The Sky Isn’t Falling for .mobi Names

Here is a quick note to share my perspective for domainers who read blogs warning of a mobi meltdown. They are saying that a lack of a significant breakthrough sale in .mobi names means the tld’s value is collapsing. I believe this is true only as it relates to overall domain sales in the short run and is not a long term concern.

True, there was no breakthrough high sale as there have been in other auctions. It is also true that many of these sales are in line with the midrange sales of previous auctions. As for the midrange names, in my comment earlier, I noted that two proven .mobi investors were locked out of the bidding for this round of names because the software necessary to bid runs only on windows machines and not mac. I am specifically referring to the price of boats.mobi – which would have gone significantly higher had these two individuals been able to bid. Two people do not a market make, but these two have a history of a strong belief in dot mobi and the funds to back it up. Who knows how many others were similarly affected but did not speak up.

If I believed the logic that Friday’s auction results are a true indications of the long-term strength of any top level domain (tld), it would also lead me to be concerned for the future of LL.com’s – after all, ow.com sold for $120,000 USD. I’m not concerned about the long term value of LL.com, and I am equally unconcerned about the long term value of .mobi.

For a full listing of sales prices, visit Domain Name News (Computer Link) or Domain Name News (Mobile Link).

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2 comments on “A Reaction to T.R.A.F.F.I.C. .mobi Reporting”

.pH

May 25th, 2008 at 11:12

A .mobi meltdown?

How about a true reflection of the economic times and global economy.

Anyone thinking that gasprices.com was a stellar premium and would have brought the same amount one year ago is foolish. But now with gas prices being so common place in the news of course it garnered a lot of attention.

When the money for premium domain names was freely flowing, does anyone actually think oh.com, pay.com and a host of other premiums would have sat idol? Including idol.com?

What I am seeing is not only a reflection of the economy across the board in all extensions, I am seeing unrealistic reserves from unrealistic goals from those who are clueless that this is not the 2006/2007 upswing but still want it to be.

The .mobi meltdown? Bless my soul…the only one that did not sell is company.mobi. All others…SOLD thanks to realistic and down to earth prices.

But lets put this into perspective on another front. The stipulations for a .mobi purchase requiring development. GOD FORBID that a domain investor would have to buy a domain name and actually make a site.

As a large .com holder and a .mobi investor, I hope and pray that this mentality is infectious among the domain community. First, this leaves the prices relatively reasonable for those that are not afraid of site commitments. Secondly, in the end more end users will find the prices, even on the secondary market, much more within reach when they are ready for that purchase. Thirdly, the continued purchasing and hording of domain names only to become destined as parked pages shoots holes in the theory that all sites work equally well on all devices with auto detection.

Most importantly, taking into consideration that there are NO stipulations on developed sites on the gTLD’s of .com, .net, .info, and .org then that leaves one out of 5 gTLD’s with the strong potential for getting developed with relevant content rather than site is occupy space as a parked page.

80% of the gTLD’s do not have any requirements for development. Just the way domain investors want it.

And just the way I want it. Because with each developed .mobi site I have brought to market, there are no counterparts of developed sites in the .com, .net, .org, and .info. 100% of my competition for content does not exist. 100% of my competition are parked pages.

For me, I don’t care if I am on a PC or a mobile…when I want information, services, or goods, I will not spend on fraction of a nanosecond clicking parked pages.

A .mobi meltdown? I see potentially a cranial meltdown for those thinking that the status quo is still in effect and all domains will command a price expected to bring 8 months ago.

A .mobi meltdown? How can there be a meltdown when the market as a whole is cold as hell.

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8e8

June 6th, 2008 at 15:11

Excellent points, thank you for your comments. I’m also a domainer, both .com and .mobi. I’m attempting to take one of my .mobi projects to the next level and could use assistance from other .mobi domainers who may read this blog. I’m a firm believer in numeric domains, particularly word domains. These are domain names that are purely numeric and represent words on the traditional (non QWERTY) phone keypad. For example, “MUSIC” is represented by the numbers 68742. You can see a full list of premium .mobi numeric domains at the following site: http://www.findbynumbers.com/numberdomains.htm
I could write novels on this very concept and have proven results with numeric .com’s my company owns as well. There is a huge market for this very concept with the .mobi extension. I urge anyone to go ahead and do a ‘whois’ on any premium key word with, of course, the .mobi tld extension. Most, if not all, of them have already been registered. Anyone interested in this project, please contact me @ your leisure. There is definitely a place for .mobi in the domain world. I personally was purchasing .com’s in the mid-late ’90’s and only gambling on the idea. This was a great wager but it took almost 10 years to pay off. It’s very important to keep in mind that .mobi has only been around for 2 years! “patience is a virtue”…contact me at: contact@8e8.mobi, you can also see my blog concerning .mobi’s T9 project @:
http://dev.mobi/blog/server-side-predictive-text

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