.mobi How much does your .mobi portfolio earn you daily?

[-REECE-]

Just a fun little thread to see how much everyone's earning. Inspired by many people's comments about good earnings on parked .mobis, I'm in the process of parking ~340 of my 358 .mobis over at Sedo.

I hope to have some figures of my own soon

 

[labrocca]

zero zilch nada...parked at Sedo. I really want to get rid of my mobi names l33t.mobi and n00b.mobi

The only thing that is going to win their favor is the big guns getting their sites up and promoting it, along with a .mobi default button. Otherwise, it dies.

I agree but this doesn't appear likely to happen...especially that default button.

 

[garrett200]

Well, if niether one of those two things happen, we are screwed, no matter who develops what.

 

[000]

Sorry, I have to disagree with that. Having Mobi sites parked right now is not going to make or break .mobi, in any way shape or form.

Of course not, I never said that. If you would re-read what I said, you might notice that what I'm asking is that developers don't put up ads at this point if they don't earn much of anything anyways. Mobile screen don't display anywhere near as much text as a PC, and it's pointless to even say how annoying ads are even on a PC...just think of how annoying they could be on mobiles. Long and the short of it: If you're not earning more than a few pennies with your mobile ads, it might be best to not have them at all.

Developing .Mobi sites is not going to win their favor.

I beg to differ. IMHO developing sites makes all the difference in the world. Otherwise all people will see at .mobi domains is a parked page, which certainly won't help the extension become popular...

In fact, nothing we do is going to win their favor. The only thing that is going to win their favor is the big guns getting their sites up and promoting it, along with a .mobi default button. Otherwise, it dies.

Development, development, development! It would be foolish to rely completely on the "big guns". Do we need these "big guns" to push .mobi in order for it to "succeed"? I would agree on that...but our efforts are not futile. You know why? Because it works the other way around as well. If only a few "big guns" use .mobi, it won't become big. It needs the small men like us to develop .mobi sites as well.

 

[garrett200]

I beg to differ. IMHO developing sites makes all the difference in the world. Otherwise all people will see at .mobi domains is a parked page, which certainly won't help the extension become popular...

Nobody is looking at any .mobi sites anyway, so why does it matter if it's parked or not? They're not being looked at, developed OR parked. So I stick by what I said, having parked pages doesn't matter. Some of the most visited type in pages on .com are parked, earning their owners hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars per month, and it doensn't hurt .com one tiny bit! And it won't hurt .mobi either, if it takes off. Parked pages have nothing to do with .mobi becoming popular or not.

Development, development, development! It would be foolish to rely completely on the "big guns". Do we need these "big guns" to push .mobi in order for it to "succeed"? I would agree on that...but our efforts are not futile. You know why? Because it works the other way around as well. If only a few "big guns" use .mobi, it won't become big. It needs the small men like us to develop .mobi sites as well.

Hogwash too. If the "big guns" don't start promoting their mobi's, this extension will die, even if us little guys make the most fabulous sites the earth has ever seen. If the little guy can make this extension work, why is it not already working?? Sorry if this is not what some people want to hear, but that's the reality.

Am I against development? Hell no, but I'm not about to waste my time developing any .mobi until the biggies are in it to win it. Otherwise, developing a .mobi at this point is just an exercise in futility.

 

[mjnels]

Nobody is looking at any .mobi sites anyway, so why does it matter if it's parked or not? They're not being looked at, developed OR parked. So I stick by what I said, having parked pages doesn't matter. Some of the most visited type in pages on .com are parked, earning their owners hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars per month, and it doensn't hurt .com one tiny bit! And it won't hurt .mobi either, if it takes off. Parked pages have nothing to do with .mobi becoming popular or not.



Hogwash too. If the "big guns" don't start promoting their mobi's, this extension will die, even if us little guys make the most fabulous sites the earth has ever seen. If the little guy can make this extension work, why is it not already working?? Sorry if this is not what some people want to hear, but that's the reality.

Am I against development? Hell no, but I'm not about to waste my time developing any .mobi until the biggies are in it to win it. Otherwise, developing a .mobi at this point is just an exercise in futility.

agree for the most part.... but if you do have development plans it never hurts to get ahead of the game (and not wait for the biggies)

 

[scandiman]

Sorry, I have to disagree with that. Having Mobi sites parked right now is not going to make or break .mobi, in any way shape or form.

For those hoping for a mobi default on phones, parking pages are a deal breaker IMO unless they successfully block parking pages. What phone manufacturer or browser developer is going to default to a sea of parking pages?

 

[garrett200]

.com did.

I don't understand the phobia against parking here. In a lot of cases, parking is good. If someone types in widgets.com, and gets a parking page about widgets, they click the links and find what they're looking for. People make money, the searcher finds what they want; everybody wins.

Unique and compelling content is great, but sometimes people are just looking for a specific product or service to buy, and are not interested in your particular spin on it, or how unique and compelling your website is. They just want a pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less......

 

[mjnels]

For those hoping for a mobi default on phones, parking pages are a deal breaker IMO unless they successfully block parking pages. What phone manufacturer or browser developer is going to default to a sea of parking pages?

the ones that control the market. like when browers used to default to .com back in the day (which still has a sea of parking pages)

if that defaulting to mobi thing ever happens people with generic quality names are sitting on gold mines for development...instant traffic... i also would think new unconventional ways of monetizing would spring up..


but like pinky said, its not as easy as in the pc world with the many many different browser/phone manufacturers..

 

[000]

Garrett...I respect your fervor for .mobi. I really do. I'm a fan of .mobi too, as you can tell by looking at my sig...but I really think you're going a little overboard. Development is not futile, even if the big boys don't put up amazing sites of their own (although as far as I've been seeing, this is happening quite regularly). What if .mobi "fails"? Our developed sites will still be here for the use of just as many people. A mobile site is still a mobile site with or without .mobi. That's like saying just because .eu never took off, any site at a .eu domain is a failure.

Good development is never a failure!

And another thing - I really can't see how you feel a developed site is no better than a parked page. I don't know about you, but I've never come across someone who likes seeing a parked page? Actually the only response I ever hear when someone comes across a parked page is "Damn, it's just a links page...try [insert URL here]."

Oh and should I mention that most links on parked pages send the user to sites that aren't even designed specifically for mobiles? Is that what mobile web surfers want? Roadblock after roadblock? As you said, if someone's trying to order a pizza from their mobile...they just want to order a pizza and be done. I have a feeling that they'd rather go to pizza.mobi and order a pizza rather than go to pizza.mobi and see the current parking page (which, for argument's sake, doesn't even currently display on a mobile). Even if it were a mobile-ready Sedo parking page with pizza links, I'm pretty sure that most people wouldn't want to sit around clicking on links hoping that they stumble across a site that has what they need.

So I'll say it again: A developed site is always better than a parked page.

 

[scandiman]

Well said Tom.

 

[garrett200]

I never said a parked page is better than a developed page. What I said was that parked .mobi pages will not make or break the extension and that they will not affect the outcome of whether .mobi makes it or not. And, I also said that parked pages aren't evil, in many cases they are beneficial. If no one found parked pages useful, the parking industry would not thrive as it does.

I think you made my point for me. Good developed pages are good in ANY extension, so if you have a good idea for "unique and compelling" content, why not just use .com? Because until .mobi is established and accepted, your hill is just harder to climb.....

If and when .mobi takes off, I will agree with the content argument wholeheartedly, but not now.

 

[scandiman]

If and when .mobi takes off, I will agree with the content argument wholeheartedly, but not now.

I'm curious how you define or measure "when mobi takes off"?

Mykel241 now has over 600 registered members on his social mobi sites.

vcool is getting probably over 30k hits a day on dir.mobi.

Sure these are not the membership or traffic of myspace.com but still are a few impressive results for such a young tld.

 

[-REECE-]

Some people will without doubt be successful with dotmobi, irregardless of the tld's success. The same can be seen with other tld's...

But for those of us who have mostly parked domains (i.e. me), success is a different matter. And most domainers aren't even moderately decent developers -- I know at least 10x as many that are in the same boat as me, mostly with parked dotmobis or inferior quality developed ones, as I know with kick ass sites like Vcool.

I agree with Garrett -- No big guns, no dotmobi default -> no future, other than for the very best, and LLL.mobi, NNN.mobi which will likely still be valuable due to their scarcity.

Dotmobi has never had a purpose -- let's face it. If Verisign switched the rules tomorrow, stating that all dotcoms must be mobile compatible... All of the sudden all dotmobi are worthless. If Opera, Microsoft, Mozilla, et al. were to put their differences aside, and all work collectively on a mobile browser, they could probably come up with something that would put mtld to shame.

Dotmobi's purpose lies in it's guarantee of a mobile compatible site -- but only if this guarantee is enforced, which we do not yet know the extent of and even how or when it will finally be enforced. Sure, we can give dates... But how well has that worked with the RFP? For all we know, it could be next year before they start enforcing... Or later.

I'm not trying to be pessimistic -- rather, realistic. Dotmobi does not depend on compatibility, it depends on adoption by these 'investors', which seem like they haven't invested all that much (relatively speaking).

To put it all in perspective, about a year ago, headlines were made in Manitoba, Canada when Bill Gates announced a donation (I guess we could call it an 'investment') of $20 million to fund AIDS research at the University of Manitoba. Now, would we call Bill Gates an 'investor' in the University of Manitoba? Of course not -- mtld has alot of marketing BS that is really starting to piss me off. The people running multinational corporations aren't going to be tricked into investing in dotmobi because some 'marketing professionals' claim investors such as Microsoft.

A first step would be Microsoft actually using dotmobi. Until then, this is just a donation -- nothing more. Would you consider me an investor in the Red Cross, every time I pass a few dollars their way? How is this any different, UNLESS we default .mobi... I see this as necessary for the success of .mobi, not only for widespread adoption of the extension -- but for countries where unlimited bandwidth is still not available. Of course, WiBro/WiMax, 802.11x may alter the situation.

Defaulting it -- and yes, this was the case with dotcom early on, is a clear indicator that Microsoft and the telecoms are investors, and not merely donating.

 

[garrett200]

I don't know a single person who even knows what .mobi is, except for this forum, and I know a lot of people.

30k hits is definitely impressive if true, but I doubt that anyone here would agree that .mobi as a whole has taken off yet. If you think it has, I would respectfully have to say that you are dreaming....

A few indicators for me that it has taken off would be:

1. Hearing .mobi sites on television and/or radio ads
2. Hearing major .com's promoting their .mobi sites
3. Hearing people I know talking about .mobi's that they are visiting (or even that they know about .mobi!!!).
4. Seeing the mobile internet as a whole reaching more of a mass market.

 

[-REECE-]

I don't know a single person who even knows what .mobi is, except for this forum, and I know a lot of people.

30k hits is definitely impressive if true, but I doubt that anyone here would agree that .mobi as a whole has taken off yet. If you think it has, I would respectfully have to say that you are dreaming....

A few indicators for me that it has taken off would be:

1. Hearing .mobi sites on television and/or radio ads
2. Hearing major .com's promoting their .mobi sites
3. Hearing people I know talking about .mobi's that they are visiting.
4. Seeing the mobile internet as a whole reaching more of a mass market.

Dotcom truly is a behemoth -- and before we can even pretend .mobi has more than a minute chance of success, I agree that all those factors must be met.

 

[Devil_Dog]

unless your mobi is devloped, expect zero.

currently type in traffic does not exist for .mobi, i dont care what anyone says..

So can you explain to me where all these hits are coming from then???

 

[-REECE-]

So can you explain to me where all these hits are coming from then???

Fellow .mobi domainers looking for developed sites I'd imagine... No offence, but I wouldn't call those numbers particularly enticing to companies or those wanting to make more than some pocket change with their collection.

 

[garrett200]

Nice to see at least some clicks on some mobi's! Imagine multiplying that revenue by 1000X....Hopefully that will happen someday.

 

[labrocca]

Devil Dog..that appears to be your whole portfolio. How many domains is that? What's the ROI? Do you own domains outside of mobi? Your sig shows a site which has 220 domains listed....are they all yours? Most appear parked at Namedrive. One has to wonder if your not totally full of it.

 

[mjnels]

hehe.. i have those clicks/views too devil dog.. theyre likely from domainers.. doesnt constitute "type in traffic"