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Snoop ... Do you expect to see the same scenario repeated for all other
tlds ? ... example .me ... etc ?
The domain registration part was undoubtedly profitable, but DotMobi recently was calling itself a software company that had a domain extension as one of it's projects. I said I thought the backers were causing the registry to spend money on things unrelated to selling domains.
I said I thought the backers were causing the registry to spend money on things unrelated to selling domains.
A Mobi rep wrote on M that prospects will be better with Afilias (he's the PR guy, wadda you expect) but more importantly said that marketing plans were being formulated - as if that is a detailed process.
The staff at DotMobi has been very innovative in promoting the extension on a small budget, I hope that can continue.
I was restating other people's oft voiced opinion expecting the death of Mobi. While the future number of registrations is anybody's guess Afilias is an established registry and their purchase insures the continuation of the extension and wide availability.I must have misunderstood your post, my comment was based on this :-
" Purchase by Afilias means the extension will not be abandoned and will be available at all the registrars. Utter doom has been avoided."
Snoop said:dotMobi said:... dotMobi is a leading mobile Internet services company, helping businesses and individuals reach the world’s billions of mobile phone users. dotMobi spurs mobile industry innovation by giving content providers the tools they need – including the .mobi top level domain – to ensure the Web will work on mobile phones with speed, accuracy and relevant content. ...
That to me doesn't sound like an org claiming to be a software company.
Snoop said:-When was the last time the backers showed interest in it?
-What were they spending money on that was unrelated to the the .mobi domain?
As I mentioned, Vance is the PR guy, he is paid to be upbeat, but it seems that all those backers, many of whom are aggressively in competition with each other, greatly muddied the work environment with their conflicting goals. Most Mobi domainers and developers have been concerned about the company, and this is a reasonable explanation.Vance Hedderel said:{snip}
<<(Question) I'm going to venture to say this is the death blow to people hoping for even stronger registry marketing activities. Is afilias marketing any of their other TLDs? Seems their focus is strictly registry technology.>>
Just the opposite ... dotMobi is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Afilias, that means it will be an entity that has greater focus and control over its activities than previously when 14 board members were involved. (Ever heard the phrase, "herding cats"?)
<<(Question) will Pinky, Caroline and you now remain on the dotMobi team?>>
It's business as usual for dotMobi. Well actually, business as better ... Afilias is focused on dotMobi growing the .mobi domain. I see this being a big plus for .mobi domain owners.
{snip}
<<(Question) Can we consider your statements a commitment to consumer level marketing of the .mobi brand? If so what time-frame?>>
While I'd love to say "Yes, absolutely!," the reality is that specific marketing plans are just now in development. After all, the acquisition has just closed so there's still a ways to go.
What I can tell you is that Afilias is truly enthusiastic about dotMobi and the .mobi domain. And a big point to note is what Andres said, "We can only go up from here, especially with only one cook in the kitchen now."
<<(Question) As for the reasons for the sale, I prefer not to speculate.>>
Let's use a divorce metaphor: it wasn't about the child, it was about the parents not getting along. But, as it should be in all divorces, the child is still on good terms with the parents.
Snoop said:Have you ever heard of a company being bought, especially one in a weak financial state, without the acquirer forumulating new marketing plans?
.....
I think you'll find in a year most of them have gone regardless of what is said right now. It will need to be a very different operation because the way it was being run wasn't sustainable. Given the amount of money being lost I don't think it is fair to say they were innovative on a small budget, the budget was probably way too big.
I doubt other extensions have been losing money at the rate .mobi was.
---------- Post added at 02:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:59 PM ----------
From their about us page,
About us | dotMobi
dotMobi is a leading mobile Internet services company, helping businesses and individuals reach the world’s billions of mobile phone users. dotMobi spurs mobile industry innovation by giving content providers the tools they need – including the .mobi top level domain – to ensure the Web will work on mobile phones with speed, accuracy and relevant content.
dotMobi was founded by leading mobile operators, network & device manufacturers, and Internet content providers, including Ericsson, Google, GSM Association, Hutchison 3, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefónica Móviles, Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), Visa and Vodafone.
That to me doesn't sound like an org claiming to be a software company.
-When was the last time the backers showed interest in it?
-What were they spending money on that was unrelated to the the .mobi domain?
Have you ever heard of a company being bought, especially one in a weak financial state, without the acquirer forumulating new marketing plans?
I think you'll find in a year most of them have gone regardless of what is said right now. It will need to be a very different operation because the way it was being run wasn't sustainable. Given the amount of money being lost I don't think it is fair to say they were innovative on a small budget, the budget was probably way too big.
I was quite surprised to hear they were losing the kind of money that's been reported -- have to agree with you that they obviously weren't paying attention to the bottom line and I certainly wouldn't call that "being innovative". Plenty of ccTLDs seem to be doing just fine (financially) with smaller registration numbers, so I'm sure it's something an experienced player like Afilias should be able to fix.
So you shouldn't assume that everything is terrible over there, the registry is still making cash.
I believe they and many others still think its early days and are investing in the future. Did they invest more than they should? Possibly. Sounds like the original backers didn't want to invest more cash at least.
Which is understandable, there goal was to use dotmobi to get the mobile web moving, not get into the domain business for a profit.
Please re-read the quote from Vance of DotMobi I copied above re: Dealing with the 14 backers was like herding cats. The actual registry was profitable.What do you base this on? the financial reports show losses each year. It should be possible to run this registry profitably with alot of cost stripping, but that clearly wasn't the case in the past.
When a company runs it itself into the ground to the point where it has nearly no cash left despite reasonable sales then it is pretty certain that they have overspent.
Companies like Microsoft and Google would only invest in Mobi if there was an expected benefit to the parent company - even in the best case the money return would be totally insignificant on Google's balance sheet.How do you know what the goal was of the shareholders? Looking back at what has actually happened I think they acted more like they were in it to try and get a decent return. I think the former idea "to get the mobile web moving" was a widely held view a few years ago, and that is why people thought (mistakenly) that the backers would actually promote this extension - it led alot of domainers down the garden path in to talk of .mobi buttons on phones and suggestions of google.mobi.
Is it that hard to believe the backers put money in simply because they thought they might make a profit directly from the investment? Isn't that the basis upon which most investments are made?
Please re-read the quote from Vance of DotMobi I copied above re: Dealing with the 14 backers was like herding cats. The actual registry was profitable.
Companies like Microsoft and Google would only invest in Mobi if there was an expected benefit to the parent company - even in the best case the money return would be totally insignificant on Google's balance sheet.
Most Mobi investors agree that the potential of promotion of the extension by the backers was an unfulfilled promise, as was trustmark enforcement.
Last summer Trey (President of dotMobi) assured the Mobi Forum that the "Registry" was profitable. In retrospect it seems he was splitting the registration portion of their business from the remainder.I've reread the quote and it says nothing about the profitablility of the registry. Mind numbing that the actual financial figures are public, and they show losses, yet you'd argue otherwise.
Guesswork, yes, but why else would Google and Microsoft make an investment requiring active participation (board meetings) for such a small sum of best case profits? Not today is correct -- and they sold.This is guesswork. Might have looked like that 3 years ago but not today.
There was not much said directly by the backers. The registry discussed a lot of things they were not able to deliver (with caveats added) such as a "Mobi Button". On the other hand the DotMobi registry did many things to promote the extension that never had been done before. Some worked well., others did not, as would be expected. Does any non-Com international extension have such a long list of major corporations using their domain? Maybe Org, I doubt Net has such a list.I don't remember anything being "promised" by the backers. I do remember domainers speculating about all sorts of unrealistic stuff like .mobi buttons and large companies mainly using .mobi as opposed to their current domains for their mobile offerings. I also remember the extension being heavily hyped by the registry -which is what is to be expected of any new tld.
Last summer Trey (President of dotMobi) assured the Mobi Forum that the "Registry" was profitable. In retrospect it seems he was splitting the registration portion of their business from the remainder.
Guesswork, yes, but why else would Google and Microsoft make an investment requiring active participation (board meetings) for such a small sum of best case profits? Not today is correct -- and they sold.
The registry discussed a lot of things they were not able to deliver (with caveats added) such as a "Mobi Button".
Does any non-Com international extension have such a long list of major corporations using their domain? Maybe Org, I doubt Net has such a list.
It remains to be seen, but I hope the purchase by Afilias will allow the company to focus exclusively on the extension and thereby be able to accomplish a lot more.
DotMobi was trying to please 14 masters, the backers, who were, except for Nokia, not interested in the extension. These backers caused DotMobi to spend a lot of money on side projects that benefited the parent companies and not Mobi. So the registry itself was probably doing OK, many registrys make a profit with less than 900,000 domains.
Looks like the registry was not healthy, perhaps it was sold because the backers weren't willing to put in any more money?
Have you ever heard of a company being bought, especially one in a weak financial state, without the acquirer forumulating new marketing plans?
I was restating other people's oft voiced opinion expecting the death of Mobi. While the future number of registrations is anybody's guess Afilias is an established registry and their purchase insures the continuation of the extension and wide availability.
Which is understandable, there goal was to use dotmobi to get the mobile web moving, not get into the domain business for a profit.
Companies such as Microsoft, Google, Nokia, Visa, and most of the others do not spend their time investing in micro businesses like DotMobi unless there is a perceived benefit to the mother corporation.
I think its good news as well, Afilias has more experience, connections and resources.
Note that a number of those sunrise domains have been revoked and are pending reallocation.6) Almost ten years after launch, the Sunrise Trademark fraudulent registrations have not been resolved.
Oh yes, Afilias has done wonders with .info. Just look at .info:
1) You can buy a new .info for under one dollar.
2) Resales are in the tank.
3) Almost ten years after launch, abysmal usage.
4) Almost ten years after launch, zero public awareness.
5) Almost ten years after launch, zero promotion on any measureable scale.
6) Almost ten years after launch, the Sunrise Trademark fraudulent registrations have not been resolved.
Afilias has "more experience" driving an extention into the ground. This is really bad news for .mobi.
Is there a new tld which has done better? I'm not suggesting .info is a good extension, . But I don't think it can be said Affilias has done badly with it, look at the alt extension competition (.biz, .us, .jobs, .travel etc).
Since I posted at the top of this page there has been an increase of over 100,000 .info's (More than .mobi added in a whole year including all the new IDN .mobi's)
.info is the fastest growing gTLD outside .com and has been every month for the last 4 or 5 months or so.
All the reports for the last couple of years show .info is used far less for spam and phlishing than some of the other TLDs.
So I think you are being a bit hard on Afilias . If Afilias does as well with .mobi as it has done with .info that has to be good for .mobi
If indeed you don't partake in .us, .biz, .tel, etc., then you are missing a whole field of data: non-published sales. I can tell you .us is performing well in that field, over and above the rest.