.mobi Frank Schilling's take on .mobi

[ekal]

Respected domainer Frank Schilling gives his take on .mobi

http://frankschilling.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/03/mobi_cashgrab.html

I think this registry is just a sales organization. They are selling hope for a .com redux. If it's not there (and its not IMO), lots of speculators are going to give up and let renewals lapse and complain about domain names in general. That's bad for the industry. In my opinion these guys are pick and shovel salesmen, selling said picks and shovels in an area with no gold.

 

[mjnels]

^ this guy wants PROOF to speculate... oh man, it just gets better and better..

 

[goodkarmaco]

speculating, does not spell sure thing

The trend is not a big one. But it is one that is in the beginning stages.

When major companies invest in the .mobi, that is the trend. Not many have, but yes some big players are in the market now. I am not one to wait around untill all the lemmings are in the market. No chance for making money following the crowd in my opinion.

Every time someones says, mobi is going nowhere, I tell them they are probably right, for them that is. If they do not "buy in" to the .mobi future, they will never be in line for any payouts. For me it is going somewhere. I am not selling my house to invest in it. But I will "stake" a small claim here and there, where I feel some potential is for profit.

Five years ago a few investors got together and started ethanol plants in states like Montana. At first that drew no attention. As more and more awareness of fuel shortages became aware, the plants started seeing a return. Today corn ethanol is a very big business. Most farm equipment in the farm belt is run from our own renewable corn based ethanol now. The commodity corn has doubled in price in the last few months Thats a big deal. It is also a new trend. What brought that trend to the floor? Forsight. Was the investment in corn plants a sure thing? Hell no it wasn't.

But those companies are now reaping huge rewards for their very wise actions made of not following the crowd.

If you want a sure thing, you should probably be content with earning 3% by leaving your money in a Bank savings account. If you want to invest in new frontiers, some speculation is required. The outcome cannot be known as to its profit. That is why we love reading about success stories from people who went out on a limb and bought domains years ago that no one else saw potential in.

You can do that or play it safe. Its your and my choice.

What can be learned from that? Nothing I suppose if a person wants to keep their head in the sand.

 

[agent006]

The main thing why I think the mega .com owners that are negative about .mobi is becuz if .mobi does become the default extension for mobile internet they are gonna lose money /value in their .com since they won't be getting that added traffic so that's where the haterade comes in but other than that I can see their logic in why .mobi will fail but if you were in their position of owning millions of .com names you'd probably want .mobi to fail since u want a monopoly on the internet.

All I gotta say is in 5 years time, we'll find out everything, for now everything is just PURE SPECULATORY SPECULATION.

 

[ofclean]

Two quick points:

1) Frank Schilling owns 300,000+ domains (mostly .com). If people favor .com over .mobi then he will make $$$ when people begin using the mobile web.

2) Just last month at DOMAINfest he said, "Really good names in .info and .mobi will also have some value.”

You act like you guys aren't doing the same thing!

Everyone is trying to pump up their investments, especially you guys!

That being said, don't you think that he would have bought .mobis had he thought that they would be worth anything?

 

[labrocca]

You act like you guys aren't doing the same thing!

Everyone is trying to pump up their investments, especially you guys!

That being said, don't you think that he would have bought .mobis had he thought that they would be worth anything?

And that's the truth of it. A lot of seasoned veteran domainers only dabbled in mobi grabbing a few select names. I would LOVE to see what guys like RJ and DCG bought for mobi. If we could see the top 100 domainers and what they hold for mobi domains it would create a better consensus on what the top pros think of mobi. Currently many are silent which imho is bad. If they were positive on mobi they would be more vocal (i.e. the members here) instead many are absolutely quiet and the few that have spoken say negative things....such as Schilling.

 

[gou]

Currently many are silent which imho is bad. If they were positive on mobi they would be more vocal (i.e. the members here) instead many are absolutely quiet and the few that have spoken say negative things....such as Schilling.

The wisest are always the quietest on Wall Street. Perhaps that could apply here as well.

 

[Traveler]

The wisest are always the quietest on Wall Street. Perhaps that could apply here as well.

I think you are correct and that is true about most things. The smartest people are usually not the ones you see throwing their opinions on others.

As far as .mobi, I like to hear what people have to say either way, not that it makes much difference what anyone says here .mobi is such an unknown at this point, it is all just conjecture.

 

[-REECE-]

As someone who owns 100+ dotcoms as well as dotmobis... I can see how someone with all their eggs in one basket would like to conclude dotmobis will soar or crash... It's pretty obvious who's who -- let's see... Mobile phones are rapidly increasing whereas computers are not... People are increasingly buying UMPCs (roughly pda size full powered computers), subnotebooks, smartphones,... All this means alot more people will be accessing the internet on very small screens that *currently* are generally not mobile friendly.

Does this mean .mobi will succeed? Of course not. There are already programs out there that can convert screens -- actually, I have been using such a program since 2002 when I bought my first pda. Likewise, however, I would be inclined to use a well developed .mobi anyday over a program which attempts to downsize a 1024x768 to fit on my 320x240.

Like some have already said... Success really does depend on what .mobi domainers do from here on out. There are several big companies who've already invested in .mobi -- Ford has registered several names related to cars which they sell (ie Fusion.mobi for their Ford Fusion), Warner Brothers registered Friends.com, presumably for the TV show,... And we have countless others like DaimlerChrysler who've perhaps not went as far as Ford, but have registered key names for them such as Dodge.mobi... And then, we have all the big backers like Microsoft and Google who hold a hell of a lot of weight in determining what happens. Some guy with 300k names is a pawn in the scope of the powers at play here... We have mobile phone companies like Nokia who could force .mobi upon us if they wanted to by working with Microsoft and limiting their phones to .mobi addresses because they believe it's in the best interest of their customers, etc.

Now that's a hell of a lot of speculation there! What will happen... Who knows? Bottom line is that if I -- or anyone for that matter, got offered a name like sex.mobi :gn: for $10, I think we can all agree you'd be a fool not to take it... Just an example of course, however there are plenty of names out there (not many left, mind you), that will be well worth their price regardless of whether .mobi becomes the mobile dotcom or not.

On another note, I do wish the dotmobi salesmen would get a grip. They sound like a bunch of idiots when they compare dotmobi's growth to taking the equivalent of 10 years for dotcom... And I remember distinctly that many people I knew didn't even have computers in the 80s... How exactly is it fair to compare .mobi's growth to dotcom's early days? It's a load of bull and angers me everytime I read such -- not because I fear the value of my dotcoms decreasing, rather because they're hurting their own extension. Anyone with even a nut for a brain would know the difference between 1985 and 2006/07... It's an entirely different world and making such statements as they have rightfully entitles fellow domainers to call them nothing but salesmen IMHO.

 

[mjnels]

nice post Reece.. would be great to see more of this level headed logic in the forums..

 

[-REECE-]

Thanks Mj

What some people fail to realize is that there really is no need to take risks if you play things carefully...

DotCC didn't materialize... I only ever bought 1 single DotCC -- oled.cc. While everyone was registering them as if they were the next dotcom (give eNIC credit for that one), I chose to not register any because I wasn't able to get any "high quality" ones initially and instead chose to focus my efforts on locating a few quality ones and investing in better known extensions in the meantime. Those familiar with where display technology is going... I think we can agree I won't be losing money on such a name regardless of it being dotCC.

If everyone were careful about which names they chose -- and I don't just mean restricting to dictionary words -- I mean intelligently thinking about domains before choosing them, there'd be a lot less at stake here and more people could relax like I am at present. Bioelectromagnetism.mobi is NOT a good domain name because it's 1 word... It won't get you rich regardless of whether dotmobi becomes the next dotcom or not. I don't know about all of you guys but I strongly dislike losing money on anything -- whether it's a reg fee on single domain or something larger (like a whole failed portfolio which thankfully has never happened). If you only invest in winners, you'll be a winner too (my apologies for how cheesy that sounds). Anything other than that is speculation, especially if you don't even plan on developing the site and are just praying dotmobi catches on and you hit the traffic jackpot.

 

[labrocca]

The wisest are always the quietest on Wall Street. Perhaps that could apply here as well.

Then you don't know wall street. The second they have something already in their portfolio...they can't shut up about it. Sound familiar?

I read the wall street journal for like 5 years just about everyday fyi.

 

[gou]

Then you don't know wall street. The second they have something already in their portfolio...they can't shut up about it. Sound familiar?

People at Motley Fool and various fund managers sure can't shut up about it, but people like Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn avoid being outspoken.
It's called putting your money where your mouth is; Buffett jokes about it all the time.

 

[labrocca]

People at Motley Fool and various fund managers sure can't shut up about it, but people like Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn avoid being outspoken.
It's called putting your money where your mouth is; Buffett jokes about it all the time.

Any move Buffet makes...everyone knows anyways. He doesn't have to open his mouth. btw..I am a huge fan of his. I admire the man greatly. Read his wikipedia page it's full of awe inspiring stuff.

 

[goodkarmaco]

Gold has many colors

Yes, Warren Buffet is genius. When every one is selling out of fear, he is buying. Not just anything thing but buying the precise thing that is poised for a upswing. Its uncanny how a person knows what will jump in value. Some got it and some don't.

Speaking of shovels and picks and San Francisco the refrence to merchants making more than the gold pickers is true to a degree. Its true until a new strike was discovered and all the miners ran off to the newly discovered gold field.

If you had a store in some remote part of the country and you had a small town to support you, then you cannot compare that to the big money store merchants made in a gold rush setting. It is apparrent that the store that has miners clammoring for tools can mark up his product many times more that a poor farmer who needs a shovel.

Not all men who bought shovels paid a high price though.

One day three men walked up the side of Mt. Davidson looking for gold in the middle of the State of Nevada. History was made that day when the first tailings of silver were found in the black mud of that dirt dug from a hole. They did not want silver, they were looking for gold. But a small amount of gold was there, that was for sure.

Although for weeks those three men cursed that black mud for its weight and work involved to coax a grain or two of gold from it, they kept at it. They knew it held some promise.


Instead of disgarding this black grimy mud one miner had some samples sent off to a assayer, another state away.

That small effort was responsible for more wealth ever bestowed upon the mining communtiy. Its funny how fortunes can fall in our laps and we do not see them. Selling the claims for a small fortune thousands became extremely wealthy.

Kind of like domain flipping. Stock prices were going up hundreds of times, sometimes doing that daily.

The mine the Comstock, is one of the biggest silver mines ever discovered. The riches from the mine one man and a few of his friends invested into building the city of San Francisco.

Maybe you have heard of the loved Hearst Castle. We all know about the Hearst Newspaper syndicate. The owner of those entities was Randolf Hearst and his money from that mine pretty much moved mountains.

Its funny that domainers who talk about those selling shovels, making more than the gold seekers have the cart before the horse. If the gold rush was not a huge success that city would not have been built and America would not have been where it is today. You see much more wealth, then even building San Francisco was done because of a few who purchased a shovel and a pick. Those rich miners, investors, and stock owners who prospered improved the living standards for all.

The sad story portrayed by certain domainers that fortunes were not made and that merchants were the only ones making money do not know about the wealth bestowed to those that went after the glitter of gold.That wealth worked its way throught the economy improving the living standard for millions of people.

The United States mint produced hundreds of millions of silver dollars and all those silver dollars were from the silver found in the Comstock mines that run directly under the "old west" Virginia city at the top of Mt Davidson in Nevada. You can visit one of the oringinal mints just below the mountain in Carson City Nevada.


The Mount Davidson towers over todays city of Reno Nevada, sparkling before todays tourist. Back then it was just a hot, dry barren place.


Heres another interesting note. If you are a tourist you can be standing right in the middle of the town, looking at all the old saloons and the landscape and if you were not told about Comstock silver lode, ( plenty of gold came out of that mine too ) you could be looking right at it and not even know a fortune came out of the area around the piles of dirt.

When the days diggings have been washed and the nuggets are in the bag, then the profits can be weighed.

Gold is where you find it and when you don't find it, history shows it does no good to complain about it. What does pay off is to continue looking.

Maybe .mobi will be gold. Maybe it will not. But looking to improve the internet experience will benefit us all.


Virginiacitytourism.com Cathousesofnevada.com

 

[ekal]

But looking to improve the internet experience will benefit us all.

Ah - the crux of the matter....

Are the .mobi registry and .mobi investors looking to improve the internet experience or make a quick buck?

The sensible answer is of course both, but the degree to which you think they're trying to do one or the other probably shapes your view of .mobi

 

[hedgefund]

Very interesting reading of US history. I am deeply impressed.

 

[Mobineer]

GoodKarmaCo - great story -- and I believe the Hearst/mining story served as impetus for one of our country's greatest cinematic achievements --- "Citizen Kane"

BTW -- on a different note, had dinner two nights ago with a gentleman who was told many years ago he was "crazy", "ridiculous", and that he would lose respect from the scientific community and that he would become a "pariah", and lose his position at Harvard.. well, this man kept on his path, with great perisistence and vision, and despite the naysayers, he developed a treatment for arresting malignant tumors, a treatment that has already saved thousands of lives and has the potential, with new advances, of saving 500 million lives or more...BTW, this gentleman, who now commands the attention of world leaders, also won the Nobel Prize in Medicine...

we all have to follow our path -- Mobi will not cure cancer, but, with vision and hard work and persistence, some great things will happen for you, your families and the end-users of MOBI---

don't listen to the naysayers -- keep forging ahead!

 

[MinionDH]

Gold is where you find it and when you don't find it, history shows it does no good to complain about it. What does pay off is to continue looking.

Maybe .mobi will be gold. Maybe it will not. But looking to improve the internet experience will benefit us all.

All this talk about gold, history, and not quitting reminds of the inspiring story "Three Feet from Gold" in the book "Think and Grow Rich":

THREE FEET FROM GOLD

One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. Every person is guilty of this mistake at one time or another.

An uncle of R. U. Darby was caught by the "gold fever" in the gold-rush days, and went west to dig and grow rich. He had never heard that more gold has been mined from the brains of men than has ever been taken from the earth. He staked a claim and went to work with pick and shovel.

After weeks of labor, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore. He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. Quietly, he covered up the mine, retraced his footsteps to his home in Williamsburg, Maryland, told his relatives and a few neighbors of the "strike." They got together money for the needed machinery, had it shipped. The uncle and Darby went back to work the mine.

The first car of ore was mined, and shipped to a smelter. The returns proved they had one of the richest mines in Colorado! A few more cars of that ore would clear the debts. Then would come the big killing in profits.

Down went the drills! Up went the hopes of Darby and Uncle! Then something happened. The vein of gold ore disappeared! They had come to the end of the rainbow, and the pot of gold was no longer there. They drilled on, desperately trying to pick up the vein again-all to no avail.

Finally, they decided to quit.

They sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars, and took the train back home. The junk man called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little calculating. The engineer advised that the project had failed, because the owners were not familiar with "fault lines." His calculations showed that the vein would be found just three feet from where the darbys had stopped drilling! That is exactly where it was found!

The junk man took millions of dollars in ore from the mine, because he knew enough to seek expert counsel before giving up.

 

[goodkarmaco]

What are these shiny spots in this rock?

Thanks Hedgefund,

Mobineer, you are correct that trailblazers often do not get the respect from peers and are often ridiculed. Persistance is the only way to acheive the goal.

MinionDh, that is a great story and I am going to re - read " think and grow rich". You showed another thing vital when discussing the success of something. That is knowledge of a certain subject is one key to unlocking its potential.

Those that do not believe in the .mobi are more than likely not spending the time to read of its success or are they seeing the clues that lead to the gold. Thats o.k. for them as they are probably finding some success with other extensions.

A miner looks at a rock and draws many conclusions from that. Ordinary people who do not know what leading mineral indicators are look at rocks in a different way and do not see any clues that gold is near. That is the difference of a person striking gold and a different person picking up the rock and skimming it across the water as so many throw aways that have no value other than to entertain.

The seasoned pro will quietly go his / her way until the strike can be properly claimed.

Until then all who claim no riches in those hills about .mobi are really declaring they don't have the fortitude, the work ethic or the means to coax profits from the extension. Just because little gold has been found up to this point in time is no reason to pummel those who look for it with stones they have not assayed yet.

The value of this extension is yet to be seen.

 

[labrocca]

So the story of Hearst silver you think holds true for domainers? Please...it's a great story to inspire the few. When that Silver was discovered..how many got rich? A small handful that's how many.

The junk man took millions of dollars in ore from the mine, because he knew enough to seek expert counsel before giving up.

You mean like the advice from expert counsel Frank Schilling? The gold isn't in mobi..it's in .com. Those giving up and going to .mobi have simply stopped mining 3 feet away from a fortune.

Yeah...that's exactly how I read these tales.