. I don't want any discussions here to get us side-tracked.

[gogo]

We can discuss this more in the Roundtable. I don't want any discussions here to get us side-tracked.

Count me in, thanks.

[Pred]

Pred's in.

[keithmt]

We can discuss this more in the Roundtable. I don't want any discussions here to get us side-tracked.

Fair enough

[ChinaMobi]

-

[miellas]

Count me in as well! Thank you Andres for shooting me the email.