.mobi Slow times for Mr. Mobi

[Eguru]

The MOBI thread is amongst some of the slowest threads on NamePros...coincidence?

Is .mobi a dead idea? Or are all of the backroom dealings going on at this moment?

This site seems to be full of domain experts and if mobi is worth its salt then I would imagine more posts in this thread.

 

[snoop]

The MOBI thread is amongst some of the slowest threads on NamePros...coincidence?

Is .mobi a dead idea? Or are all of the backroom dealings going on at this moment?

This site seems to be full of domain experts and if mobi is worth its salt then I would imagine more posts in this thread.

The extension is what it always was, a second rate alt extension. The difference is most of the people who were speculating in it realize it now and prices have fallen 80%-100%.

 

[Eguru]

Thanks for confirming my thoughts. I figured if an area of Namepros had a lot of action, or none at all, then it is for a good reason.

 

[Kate]

I would say that the .mobi thread is a quiet as the .tel thread or the .asia thread... coincidence ? :blink:

 

[Eguru]

I would say that the .mobi thread is a quiet as the .tel thread or the .asia thread... coincidence ?

:yell:I think not!

 

[Alan Glennon]

Though the extension has stalled, I think the discussions here at Namaepros trailed off after the .mobi enthusiasts migrated to their own external forum.

 

[HeyNow]

The extension is what it always was, a second rate alt extension. The difference is most of the people who were speculating in it realize it now and prices have fallen 80%-100%.

You cannot trust this comment (or poster) for objectivity. Prices in all extensions have fallen dramatically due to the recession - most people don't have cash to buy anything. .COM will always do well, but so will .de.

For an investor whom, by admission, does not dabble in .mobi, to spew stats about .mobi as though he/she were an expert, appears to be a blatant attempt to once again bash the extension while ignorant of the facts. That's right, I said IGNORANT. If this ignorant investor actually owned some prime .mobi names, he/she would surely know that .mobi is viable, although new in its evolution.

Snoop is happy to suggest he/she is all-knowing in every extension, while not participating in every extension. It's an impossible scenario.

To reference suspect "news" journals for domain sales stats is pathetic reference criteria, at best.

 

[Kate]

You cannot trust this comment (or poster) for objectivity. Prices in all extensions have fallen dramatically due to the recession - most people don't have cash to buy anything. .COM will always do well, but so will .de.

There is a difference between average domain prices taking a hit and a market crash.
The .mobi market was overvalued and overhyped from the start.
Do you think flowers.mobi would sell for 200,000K today. IMO achieving a tenth of that on today's market is not certain.

The domain discussion at NP has run its course because the speculators have left the building. From a domaining POV .mobi has fared no different than .eu .me .asia .tel etc.

When the extension has lost momentum there is not a lot left to be said and domainers move on to greener pastures

Another cycle begins again and again :wave:

PS: sometimes ignorance is bliss :gl:

 

[mjnels]

You cannot trust this comment (or poster) for objectivity. Prices in all extensions have fallen dramatically due to the recession - most people don't have cash to buy anything. .COM will always do well, but so will .de.

For an investor whom, by admission, does not dabble in .mobi, to spew stats about .mobi as though he/she were an expert, appears to be a blatant attempt to once again bash the extension while ignorant of the facts. That's right, I said IGNORANT. If this ignorant investor actually owned some prime .mobi names, he/she would surely know that .mobi is viable, although new in its evolution.

Snoop is happy to suggest he/she is all-knowing in every extension, while not participating in every extension. It's an impossible scenario.

To reference suspect "news" journals for domain sales stats is pathetic reference criteria, at best.

i disagree. snoop is probably one of the more reasonable people that has posted in this sub-forum. i do not know him personally - im just going by his posts the last few years.

snoop = objective poster

HOWEVER, there was a certain person here in the .mobi sub-forum for the last few years that would bait people with disingenuous comments/questions, who at first, pretended to be interested in the .mobi TLD simply for their own entertainment.

when interacting on forums, its important to be genuine with your comments whether perceived as positive or negative.... in other words, saying what you really mean is important. anything else is just the dictionary definition of "trolling."

 

[HeyNow]

i disagree. snoop is probably one of the more reasonable people that has posted in this sub-forum. i do not know him personally - im just going by his posts the last few years.

snoop = objective poster

HOWEVER, there was a certain person here in the .mobi sub-forum for the last few years that would bait people with disingenuous comments/questions, who at first, pretended to be interested in the .mobi TLD simply for their own entertainment.

when interacting on forums, its important to be genuine with your comments whether perceived as positive or negative.... in other words, saying what you really mean is important. anything else is just the dictionary definition of "trolling."

Snoop may be "reasonable", but unless he has experience dealing in a particular extension, then he is certainly uneducated about any extension he has not dealt with. If he hasn't bought and sold .mobi names, he is measurably uninformed about .mobi. By his own admission, all TLDs don't perform the same in any given economy. Basically, he's uneducated about several TLDs but continues to spew "knowledge" out of his ass about those TLDs as though he is an expert. He only knows what he is told and reads about .mobi. His comments illustrate that fact.

Get back to me when he actually experiments with those extensions which he bashes.

 

[Jeff]

Get back to me when he actually experiments with those extensions which he bashes.

:hi:

If there is some type of prerequisite of one losing, generally speaking, 90% - 100% of their money in what most would consider to be an unbrandable extension in order to be deemed a worthy participant (ie., offering their humble opinions) here in the .MOBI than it's news to me, IMHO.

Folks like the Snoop - and particularly because they did not lose 95%+/+ of their money - are exactly the type of folks that new and newer users here ought to be listening to ... versus the earlier (and, ultimately, proven failed) HYPE and greed posters! :yell: :imho:

It has now obviously run its due course ... and it flopped, miserably, from a pure domainer persective ... however, there may still be some residual potential for those who uniquely develop and spend the necessary time and money to promote and optimize their "mobile" niche sites. :gl:

Just my to sense,
Jeff

 

[mjnels]

Snoop may be "reasonable", but unless he has experience dealing in a particular extension, then he is certainly uneducated about any extension he has not dealt with. If he hasn't bought and sold .mobi names, he is measurably uninformed about .mobi. By his own admission, all TLDs don't perform the same in any given economy. Basically, he's uneducated about several TLDs but continues to spew "knowledge" out of his ass about those TLDs as though he is an expert. He only knows what he is told and reads about .mobi. His comments illustrate that fact.

Get back to me when he actually experiments with those extensions which he bashes.

well the thing is.. i do have experience in this particular extension and i agree with a good portion of what he says. i can tell you that nobody is an expert in the .mobi TLD because the past 4 years have been a huge wave and all you have to do is look at the data. it isn't necessary in this case to have taken an active roll buying/selling to make an accurate assessment. i know on forums most people like to pretend they know more than they do, or are simply trolling (which was the case with 1 particular individual that frequented these forums) but i think snoop is pretty balanced with his commentary.

and balanced doesn't necessarily mean you have to say an equal amount of positive/negative things.

 

[Jeff]

Though the extension has stalled, I think the discussions here at Namaepros trailed off after the .mobi enthusiasts migrated to their own external forum.

I would say, more appropriately, that it grounded to a halt ... seems to me that the .MOBI discussions - across any/all the various forums - pretty much dried up when the realization finally set in that mTLD was proven less than forthcoming to the very people who invested and stood-by (for better or for worse) in its extension, broke its core mandates and promises, side-tracked, back-tracked, then tried to cover its behind, and ultimately got itself so in DEBT that it had to sell on the cheap to Afilias (a la, similar long and lowly ".INFO") IMHO.

At the end of the day, though ... it's simply an awful, problematic extension for effective branding purposes ... and there isn't any money to be made - especially at the domainer level - in the TLD; hence no more attempts at hype discussion(s) or constant posting of "newsworthy" items (that never proved to be news of any real substance, anyway)! :imho:

Indeed; R.I.P. :zzz:
See you soon,
Jeff

 

[labrocca]

Snoop may be "reasonable", but unless he has experience dealing in a particular extension, then he is certainly uneducated about any extension he has not dealt with.

You haven't really addresses the OP or his topic with anything more than conjecture.

Based on your experience where does mobi stand then?

Basically, he's uneducated about several TLDs

Why don't you educate us then?

continues to spew "knowledge" out of his ass about those TLDs as though he is an expert.

And what's your pedigree? If you're going to attack Snoop I think you need to be prepared to defend your own expertise. Are you one of those mobi guys with a huge mobi portfolio always talking about your mobi profits without ever really experiencing CNO profit to weigh against it? That's my experience with 99% of mobi fans. They just jumped onto mobi sunrise like it was their opportunity to get in early since they missed the real goldrush in the mid 90's.

If this ignorant investor actually owned some prime .mobi names, he/she would surely know that .mobi is viable, although new in its evolution.

I don't have to eat crap to know it tastes like crap. Neither does Snoop. The mobi forums and even other mobi investors gives us enough data to make assesments. If you have data to counter claims let's hear it. Mobi merits have been argued to death and realistically mobi fans have lost.

Is .mobi a dead idea?

Yes. If not for one simple reason. Mobi and dead are used in the same sentence constantly. Even you as a new member make the connection.

If you wany my experience I'll provide it. I tried to grab some mobi's and yes early on I had offers from other domainers. None of my mobis recieved any traffic or income. I tried development on one it went nowhere. I started to drop mine during year 2 renewals. I grabbed some LLL.mobi's about a year ago for $10 each. I figured why not. A couple weeks ago I couldn't sell them for $1 each and ended up giving them away for free.

All told I have had about 20 mobi domains. I have lost about $300. It's nothing significant but had I invested 10 or 20 times that amount I have a feeling end result would have been the same. The sales that do occur for mobi are premiums in the mobile space and those are few and far inbetween.

The percentage of domainers that profited from mobi is probably less than 1%. Long term I think just about everyone lost money. One million registrations and probably less than 1000 $x,xxx sales. Just some guessing on those figures but if anyone has real data lets here it. We all know the domainers here that posted their 500 mobi domain portfolios that within 3 years were dropped or sold off for peanuts. You just have to review threads from the past to see that. The mobi holdouts are the hardcore members here that have stuck with mobi since day one. It was a circle of hundreds at first but I think now it's less than a dozen.

There is always money to be made from website development. Those who are true domainers rely on other things like PPC, parking, or resale. Mobi domainers are forced to be developers to obtain income. What they have failed to grasp is that any extension under development would do just as well if not better for them.

 

[newton]

Yes. If not for one simple reason. Mobi and dead are used in the same sentence constantly. Even you as a new member make the connection.

I look forward to picking some more decent names at the fraction of the original price when they drop. You are doing me a favour, so I must thank you

If you wany my experience I'll provide it. I tried to grab some mobi's and yes early on I had offers from other domainers. None of my mobis recieved any traffic or income. I tried development on one it went nowhere. I started to drop mine during year 2 renewals. I grabbed some LLL.mobi's about a year ago for $10 each. I figured why not. A couple weeks ago I couldn't sell them for $1 each and ended up giving them away for free.

You developed one name and didn't make any money, boo hoo .. want a tissue? It helps if you know what you are doing when it comes to "mobi". :tu: My experiences are at the opposite end of the spectrum.

All told I have had about 20 mobi domains. I have lost about $300. It's nothing significant but had I invested 10 or 20 times that amount I have a feeling end result would have been the same. The sales that do occur for mobi are premiums in the mobile space and those are few and far inbetween.

Again... given the amount of development you did ... boo hoo... If you had invested more than you did, you would have lost it all without question, since you clearly have no idea when it comes to "mobi". Correct me if I am wrong, and please do... but you bought average names on a paltry budget and thought you would turn a profit by jumping on the "flipping' bandwagon?

The percentage of domainers that profited from mobi is probably less than 1%. Long term I think just about everyone lost money. One million registrations and probably less than 1000 $x,xxx sales. Just some guessing on those figures but if anyone has real data lets here it. We all know the domainers here that posted their 500 mobi domain portfolios that within 3 years were dropped or sold off for peanuts. You just have to review threads from the past to see that. The mobi holdouts are the hardcore members here that have stuck with mobi since day one. It was a circle of hundreds at first but I think now it's less than a dozen.

A lot of people have lost money attempting to flip their mobi domains. There is no doubt that prices have plummeted with the majority of whom were domainers who lost out, but there are still a lot of people out there quietly making money.

There is always money to be made from website development. Those who are true domainers rely on other things like PPC, parking, or resale. Mobi domainers are forced to be developers to obtain income. What they have failed to grasp is that any extension under development would do just as well if not better for them.

Forced is exactly right (give yourself a hand) and it is, as it should be. Parking / PPC is worth slightly more than what you earned with your mobi's. Hold on...IF any extension under development would do just as well or better... as you say.., then why didn't you make money with your developed mobi if it was that easy?

Completely unrelated ... Welcome back Jeff :D

 

[think]

Mobi is dead here because it is no fun to discuss in a constant reign of nay sayers. I am not against being objective and realistic but there comes a point where the people would just like to discuss their business with people that are working toward the same goals.

Mobi is taking a beating but some of us have been through the same scenarios with Dot Com, Net, Org, Biz. TV etc etc and have a long term plan when it comes to investing in newer extensions.

Yes, there was a time when even domainers were poo pooing Dot Com after the huge bubble burst in 2000. I then heard the same stories about my Dot Net and Dot Org investments. I didn't even discuss my Dot Biz purchases and sales as any discussion was poisoned by the those that loved to hate it.

The last 2 years I have taken a beating in most of the newer extensions but I was also hit hard in Dot com sales as well. Finally sales are picking up in all areas this year. I still make sales in all extensions as long as I am realistic for the value of each name. If I sell a 3 letter Dot Biz for $500-$1000 to a small end user and have $25-50 into the domain I only need a few sales to break even and start making profit.

I've had a Dot Net, Dot Mobi, Dot Org, Dot Biz, and Dot Com sale this year and although I am making much more on the Dot Com I paid much more for it. When I compare the costs of the domain to the sale price I find my investment and return are pretty equal percentage wise across all my sales. There are those names in all extensions where I have lost money too but no TLD has been immune to this.

As for Dot Mobi I am amazed how many people think that PC internet will do just fine for mobile if you can scroll, pinch , and zoom. The mobile internet is a whole other beast with or without Dot Mobi. Once people see what is emerging they will begin to understand why mobile content and applications are unique and whether you use browser recognition, Dot Mobi, M dot, or a combination of mobile options people will want the mobile content and they will want an easy way to find it.

Happy domaining y'all........

 

[Jeff]

:hi:

I stated my reasons why the .MOBI ultimately failed above (awkward & unbrandable, and misguided mTLD itself) ... but when the iPhone™ came charging on to the scene amongst all the confusion and forum chatter, it became VERY clear that anything that the ".mobi" may have offered had been quickly passed by from a technology standpoint; people don't buy cool & HiP iPhones™ to visit "watered down" dummy (mobile) sites on long, clumsy extensions ... nor should they! :talk: :imho:

All the best,
Jeff

 

[HeyNow]

.I don't have to eat crap to know it tastes like crap.

That's true, you know crap tastes like crap, but the reality is you don't really know what crap tastes like unless you've put some against your taste buds. You assume it's repulsive based on the smell and the health hazards of eating crap, but you really don't know what it tastes like, do you? Smell is a different sense than taste, the last time I checked. What you really mean to say is that crap is something you ASSUME to taste nasty, but you don't really know for sure. You know for sure it's not healthy to eat it, but don't bullshit us into thinking you really know how it tastes. Like I said, unless you can speak from experience, you are only assuming.

If you and Snoop want to believe .mobi isn't a money-maker based on hearsay, that's your business. You're proclivity of spewing knee-jerk negative comments about .mobi is understandable, defensive, and overtly selfish - for some reason you're too immature to face the fact you're not really knowledgeable about the broad spectrum of domain extensions, but rather limited to the experience from your narrowed portfolio and what you read from questionable domain "news" site(s). Oh yeah, you also glean "facts" from other domainers who claim knowledge about every facet of domaining while only partaking in one or two facets. Nothing personal, you're just unaware of lots of relevant data - out of the loop so to speak.

 

[scandiman]

All told I have had about 20 mobi domains. I have lost about $300. It's nothing significant but had I invested 10 or 20 times that amount I have a feeling end result would have been the same. The sales that do occur for mobi are premiums in the mobile space and those are few and far inbetween.

Since you're casting judgment on the extension as a whole I'd be curious to know these gems that lost you money. I hope they're better than l33t and n00b. If this is the best you had or have then it's certainly good that you chose to skedaddle from .mobi. BTW, have you ever lost money in other extensions as well?

The percentage of domainers that profited from mobi is probably less than 1%.

According to pool.com, there are 41749 .com's dropping tonight. That represents at least $300,000 lost by domain investors today on .com. Should we now assume that .com sucks? Perhaps, just perhaps the stuff to the left of the dot matters in all TLD's.

Those who are true domainers rely on other things like PPC, parking, or resale. Mobi domainers are forced to be developers to obtain income. What they have failed to grasp is that any extension under development would do just as well if not better for them.

Well, back in the good old days there was no parking or PPC, resale was the only game. So comes along new ways like parking to maximize value in ones holdings. Doing so is simply good business. So I choose to maximize value in my .mobi holdings but somehow this is a poor decision, I assume simply because you dislike the extension. What you have failed to grasp is there are people like me who are interested in using .mobi to deliver mobile content for a profit. It is simply good business.