.mobi Icann - A Significant Threat To .mobi

jeremyp · May 27, 2008

I didn't see this coming.

ICANN appears to be ready to start releasing generic .DOMAIN extensions.

Assuming this happens in a significant manner, I believe it will destroy the potency of .mobi.

My investing in .mobi has everything to do with the unique positioning in the space. The moment ICANN pushes more than just a few token generic extensions (.PRO, .TRAVEL) and lands in the hundreds/thousands of extensions as is feared, this is the end. The absolute end to the unique point of difference .mobi currently is positioned to bring.

The article linked below took my breath away.

I believe MTLD needs to address this... lobby ICANN before they release hundreds of generic .DOMAINS. God forbid .mobile, .tele, .cell, .cellular, and many others are just around the corner.

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=60918

Here's to .mobi and it's unique point of difference / mission.

Jeremy Padawer

Steven · May 27, 2008

I think it should be posted in the domain discussion forum as this will affect every single domainer out there... even with high profile .com names.

This is a nightmare if it is to happen.

hawkeye · May 27, 2008

Here's another link from April 30, 08 - http://www.mccarthy.ca/article_detail.aspx?id=3968

Definitely something to keep an eye on.

accent · May 27, 2008

I prefer not to "register" to read articles, keeps the spam down to a moderate roar. So if there are some things I am missing, someone please alert me.

I posted about ICANN's plans March 1:
Link

None of the other posters on that thread thought it to be a particular danger. I tend to agree - .travel, .museum, .coop, .aero, .jobs, .name - all of these are gtlds that have made no difference to domaining whatever. Add a hundred or a thousand more and the result is the same. X times 0 = 0. IDNs will perhaps be a big thing - but mostly in the poorer countries - English is the language of commerce, I don't see that changing any time soon.

There is something of a threat to .mobi in the proposed .car extension. I forget where I heard it, but automakers want their own extension for onboard internet and to be able to download patches and new programs directly into a car's computer system. There is a meeting scheduled for the fall when proposals will be discussed - the point being that they are at least a year away from a concrete proposal to ICANN, and who knows how long before this limited competitor (if it can be considered a competitor) will go live. So .Mobi will have a several year head start, and let us see if the .car "backers" show more interest than the .Mobi backers do.

Here is part of what I posted March 1:
===New ICANN chairman: "Thousands of applications for new gTLDs"===
Peter Thrush, the new ICANN chairman, is profiled in the latest (February) issue of Modern Domainer magazine.

The good news is that he appears to know the difference between a domainer and a cybersquatter. The not-so-good news is that he wants tons of new gTLDs:

Peter_Thrush said:
I have always believed creating new gTLDs should be much more of market driven process than a regulatory process. I also believe we have had a system of relative domain name scarcity for a considerable amount of time and new gTLDs will create new business opportunities around the world.

He seems quite determined. Three of his four goals in office are:

Peter_Thrush said:
*Creating a fast efficient predictable and orderly gTLD implementation process;
*Building the large, complex business structure to handle thousands of applications for new gTLDs;
*Avoiding a litigation challenge crisis, particularly from parties with a vested interest in restricting the domain name space and slowing down the approval process;

{end}

I suspect the "litigation challenge" may come from corporations who might dislike purchasing an endless stream of variations of their trademarks in an endless stream of extensions.

-REECE- · May 27, 2008

It sounds to me like he's saying Domainer's have had their fun and now it's time to screw the domain aftermarket big time (for domainers).

That's my take at least

accentnepal said:
I prefer not to "register" to read articles, keeps the spam down to a moderate roar. So if there are some things I am missing, someone please alert me.

I posted about ICANN's plans March 1:
Link

None of the other posters on that thread thought it to be a particular danger. I tend to agree - .travel, .museum, .coop, .aero, .jobs, .name - all of these are gtlds that have made no difference to domaining whatever. Add a hundred or a thousand more and the result is the same. X times 0 = 0. IDNs will perhaps be a big thing - but mostly in the poorer countries - English is the language of commerce, I don't see that changing any time soon.

There is something of a threat to .mobi in the proposed .car extension. I forget where I heard it, but automakers want their own extension for onboard internet and to be able to download patches and new programs directly into a car's computer system. There is a meeting scheduled for the fall when proposals will be discussed - the point being that they are at least a year away from a concrete proposal to ICANN, and who knows how long before this limited competitor (if it can be considered a competitor) will go live. So .Mobi will have a several year head start, and let us see if the .car "backers" show more interest than the .Mobi backers do.

Here is part of what I posted March 1:
===New ICANN chairman: "Thousands of applications for new gTLDs"===
Peter Thrush, the new ICANN chairman, is profiled in the latest (February) issue of Modern Domainer magazine.

The good news is that he appears to know the difference between a domainer and a cybersquatter. The not-so-good news is that he wants tons of new gTLDs:

He seems quite determined. Three of his four goals in office are:

{end}

I suspect the "litigation challenge" may come from corporations who might dislike purchasing an endless stream of variations of their trademarks in an endless stream of extensions.

accent · May 27, 2008

Give Rick Schwartz credit - He was saying a year ago that our domain assets would be under siege, - whether from the Snowe bill, reverse hijacking, extension dilution or who knows what else.

Best protection I know is to diversify, avoiding having too large a % in a single name or sector.

Kate · May 27, 2008

Reece said:
It sounds to me like he's saying Domainer's have had their fun and now it's time to screw the domain aftermarket big time (for domainers).

Well fortunately, it is the market that will ultimately decide :blink:

The problem with this approach is that experience indicates many if not most new TLDs have been struggling at best. Consumers shun them for various reasons. Also .com & ccTLDs have a legitimacy that newer extensions will probably never have. Every business knows that.

Icannt is only fostering confusion, actually they are doing more harm than good to the Internet. If only they would learn from the past and learn from their mistakes. And if only they did listen to the Internet constituency.
Biting the hands that feeds... not good

newdomainer.mobi · May 27, 2008

My take on all this is that the internet is still a baby in relative terms. The future is not known at all.... in time there will be 10 times the content on-line as there is today; there will be demand for names across a number of extensions & the specific domain extensions such as .pro .travel .job .legal .auto .beauty .hair .kitchen will maybe find a place in that future internet? This will unfold over the next 20years for a new generation / generations rather than be something that will happen this year or next..
The internet & the mobilenet will evolve continuously for the next 100years & beyond.. In todays world the only staple / standard "constant" that we can rely on is, ironically, "change" itself....

I think that registrars will have to slice their fees to maybe $2 to $5 per annum per name (& we will have many more names)..... .mobi is only as exposed or vulnerable to these changes as .com itself is..

Obviously; this is just MHO... but I don't believe any name that currently has a "real" value (as measured by Warren Buffet; actually earning - Now!) will suffer from these changes..

-REECE- · May 27, 2008

Snoop has said this and I will reiterate it -- .mobi, being the speculative investment that it is, is far more prone to extreme fluctuations (particularly downwards) than .com.

It's not even up for discussion that this will affect the prospects of .mobi far more than .com... .com is an established extension that has been part of the general public's everyday life for 10+ years.

.mobi has almost zero brand awareness outside of the domaining community... Throw in a thousand more extensions and you have a recipe for disaster. I hope mobi pans out but the odds just went up -- considerably if this is followed through with imho.

Mark · May 27, 2008

I don't know ... I really don't see it as a threat to any extensions already in use. I (from time to time) use my own family and "real world" friends as Guinea Pigs asking them questions about their personal use and thoughts about the internet. To be honest , Many of them don't even know what a "Domain" is ... The ones that do run Businesses and actually own some. Out of about 10 people I spoke to the last time - Only one was really aware there was such a thing as different extensions - All sites they frequent were .com (As far as they knew). My sister freaks me out when she borrows my computer and I still see her typing in stuff like YahooMail.com into the browser :D
Mind you I'm talking about people who mainly use the web for Email and a little research here and there .... I seriously doubt they even pay attention to stuff like Domain Extensions. Which still goes to show you how much chance there is for "Traffic Leakage" from type in traffic.

skeitel · May 27, 2008

The difference is in branding and mass promotion to the general public. It does not make a difference how many extensions exist, except for domainers. Nobody care about obscure extensions, and nobody will in the future. They'll only create confusion to the average surfer, that wouldn't know where to go, and would default going to the extensions he knows (dotcom) or to those that he thinks are appropriate for his situation (dotmobi if mtld did a good job promoting the extension to the mass public)

labrocca · May 27, 2008

Dot Com is king...it doesn't take a genius to know this. Every extension released since 2001 has only been a marginal player. If you been around for 10 years...you have witness to this. If you been here a year or two...you just haven't been around long enough to see the patterns.

They could release 500 extensions in the next decade and it won't hurt dot com. Dot Net and Dot Org would not be significantly harmed.

Is it fair to .info that .biz was released? Was it fair to .biz that .mobi was released?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain

Better go take a peek at that list...if you had your choice of a domain in any extension it would be dot com....with dot net as second.

The TLD's are coming...those holding large non-dotcom portfolio's better hedge their bets.

Give Rick Schwartz credit - He was saying a year ago that our domain assets would be under siege, - whether from the Snowe bill, reverse hijacking, extension dilution or who knows what else.

The release of new TLDs only hurt non dotcom holders.

My biggest advice...don't rely on anything except development.

HeyNow · May 27, 2008

"None of the other posters on that thread thought it to be a particular danger. I tend to agree - .travel, .museum, .coop, .aero, .jobs, .name - all of these are gtlds that have made no difference to domaining whatever."

All of those are sTLDs, not gTLDS. .INFO, .COM, .BIZ, .NET, and .ORG are gTLDs. An "sTLD" is a "sponsored" TLD, and .travel, .museum, .coop, .aero, .jobs, and .name are all sTLDs.

RJ · May 27, 2008

MOBI investors should not fear this. Look at history. There used to be just .COM .NET .ORG which were available for general registration. Those extensions established a userbase and mindshare that has dominated to the present day. With the subsequent releases of .biz and .info, .COM's position only got stronger. In fact if 100 new TLDs were opened tomorrow, the value of .COM's would increase, not decrease, because there would be a certain level of prestige in owning one that everyone knows. The other 100 TLDs would be competing for any level of recognition in the market, while .COM already has it established.

The same could work for MOBI if it's obtained any level of market penetration already. If a dozen new mobile-related TLDs appeared, MOBI will still be the one mobile-related TLD people already know and only gain in value. It would be like the ".COM" of the mobile namespace.

The only danger would be if there was a single TLD that gained immediate acceptance and penetrated the market fast and overtook the popularity that MOBI has. It's possible, but unlikely to happen. One thing I see working against MOBI is the 5000+ reserved RFP names mTLD is still holding.

gou · May 27, 2008

-RJ- said:
The only danger would be if there was a single TLD that gained immediate acceptance and penetrated the market fast and overtook the popularity that MOBI has. It's possible, but unlikely to happen. One thing I see working against MOBI is the 5000+ reserved RFP names mTLD is still holding.

Good point. .Mob or .Mobile isn't likely to work out, but .Cell wouldn't be a bad extension. I would still prefer .Mobi, though.

RJ · May 27, 2008

ICANN recently stated or implied they would not approve TLDs that were phonetically or confusingly similar to existing TLDS. So .MOB or .MOBILE would never be approved.

What are some other options? There aren't many options that would make for a more targeted mobile related TLD that .MOBI. .CELL is ok.

gou · May 27, 2008

-RJ- said:
ICANN recently stated or implied they would not approve TLDs that were phonetically or confusingly similar to existing TLDS. So .MOB or .MOBILE would never be approved.

What are some other options? There aren't many options that would make for a more targeted mobile related TLD that .MOBI. .CELL is ok.

I wonder if .Cell would be accepted globally, though. For example, the word "mobile" exits in Japan, but "cell" wouldn't make any sense at all.

RJ · May 27, 2008

As silly as .MOBI looks and sounds, mTLD wasn't left with many options.

.M would have been an amazing TLD, but ICANN isn't approving single letter TLDs and two-letter TLDs are reserved for country codes. .MOB looks like it's connected to the mafia. .MOBILE is way too long to expect anyone to type on a mobile device.

So .MOBI is pretty much the best you can get given the circumstance.

Good point about .CELL. Plus it's not entirely accurate anymore since cellular technology is on its way out, right?

.WEP? too techy

Any demand for a mobile related TLD is already filled by MOBI already. It's a niche market at best, and I can't really see another being wanted or needed.

akcampbell · May 27, 2008

I can buy the logic of .com benefitting from the confusion of new gTLD's but I think all alternative extensions will be adversely affected.

I can see .mobi being one of the worst affected for 2 reasons; 1) Sales prices achieved to date have been highly speculative, and 2) It's one of the least naturally brandable alternative extensions. By that I mean off line businessed don't add the word mobi to their business name in trademark registries and the 4 letters mobi are ugly. and artificial.

Within the market for alternative extensions keywords that don't have a natural fit with the extension will probably be worst hit because there will be so many other extensions that provide below average fits for the same keyword. My money would be on .web and .news if they were ever issued.

accent · May 28, 2008

HeyNow said:
All of those are sTLDs, not gTLDS. .INFO, .COM, .BIZ, .NET, and .ORG are gTLDs. An "sTLD" is a "sponsored" TLD, and .travel, .museum, .coop, .aero, .jobs, and .name are all sTLDs.

Sponsored TLDs are a subset of Generic TLDs. .Com and such are actually called "Unsponsored TLDs". Look it up.

It will probably be several years before a significant number of new extensions appear - and longer still before anything that would conflict with .mobi. The idea seems to add extensions for new market sectors, not to pile them into sectors where there already is an extension. Once the mobile web is the size of the PC internet then other mobile extensions are more likely. By then .Mobi's fortunes will have been won or lost.

The real issue here is the same old .Mobi Malaise - it is taking a very long time for the mobile web to get the attention of the public - at least in the Western countries, and so doubts creep into the minds of those who have speculated on .mobi. Sales of domains overall are down, and .mobi is no exception. Given Snoop's point about Mobi's speculative nature, I would say .Mobi prices are a lot stronger than they could be.

Recession breeds fear that recession will continue indefinitely. I doubt it will. The Dow has stayed in the 12000 - 13000 range since January, with the likelihood now that the worst of the mortgage mess has been revealed. Gold has stabilized and while oil is still shooting up many of the buyers seem to be noob speculators who have a propensity to jump in at exactly the wrong time. So I think we have seen the worst of it.

DotMobi seems to be trying to get ahead of the Mobile web curve and that is good enough news to outweigh, in my mind, any news about .car, .web, .cell or .whatever.

.mobi Icann - A Significant Threat To .mobi

Established Member

VIP Member

Top Member

VIP Member

Top Member

VIP Member

Domainosaurus RexTop Member

Established Member

Top Member

Hi :)VIP Member

Established Member

Top Member

MemberRestricted (85-100%)

Domain BuyerTop Member

Established Member

Domain BuyerTop Member

Established Member

Domain BuyerTop Member

.Pro RegularVIP Member

VIP Member

Similar threads

We're social

Pinned

Appreciation

Agreement