BocaVision

It's good to see a swift response IMHO....
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Many thanks for all the comments received over the last few days, particularly in relation to Premium Names and the Request For Proposals (RFP) process. It is great to see such interest from the market.

First and foremost, let me clarify that there is no big mystery surrounding the delay in announcing the RFP winners and we expect to have some news on that front within the next couple of weeks.

It is important to remember that the RFP process is a completely new and unique programme. We are the first Registry to attempt to allocate domains / premium names in this manner and inevitably it is going to take us a little time to finesse and fine-tune the process.

We launched four Premium Names under RFP last November and we received the applications in February of this year. Since that time, we have been in negotiations with the applicants regarding their proposed business models and plans and have been engaged in contract discussions. The contract is a very important element of the RFP process as this is how we bind applicants to their content obligations. Unfortunately, talks have taken a little longer than expected, hence the delay in announcing the results.

dotMobi has been up and running as a company for approximately 18 months and we have achieved a great amount in that short space of time. Premium Names are an integral part of our overall product plan and despite demands from the market that we release them without delay, we want to get it right. There are a lot of different components to put in place and we will, no doubt, be refining the RFP process a little as we move forward based on what we have learnt from the first round RFP. The same applies for our Premium Name auction model.

Again, thank you all for your interest and expect to hear from us in the next couple of weeks.

Posted by: Caroline Greer | May 18, 2007 at 12:41

garrett200

NICE NICE NICE NICE!!!

Did I say NICE? Rep added....

robertjr

Your kidding right? This has been a ridiculously slow response by mTLD

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BocaVision

Robert,

The mTLD's fast response was in reaction to yesterday's comments made by Dave, Alexander and Reece.....The mTLD's response to their comments was quick, not the RFP allocation process.

Here are yesterday's comments made by Dave, Alexander & Reece...

And when might we be getting a chance to find out whether TWC will be able to take on Weather.mobi...or if not them, someone else?

Sorry to say, but a very negative buzz is growing about the delay of the RFP announcement! Please at least give us some sort of concrete date that you're aiming for...
Posted by: Dave | May 17, 2007 at 02:44 AM

Neil,

I agree with Dave's sentiment.

Neil, you seem to be an intelligent, busy, pioneering executive, but it appears you are trapped in a bubble.

1.) RFP's HAVE NOT BEEN RELEASED, DELAYED SEVERAL TIMES WITHOUT REASON.

2.)Your PR firm, Edelman is cold & wishy-washy with respect to the future prospects of MOBI. They have essentially washed their hands of the mTLD. Steven Rubel, a seasoned Edelman representative on his blog MicroPersuasion.com promotes alternate technologies to MOBI.

3.) The mTLD office in England is very friendly, but totally clueless. They are unaware of the basic dotMOBI inquiries.

Neil, please break out of your bubble and confront your detractors. They are winning the day. A major coordinated boycott of MOBI at TRAFFIC and other auctions are being coordinated and will be executed.

Neil, I suggest you utilize your well-written blog for the following:

1.) Release the RFP's now. Set-up immediate timelines for other future MOBI RFP release announcements. Not talking candidly about the mysterious RFP's gives the appearance of fraud, laziness and incompetence.

2.) Neil, most are not motivated by the "average Joe" and his AverageJoe.mobi site. Talk & flaunt to the world more about Fortune 1000 brands using dotMOBI, such as the likes of StateFarm.mobi & ing.mobi. If I managed an insurance agency I'm not motivated to launch my own dotmobi insurance site if JoeInsurance.mobi puts his up. Endusers building dotMOBI sites will make or break the mTLD.

Thank you.

Respectfully,

Alexander
Posted by: Alexander | May 17, 2007 at 11:04 AM

WHY DON'T YOU HIRE SOMEONE TO DEVELOP YOUR PREMIUM DOTMOBIS? OFFER THEM A SHARE OF THE PROFITS RATHER THAN MONEY UPFRONT. THIS WOULD DO MORE FOR THE EXTENSION THAN ANY OF YOUR OTHER MARKETING EFFORTS.

Releasing those premium names will be a challenge in it's own right. Mtld has already proven themselves unprepared by what the RFP has become.

We're talking about a whole new Internet here... Are you really cut out for the task?

A list of issues which really need to be addressed follows:

1. RFP (who, what, when, why)
Who is going to win the RFP's? Is preference being given to large corporations over individuals or smaller organizations with comparable ideas?
What can be done to ensure that the RFP's don't end up in the hands of domainers? Price is not an effective barrier as many domainers have more money than developers.
When are we going to finally have the RFP results? When are future RFP's going to take place?
Why has this RFP taken so much longer than initially anticipated? Why will future RFP's be different? Why does mtld deliberately avoid the Namepros forum, which collectively has invested far more money than readers of their blog, or other websites they respond on?

2. Premium Name Allocation (what, when, why)
What method will be used to allocate the premium names? I find it hard to believe you're capable of releasing thousands of names via RFP (if the current ongoing one is any indicator), or via auctions, if profit maximization is your goal, which it appears to be.
When can we honestly expect premium names to begin being released at a meaningful rate?
Why are you loaning out the city names (i.e. Helsinki) rather than giving them to the respective cities, something which I thought was the assumed intention, early on for reserving them.

3. Nature of the investments made in mtld (what, when, why, how)
What is the nature of the investments made by these backers? Have they all made equal contributions? Are the contributions strictly monetary in nature, or are these companies also interested in aiding your extension in a meaningful way, other than to hedge their commercial interests?
When can we expect these backers to start using the .mobi extension in a meaningful way, advertising the .mobi extension, or otherwise promoting it's use?
Why are these investors interested in mtld? Are they strictly interested in the commercial applications of the mobile web and how standardization may assist them in initiating their corporate agendas?
How do you plan on recruiting additional backers? How do you plan on encouraging your current backers to promote .mobi specifically, rather than the mobile web as a whole? How do you plan on getting the general public interested in .mobi if the corporate backers aren't willing to risk promoting .mobi in a meaningful way, and prefer to spend their advertising dollars on the mobile web as a whole, so as to ensure that their marketing dollars are not wasted on a fledgling extension?

4. Convincing the general public and corporations alike of the need for a mobile web in light of the iPhone and future, even more capable devices (what, when, why, how)
What advertising efforts will you be undertaking in the near future to ensure that the iPhone, and competitors to it that many companies are currently working on, will not convince the general public that there is no need for a mobile internet?
When will you begin your Consumer Awareness Campaign? Technology changes very rapidly. Our video game consoles today are more powerful than the instruments NASA used to send man to the moon. You have a distinct advantage in beginning as soon as possible -- beginning before the iPhone and it's competitors hit the market gives you a competitive edge. Don't let the public be wowed enough by these devices that they see no reason for a mobile web when presented with reasons for one.
Why have you waiting so long to begin your Consumer Awareness Campaign? Is it because a large majority of people still don't use cell phones for internet browsing? If you wait until bandwidth costs come down, it will be too late. By then, there will be no need for the mobile web. Ever heard of the technology singularity? That isn't science fiction! As we get more advanced and build more advanced devices, the advanced devices in turn allow us to build more advanced devices. It's the same premise behind Moore's Law. Why are there so many technological breakthroughs recently? What makes you think that technology to allow enjoyable browsing on cell phones isn't in the very near future? Don't waste time! This is your chance, don't blow it.
How will you position your product (the dotmobi extension) in light of innovations such as the iPhone? How do you plan on convincing companies that .mobi is a better means for standardization than redirects to m-prefixed subdomains?

Lastly, tell Pinky we miss him over at Namepros.

Sincerely,
Reece Berg, domainer

acc

Nice info Boca, thanks for finding and posting.

Contract negotiations ... hmm ... maybe MTLD should get the sports agent Scott Boras on their team ... he seems to be able to get his clients $XXM-$XXXM deals.

Business deals takes time, nailing it down the right way is important. I lkie this quote: "The contract is a very important element of the RFP process as this is how we bind applicants to their content obligations"

Have patience with things you can't control and passion pursuing those that you can.

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-REECE-

What I'm interested in primarily, is if this contract entails a financial number, or rather, a guarantee to produce genuine content at a particular rate. There's a BIG difference there IMO.

edit: Nice to have an answer, but then again... If it takes someone blackmailing them and someone else poking 20 holes in their plan -- I'd provide an answer too

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Work In Progress

Good to hear from mTLD. Agreed that business deals can certainly take longer than expected. Seems as if they're staying on top of things. It's just a shame that this simple explanation of what's been going on didn't come out sooner to ease our minds. Oh well, better late than never

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garrett200

Patience, patience......It's great news that they are at least saying something now.

-REECE-

I left them a link to the Namepros site. If they bothered checking it out anonymously, they certainly would have seen how much negativity was generated by their unwillingness to provide information about the RFP.

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Pred

Thankyou Michael.
Rep added.
They have clearly said approx 2 weeks.
They'll look silly if they don't deliver now.
I wait with baited breath

-REECE-

Let the countdown begin. Mtld... If you have spies in here, don't let us down again...

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mykel241

Good. I was hoping that the names would not be turned over blindly to end-users.

Michael

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circa1850

I assure you, after the fiasco and getting burned so badly with the .eu launch with many LLL and trademark domains (nearly 300,000) STILL under contention, this IS the best way to handle this matter.

It is clear to me that mTLD took a few notes from that joke of a registry, landrush, and release. Is there any wonder why the .eu extension is such a flop?

I think patience and "getting it right" is the key to this and to our success. Too much damn flack and negative press will not benefit anyone let alone the extension.

In the meantime, concentrate on development, branding, and marketing what we have and being forerunners and a core group in this endeavor.

mykel241

Excellent advice for all to follow.

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scandiman

We've all been bound up over the delayed RFP but I contend that 1 month after their successful release the delay won't amount to a hill of beans. I'm glad they are trying to do their best to get it done as right as they can. It's all new territory, they've done a reasonably good job so far and they deserve some latitude IMO.

dag

That "Dave" was me! I'm glad to have gotten the ball rolling a little, at least in terms of some tidbit of information from mTLD...

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labrocca

This doesn't in any way fix the RFP process. If anything it now appears broken. If they are going to take months to releases a handful of names then they will NEVER get those 5000 names into the hands of anyone. The RFP is a good idea but I feel they kept way too many names for them to handle. Maybe 100 would have been a better number. They should possibly go back to the list...find 1000 names that they can release in another method and get them out there. Maybe just a simple mass-auction...let them make their money...get the names out though so they can be developed.

How are mobile internet users going to feel when probably the top 5000 names most likely to be entered pull up NO PAGE...that's exactly what the premium names do now. How does this help promote mobi to general public?

imho that's where mTLD has seriously faltered...they have done nothing to promote mobi to general public. I normally get the response that there aren't enough mobi sites...well that's a chicken/egg deal. Do you think you will attract developers and companies when no person is going to view the site? They need to go forward on multiple fronts. Currently they are looking like money grabbers...pushing mobi to domainers at the highest prices possible.

I am sure the RFP contracts have monetary compensation involved...anyone here disagree? They aren't gonna give out news.mobi of $10 a year.

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hawkeye

hsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sssssssssssssssssssssssss

..and the grinch puts a hole in another, and the latest, balloon of cheeriness in the mobi threads.

"There will be no good mobi news allowed to go unfettered as long as I can still post in these threads" huffed the big bad grinch!

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scandiman

How can you think it is broken when you haven't even seen the full results?

To you no doubt for a reasonable price right?

Assumes type in traffic which I think is a bad assumption.

Simply nonsense. Way too soon for general public advertising of the tld. For now the best option would be to do some coop advertising with a specific site. Stocks.mobi in the WSJ or something like that.

You're obsessed with the fact that they are making money. So what?

jagusa

I'll disagree with labrocca, but will manage to be a grinch too. If I were mtld, I wouldn't care less what the domainer community thought about the RFP business schedule or practices. Having speculators boycotting an extension at an auction is a blessing, not blackmail. It would mean actual users would be more likely to directly obtain the better domains.

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hi

-REECE-

I agree. I can understand putting some names aside such as sex.mobi, porn.mobi, xxx.mobi, sports.mobi, weather.mobi, ringtones.mobi, music.mobi, etc. But the fact remains that they bit off more than they -- or anyone for that matter, could possibly chew.

There are not 5,000 generics even in the Alexa Top 100,000. Actually, I'd be very surprised if there was even 500...

Some generics should have been reserved -- like the ones I said above. But when you start reserving things like 4x4trucks.mobi, I start to doubt the necessity for this action and have difficulty seeing beyond the financial windfall expected to be reaped.

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dag

I'm sure the whole boycott thing is just an idle threat -- if it was brought up anywhere, it would have certainly been here...

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scandiman

Are you implying that .mobi wasn't created for domainers? Shocking!

-REECE-

I think it should be obvious by now, that .mobi was a ploy to make mtld rich -- nobody else. Even their "contract negotiations", which they claim to be working on, sound like they're leasing out the names and there are vast sums of money involved... This is not good for the extension. As someone said earlier, we need the Weather Channel having weather.mobi, get TSN/FOX interested in sports.mobi, perhaps Much Music (CHUM) in ringtones.mobi, etc.

Mtld seems to be attempting to pull a .TV on this thing... I don't recall a bigger flop in history than the original .TV... Sadly, it doesn't seem Demand Media learned all that much from that flop either...

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Jasdon

Labrocca, I couldn't have put it better myself!