.mobi Realistic Value Of The .Mobi Extension?

[eventbroker]

I have recently acquired a very good domain with the .mobi extension. The domain is www.wirelessamberalerts.mobi. I am attempting to get a realistic value of the property.

To a lot of the newbies here. I would like to give a bit of the background on the domain itself with the other extensions .com/.net/.org etc. in order to formulate a proper value of the domain name.

All of the other extensions of the domain name www.wirelessamberalerts.com/net/org are owned by the CTIA (The Wireless Foundation) they represent all wireless carriers etc. They have spent literally millions of dollars promoting www.wirelessamberalerts.org . The name is everywhere.

It would only stand to reason that the .mobi extension i.e. (Mobile) would be a very hot property for them. Even if they did not want it there can be a very good income stream generated from visitors having them sign up on my site the .mobi version and selling the information for dissemination of text advertising etc.

I am the one who sold the domains www.wirelessamberalert.com and www.wirelessamberalerts.com to The CTIA . Those domains brought XXXX dollars each. I sold them cheap! If I would have had previous knowledge of all the promotion that went into them I would have of course made them pay XXXXX for them. The players in these domains are The US Government, The CTIA and all Wireless Companies, The NCMEC, Syniverse Technologies etc.

I have literally made some very good money on these types of domain properties. Most domain name buyers pass these types of domains up as they think they are worthless, but you have to see the forest beyond the trees so to speak.

I would appreciate any relevant comments on this. The traffic that I can generate is going to be huge to the site as they have did all the work and I can merely do some minor SEO and capture a great portion of it.

Feel free to chime in!

Thanks

 

[Keith]

You said that the name has been highly promoted by the owners of the other extentions. Does this give them recourse to now claim they have branded this name as their own and take away your rights to the .mobi? I would like your opinion because I also have .mobis that are not TM but are clearly established by other extentions. I have worries that once .mobi really takes off, they will try to claim the name as their own.

keithmt

 

[ofclean]

In my opinion, it's wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to long for a .mobi name. I can't really see anyone typing that out....

...unless you only plan on selling it to them, that is.

 

[rosh86]

do you have msn ...

will make things easier, wouldnt mind discussing the topic with you at all
ive had some similar cases ....


Rosh
[email protected]

 

[eventbroker]

It does not matter about the Trademark Issue. Companies had first choice of the .mobi domain names from June 12th,2006 - August 22nd, 2006 to register their names prior to the extension being released to the genral public. In other words they had the chance and missed out!

 

[scandiman]

Yes, I think it is reasonable to assume the .org people will have an interest in the domain in the future. I respect your right to hold it and use it for marketing purposes but I truly hope you choose to sell it to them for a reasonable price. The service they provide to our community is so very important and if the .mobi tld takes off as many of us hope, it could aid in their reach.

Yes, they should have been paying attention and registered the .mobi, especially since they purchased the .com version from you. But for God's sake, they are busy trying to deal with the effort of finding abducted children, not domaining. IMO, this kind of domaining business model stains the reputation of the community.

I respect your right to a profit and this makes me wonder about another approach; could you donate it to them? Are they a non-profit? If a respected appraisal set the value at $50,000 and you donated it, you could have the right-off and they don't waste resources buying domains. This could be a great win/win option.

 

[eventbroker]

The Hits!

In my opinion, it's wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to long for a .mobi name. I can't really see anyone typing that out....

...unless you only plan on selling it to them, that is.

Believe me, they will type it in and add it to there favorites. I am making the site so it is viewable in standard browsers and mobile phones. I am actually going to develop it and generate cash from the data collected.

Yes, I think it is reasonable to assume the .org people will have an interest in the domain in the future. I respect your right to hold it and use it for marketing purposes but I truly hope you choose to sell it to them for a reasonable price. The service they provide to our community is so very important and if the .mobi tld takes off as many of us hope, it could aid in their reach.

Yes, they should have been paying attention and registered they .mobi, especially since the purchased the .com version from you. But for God's sake, they are busy trying to deal with the effort of finding abducted children, not domaining. IMO, this kind of domaining business model stains the reputation of the community.

I respect your right to a profit and this makes me wonder about another approach; could you donate it to them? Are they a non-profit? If a respected appraisal set the value at $50,000 and you donated it, you could have the right-off and they don't waste resources buying domains. This could be a great win/win option.

I am also in the same business of finding abducted children. I originally only provided the names to them for that reason. I was however disenchanted when I saw the partners they accumulated. Certain partners that are invloved went directly against my wishes in the domain negotiations. They however own them and can do as they wish.

The site they have merely is a PR Tool for them that they use as a customer retention tool.

Visit http://www.projectsafekids.org we are the ones who made these domains available in the first place.

 

[Domain Jedi]

If I were them, I would go after AmberAlerts.mobi first or maybe just Amber.mobi. Just my two cents.

 

[eventbroker]

Registered!

If I were them, I would go after AmberAlerts.mobi first or maybe just Amber.mobi. Just my two cents.

Already Acquired

 

[scandiman]

I am also in the same business of finding abducted children. I originally only provided the names to them for that reason. I was however disenchanted when I saw the partners they accumulated. Certain partners that are invloved went directly against my wishes in the domain negotiations. They however own them and can do as they wish.

The site they have merely is a PR Tool for them that they use as a customer retention tool.

Visit http://www.projectsafekids.org we are the ones who made these domains available in the first place.

Thanks for the clarification. I wrongly assumed your intentions. Use it to find abducted kids and I am a happy camper.

 

[eventbroker]

No worries we are going to use it to generate revenue for our organization. I am going to take advantage of how they promoted it.

 

[Jasdon]

I think you are in a better position than anyone to place a value on this name.

You are in the industry, have a track record of selling extremely similar names. The main factor is whether or not the other party actually wants the .mobi - that is in question seeing as they (possibly) didn't make a play for it during sunrise, despite being aware of a domains importance - enough to pay you $xxxx previously.

 

[rosh86]

best of luck anyway!

Rosh

 

[fautebol]

I am a newbie. After you wrote this, I would say, IMHO, 0

There is a TM filed before you registered the name. From your posts we can at least assume that you registered the name to take advantage of the money they spent to build the name.

Now, in practice they could give you some money to avoid going to WIPO. But, I would still say that the value is 0$. Just my opinion. If I posted it, it's because I'm a newbie and I would like to see your arguments.

 

[eventbroker]

Selling It!

I am a newbie. After you wrote this, I would say, IMHO, 0

There is a TM filed before you registered the name. From your posts we can at least assume that you registered the name to take advantage of the money they spent to build the name.

Now, in practice they could give you some money to avoid going to WIPO. But, I would still say that the value is 0$. Just my opinion. If I posted it, it's because I'm a newbie and I would like to see your arguments.

Trademark does not matter they had the opportunity to register and di not, The trademark however will not be a problem. I will develop the site as I was one of the first companies to offer the service of wireless amber alerts. I need to close the discussion though as I am selling the domain. The domain brought as I expected XXXX. Once the site is developed it will generate tremendous revenue for the buyer though. Thanks for the opinions.

 

[S-L-O-W]

Trademark does not matter they had the opportunity to register and di not, The trademark however will not be a problem. I will develop the site as I was one of the first companies to offer the service of wireless amber alerts. I need to close the discussion though as I am selling the domain. The domain brought as I expected XXXX. Once the site is developed it will generate tremendous revenue for the buyer though. Thanks for the opinions.

Whether they chose not to reigister it or not- they DO have trademark rights to the name and you would lose miserablly if they wanted it. I've seen enough similar WIPO cases to know. Feel sorry for the buyer on this one.

 

[snoop]

Trademark does not matter they had the opportunity to register and di not, The trademark however will not be a problem. I will develop the site as I was one of the first companies to offer the service of wireless amber alerts. I need to close the discussion though as I am selling the domain. The domain brought as I expected XXXX. Once the site is developed it will generate tremendous revenue for the buyer though. Thanks for the opinions.

Please do some research and get a clue, if there is a trademark over this term it will be lost in an instant.

No worries we are going to use it to generate revenue for our organization. I am going to take advantage of how they promoted it.

Good grief, why don't you just write the complaint for them?

 

[goodkarmaco]

Deciding to offer a domain for charity is no different than deciding to give the girl scouts a couple bucks for cookies. Its a personal choice.

If a domainer buys hundreds of domains that are relating to a purpose of helping society he cannot simply donate them all. Maybe one out of five hundred will sell. Its his choice to sell one.

Charity is not always charity.

Look at all the people who sit behind the desks. In most cases they are paid a salary more than I make. If the organization is a true charity every single person would work for free. I remember people putting down some domainers for offering Katrina names for sale to some orgs and getting flack for that.

If a charity wants a name, they will use donations to buy it. If a domainer wants to donate he will. But if he/she puts in hundreds of hours to reg names for that market and wants some compensation for the time it is not our business to make our actions the same that they should follow.

The domain owner when he makes a sale may very likely use some or all of his earnings to donate at their church, in their communtiy or whatever. Its only the business of the owner of the domain what outcome he places for the revenue.

Remember, every box of cookies sold does not go to the girl scouts, the makers of the cookies get a cut, the cookie box printers get a cut, the sales people showing the new boxes get a cut, the sugar companies get a cut, the shipping company get a cut and so on.

Of course its a great organization, saving lives. But the police dept. does not spend thousands of hours for free to investigate every missing child. No they spend millions of tax dollars to do so.

 

[mykel241]

Whether they chose not to reigister it or not- they DO have trademark rights to the name and you would lose miserablly if they wanted it. I've seen enough similar WIPO cases to know. Feel sorry for the buyer on this one.

I believe the trademark in question is non-exclusive if you read the disclaimer by the mark holder at the USPTO:

NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "WIRELESS AMBER ALERTS" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN.

MARK AS SHOWN basically means the logo as designed.

Michael

 

[namewaiter]

i remember back in the first day or so of .mobi public release, i had amberalerts.mobi in my cart, i chose not to register because i felt the domain needs to be given the right attention too and should belong in the hands of the appropriate authorities.