Great post Jeremy, but I'd like to add a few things regarding strategy:
The window of opportunity for .mobi was September 26th, 2006. If you had any chance of getting a *great* name, at a *great* price (reg fee), it was on that day and that day only. I'm not talking about good or very good names - some can still be found. I'm not talking about random LLL.mobi's. I'm talking about the cream of the crop. Many of us prepared weeks even months in advance for that day, which was originally August 28th, 2006 but pushed back for TM holders. We scanned the premium list and found dozens of premium names dotMobi failed to include (EX: Songs.mobi, Ads.mobi, Europe.mobi.. and many more). We went ahead and pre-registered EVERYTHING that had any value and left no stone unturned. All this might sound discouraging to anyone who jumped onboard too late, but you STILL have a chance to own *great* names with the right strategy. All you need to do is ask yourself the following:
Would I rather own 1 *great* name or a few dozen mediocre names?
Would you rather own Songs.mobi or a few dozen names like SongTunes.mobi, FreeSongz.mobi, etc? I think we would all agree on Songs.mobi. Now how do you get a name like that? First, stop wasting money on mediocre names. Second, make a list of names you would love to own. Third, start making offers. If you've already spent every dime then start selling your names off. You will almost certainly find people who will buy your names for reg fee or slightly higher (especially now that .mobi has a $200K sale under it's belt). Build a nice little egg of $500 or more and then start making offers. It is still early enough to find some unbelievable deals but you need to put in the time and effort.
Some of you are thinking.. "Well, what's a great name?" To answer this question let me quote Alexa Raad, dotMobi Vice President of Marketing:
"As mobile users we do not 'browse' so much as search for quick, timely bits of info."
Think about that for a second.. now think about what types of names fit that description. Can you imagine someone sitting on a bus filling out a loan application on a phone? I can't. Not even with qwerty keypads, voice command, and a fast connection. Now imagine that same person looking for a bar in Vegas, weather in Norway, a Chapelle joke, a Shakespeare quote, U2 lyrics, or video highlights from last nights Knicks game. I can completely see it. Ordering flowers at Flowers.mobi seems a bit of a stretch at first thought, but I can definitely see that as well. Jeremy wrote a great post but the only statement I disagreed with was this: "There will ultimately be very little difference in the search habits on laptops/desktops vs search habits on mobile phones and other PDAs." Only time will tell but the development of the mobile internet is not heading in that direction. I'll leave you with one final quote from Alexa Raad before I go to bed:
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/dot-mobi/251828-winning-domain-name-strategies-wake-traffic.html
"the Mobile Internet seems to be evolving around a Mobile Search application rather than a browsing one and if you think about it it makes perfect sense.* When out and about with only your mobile and likely little time, you are more apt to want to search for specific info rather than simply browse (which is what we do when we have more time, cheap connectivity and a large screen)."
Bottom line: Develop a strategy NOW and grab those *great* names while you still can!
-Minion