Mobi - My perspective after 11 years of domain names.
My final registration tally is 135... for now.
I've been in the domain name game for 11 years.
I was one of the first speculators on dot.com. I purchased 50 generic one-word dictionary domain names from 1995-2000 including my all-time best www.act.com, which I ultimately sold to Symantec through Great Domains.
From 1998-2000, I appraised over 3,000 names as domainappraiser.com.
Then I disappeared into the corporate world - where I remain today.
6 years after selling all of my generic terms... I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAAACK... well, at least part time.
Why?
.MOBI beckons me back. It's much like the golden ring from LOTR.
I believe in .MOBI for many reasons.
1) Google, Microsoft and multiple cell phone carriers are backing it financially and with sweat equity. There is a real need from the carriers to have a successful wireless web. Web surfers = more money through higher turnover with better, more expensive phones as well as more minutes online. Google, Microsoft benefit ultimately from additional search revenue. And, much of it is incremental baby!
2) Country code domain names are working. .EU, .CO.UK, etc and are selling for premium. For instance travel.eu just sold for $300K.
3) Businessweek, Weatherchannel and many others are already online with the .mobi name. Soon enough there could be scores of entities on the web offering mobi related content.
4) Despite /xtml tags on well known .com websites, there is still no consumer trust in .com for wireless applications. There is a LAG TIME folks between the technology awareness for .COM and the establishment of the .MOBI name. In this next 2-3 years while mobile surfing comes into its own, all that needs to happen is that consumers are trained to go .MOBI. It could happen.
5) Asian countries LOVE new technology. My best guess is that the birth of .MOBI is with our first adopter friends on the other side of the pond.
6) Mobi went out of there way to protect the rights of unique/arbitrary trademark holders. In the meantime, they established awareness throughout those communities.
7) Mobi is brilliant about the way they are distributing their premium domains. They are going to distribute to either highest valued consumers via auctions (which will include big corporations - don't fool yourselves) OR to those who really have an excellent application for .Mobi (my guess). Either way, the absolute cream of the crop names will fall into hands with $$$. This isn't a bad thing. Sure, we'd all like to own business.mobi, but if it fell into my hands I wouldn't have the $ to correctly utilize the domain name. Ok, ok, I hear you... the business.com people had $7.5 million and still screwed up.
8) According to an Alexa.com web traffic check, the mtld.mobi site (the hub of Mobi information) is now ranked as the 4,750 most visited website on the net with a reach of 250 consumers per 1,000,000 per day. This is a very nice reach so early in the registration process.
9) 75,000 .MOBI names were registered on the 1st DAY! http://www.techweb.com/wire/mobile/193006177
Speculators, if you missed out on today, consider jumping in the game tomorrow. There are very good names available. I picked up gradschool, gradschools and graduateschools tonight (1 hour ago) to go along with lawschool, medschool, residency and phd that I picked up in the lottery.
Also, remember who your audience is... 10-30 year old first adopter tech born kids as well as first adopter cultures.
We're 3-5 years out from the wireless revolution in the US.
I'm going to blog around here from time to time.
Sincerely,
www.jeremy.com (i bought my name .com but couldn't get the dang .mobi!)
My final registration tally is 135... for now.
I've been in the domain name game for 11 years.
I was one of the first speculators on dot.com. I purchased 50 generic one-word dictionary domain names from 1995-2000 including my all-time best www.act.com, which I ultimately sold to Symantec through Great Domains.
From 1998-2000, I appraised over 3,000 names as domainappraiser.com.
Then I disappeared into the corporate world - where I remain today.
6 years after selling all of my generic terms... I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAAACK... well, at least part time.
Why?
.MOBI beckons me back. It's much like the golden ring from LOTR.
I believe in .MOBI for many reasons.
1) Google, Microsoft and multiple cell phone carriers are backing it financially and with sweat equity. There is a real need from the carriers to have a successful wireless web. Web surfers = more money through higher turnover with better, more expensive phones as well as more minutes online. Google, Microsoft benefit ultimately from additional search revenue. And, much of it is incremental baby!
2) Country code domain names are working. .EU, .CO.UK, etc and are selling for premium. For instance travel.eu just sold for $300K.
3) Businessweek, Weatherchannel and many others are already online with the .mobi name. Soon enough there could be scores of entities on the web offering mobi related content.
4) Despite /xtml tags on well known .com websites, there is still no consumer trust in .com for wireless applications. There is a LAG TIME folks between the technology awareness for .COM and the establishment of the .MOBI name. In this next 2-3 years while mobile surfing comes into its own, all that needs to happen is that consumers are trained to go .MOBI. It could happen.
5) Asian countries LOVE new technology. My best guess is that the birth of .MOBI is with our first adopter friends on the other side of the pond.
6) Mobi went out of there way to protect the rights of unique/arbitrary trademark holders. In the meantime, they established awareness throughout those communities.
7) Mobi is brilliant about the way they are distributing their premium domains. They are going to distribute to either highest valued consumers via auctions (which will include big corporations - don't fool yourselves) OR to those who really have an excellent application for .Mobi (my guess). Either way, the absolute cream of the crop names will fall into hands with $$$. This isn't a bad thing. Sure, we'd all like to own business.mobi, but if it fell into my hands I wouldn't have the $ to correctly utilize the domain name. Ok, ok, I hear you... the business.com people had $7.5 million and still screwed up.
8) According to an Alexa.com web traffic check, the mtld.mobi site (the hub of Mobi information) is now ranked as the 4,750 most visited website on the net with a reach of 250 consumers per 1,000,000 per day. This is a very nice reach so early in the registration process.
9) 75,000 .MOBI names were registered on the 1st DAY! http://www.techweb.com/wire/mobile/193006177
Speculators, if you missed out on today, consider jumping in the game tomorrow. There are very good names available. I picked up gradschool, gradschools and graduateschools tonight (1 hour ago) to go along with lawschool, medschool, residency and phd that I picked up in the lottery.
Also, remember who your audience is... 10-30 year old first adopter tech born kids as well as first adopter cultures.
We're 3-5 years out from the wireless revolution in the US.
I'm going to blog around here from time to time.
Sincerely,
www.jeremy.com (i bought my name .com but couldn't get the dang .mobi!)
