I agree with comments made from both sides of the table. And I, for one - although I don't agree completely with all his posts -think snoop is spot on a lot of the time (thanks for that).
Here are some of my thoughts for ya'll to chew on.
- The majority of .mobi's I see around here and regged in general are, and always will be, crap... of course there is a possibility that some day perhaps end users will come along for a few of them... but most are just $$ down the drain.
- I'd say that easily half (ok, more than half) of all .mobi's regged are worth nothing or next to nothing.
- I can't imagine 'normal' people blindly typing in .mobi's at this point. Someday maybe... maybe not. It's not uncommon for some of my .mobi's to get, say, 60 views a month at Sedo. But I don't believe that much of it is real, 'natural' traffic. Bots, maybe. Domainers, maybe. But I can't believe that it's 'normal' people for the most part. There is no reason for people to randomly type in .mobi's.... they would definitely strike out way more often than not, so why would they form that habit?
- I believe that as long as the mobile web is around, so will .mobi. Some companies/websites will use it, others won't. There will never be a sole 'standard'.
- There is definitely money to be made,
if you know what you're doing. I know of a couple members here who have found a very profitable development niche that makes them $$$$/month. I've made some decent money with .mobi (yes, even recently) just by making wise investments in a down economy. But I am also a DEVELOPER, and I only buy domains that I have plans for... so in most cases I don't even expect just the domains themselves to make me much of any money. Helps keep my head out of the clouds... I wish more people would follow my example, but I could say the same thing about any extension. And at the end of the day it's their money, not mine.
- Many people will lose a good deal of money on .mobi because of making not-so-wise investment choices. .Mobi will not compete with .com; it's just another alternative choice extension. Some generics will hold value, and yes, development will be a key part of making a profit with .mobi... but, most domainers never really get around to developing much of anything, so........
- The majority of companies that supposedly "use .mobi" really are doing
nothing more than protecting their brand. All these alleged ".mobi investors/backers/supporters" mean nothing to me unless they're ACTUALLY
promoting their .mobi. Think
Fox News, Disney (promotes .mobi on TV),
Zagat,
BofA, etc. I don't give a crap if they redirect or not, because 'normal' people don't care or even notice. All they pay attention to is what they're told to visit.
