.mobi Is Helsinki the tip of an iceburg?

[mobidick]

What in the world of mobi is mtld up to here with Helsinki.mobi?

Are they testing the waters with their vast array of city domains currently held in their reserve? Perhaps they won't release them, opting rather for some kind of private rev share with interested parties. I'm sure they realized they are squandering the type-in traffic on these reserved domains.

Since they haven't made any public statements on their site explaining what's to happen with their reserved names, in particular nothing about Helsinki.mobi, it leads me to speculate on their intentions. Why the silence?

I wouldn't be surprised if Nokia is somehow involved in this, since they have a link on Helsinki.mobi. Today I heard that Finland has more cellphone contracts than people; probably due to people having business as well as personal phone connections.

So what is mtld up to here? It is my understanding that ICANN required them to reserve country names and 2 letter domains, but it was mtld's decision to hold back cities. Is this true? Why then make them reserved instead of premium? Can anyone shed some more light on this?

Is Helsinki the tip of something - if so what do you suppose it is? Certainly a question to be posed to Pinky!

 

[cobo]

And we can not discount the influence of Edelman, the PR Powerhouse, in this strategy. It looks as if they are just beginning to flex their PR muscles in relation to global mobi outreach!

 

[mobidick]

I must say that I have mixed feelings - on the one hand I'm impressed with the savvy way mtld is handling the rollout of mobis, but on the other hand, I feel a tad uncomfortable with the lack of transparency and the potential for a lot of money to exchange hands behind the scenes on deals that we have no idea what's going on.

mtld is certainly taking this tld in a new and interesting direction. I'm more familiar with tlds that are run more or less like a non-profit organization.

 

[GeoOwners]

money changing hands or not, it's better for all .mobi "holders" that they get the names out and developed...otherwise no one will ever hear of .mobi.

imho

.

 

[Jeff]

Is Helsinki the tip of something - if so what do you suppose it is? Certainly a question to be posed to Pinky!

I am concerned ... that there is this mTLD "lack of transparency", and also - seemingly - an unwillingness to (regularly) visit this .MOBI Forum™ to address common questions and concerns. It's definitely being run as a business in order to make as much money as possible ... but at some point the spenders (of good money, time after time) and lenders (of countless hours of their time) need to be properly addressed, in my view. :talk:

Just some thoughts.
-Jeff

 

[mobidick]

money changing hands or not, it's better for all .mobi "holders" that they get the names out and developed...otherwise no one will ever hear of .mobi.

Agreed... it's just a bit odd that suddenly a reserved name turns up developed with no announcement on mtld.mobi - perhaps it was marketed well in Finland?

I am concerned ... that there is this mTLD "lack of transparency", and also - seemingly - an unwillingness to (regularly) visit this .MOBI Forum™ to address common questions and concerns. It's definitely being run as a business in order to make as much money as possible ... but at some point the spenders (of good money, time after time) and lenders (of countless hours of their time) need to be properly addressed, in my view.

It sure seems like they're holding their cards close; I'm looking forward to hearing from Pinky and the podcast with Neil - all's well that ends well on this mobicoaster ride ...

 

[MobiMaven]

I asked a contact at mtld about Helsinki in particular, and reserved geo mobis in general, and here is the answer I got:

Helsinki.mobi is ‘on loan’ to the Helsinki City Authority and they have signed a showcase Agreement with us for one year. The purpose of this exercise is to provide us with some insight as to how we might co-operate with city / country authorities in the allocation of some reserved names. I stress that this allocation method has not yet been planned or decided - it is just a learning experience for dotMobi. We also want to see how much traction the site gets and how much it is used.


We are still considering our allocation policy so I have no further news on that front unfortunately but will keep you posted.

 

[MrRhee]

I asked a contact at mtld about Helsinki in particular, and reserved geo mobis in general, and here is the answer I got:

Thanks for the update. That's actually very good news imho. More awareness for the .MOBI extension. Hopefully they work out a similar deal for Weather.mobi and give it back to Weather.com / "WeatherChannel" for 1 year as long as Weather Channel agreed to list Weather.mobi during the station/channel IDs (roughly 7+ per hour) or run it in the constant ticker "get mobile weather info at: weather.mobi".

anywho...

/rant

 

[scandiman]

I asked a contact at mtld about Helsinki in particular, and reserved geo mobis in general, and here is the answer I got:

Thanks for the news feed MobiMaven!

 

[mobidick]

I asked a contact at mtld about Helsinki in particular, and reserved geo mobis in general, and here is the answer I got:

Thanks MobiMaven - It's great to have you join our forum - please feel free to share more news and insight any time. :hi:

Helsinki.mobi is ‘on loan’ to the Helsinki City Authority and they have signed a showcase Agreement with us for one year. The purpose of this exercise is to provide us with some insight as to how we might co-operate with city / country authorities in the allocation of some reserved names. I stress that this allocation method has not yet been planned or decided - it is just a learning experience for dotMobi. We also want to see how much traction the site gets and how much it is used.


We are still considering our allocation policy so I have no further news on that front unfortunately but will keep you posted.

That makes sense and Looks very promising.

 

[MobiMaven]

Thanks MobiMaven - It's great to have you join our forum - please feel free to share more news and insight any time. :hi:

My pleasure--happy to contribute. In the short time that I have been an NP member, I have been very impressed with the number of topics discussed, the speed of posts, and the overall amount knowledge shared by the other members. Just trying to pull my weight. I've belonged to a few other boards, and :imho: NP is far and away the best.

MobiMaven

 

[hedgefund]

My pleasure--happy to contribute. In the short time that I have been an NP member, I have been very impressed with the number of topics discussed, the speed of posts, and the overall amount knowledge shared by the other members. Just trying to pull my weight. I've belonged to a few other boards, and :imho: NP is far and away the best.

MobiMaven

Thanks, MobiMaven, for your good work. You are right, NP's .mobi forum is the best and the most active forum for .mobi info in the world. The other two well-known forums just don't have a lot of traffic in their .mobi section.

I think the NP's owner put a bet on the .mobi since its inception, and the bet works out pretty well.