Where are they now?

[Poker]

Seven years later - Thought this thread worth revisiting:

http://www.dnforum.com/f408/get-any-mobile-domain-you-want-free-thread-185390.html#post975728

 

[raoul]

They just had not aspected the rise of the "real" smartphone

 

[katherine]

I love old threads. Because you always learn a lot about the present and the future by looking at the past.
So the verdict is out:

• .mobi is not a good option for pure play domaining, the fact had become indisputable as of 2008.
• a few domain investors have admitted losing up to six figures in .mobi (I think there was thread on mobility.mobility)
• top keywords in .mobi dropped, that would have sold for six figures (Example)
• on the other hand .mobi is still growing (in volume of registrations) but almost every TLD experiences growth nowadays
• I think it's safe to say it's just another TLD
• while .mobi was really hyped to death, let's not forget that other TLDs were hyped heavily as well, even after the demise of .mobi. Some people again lost five or six figures in .tel .me .co .xxx etc. History always repeats itself. Different players, same game.

 

[Biggie]

History always repeats itself. Different players, same game.
[/LIST]

don't forget .pw .pro and all the GTLD's to .come

 

[katherine]

Right, those peewee domains too. Apparently 250K of those sold (to whom I don't know).
Where are they now?

 

[jmcc]

DotTel took a major hit in the last 48 hours. Down 26K domains since 01 January. The DotXXX isn't doing too well either.

Regards...jmcc

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

Nothing is new under the sun, as mentioned same game coming, same results.

 

[angel69]

You don't even need to go that far out (.tel, .me, .xxx or even .co), look at what happened to the equally hyped .biz ("the extension that means you're really in business" as they put it... ? lol), .us and even .info.....

The examples of people who've lost $100,000+ that I've read about are in the .mobi extension, some lost a lot with .co but more experienced domainers knew better by July 2010, plus the prereg fee for .co was high, noobs got burned there

Thank God I never went for .tel, .me, .xxx (this one is way too expensive as are .adult, .porn, .sex), .ws, .name, etc. And even for .biz and .us I did not spend that much when those 2 were much more mainstream, I did for .info (maybe it'll come back one day, after I've dropped all my .info names of course...)

while .mobi was really hyped to death, let's not forget that other TLDs were hyped heavily as well, even after the demise of .mobi. Some people again lost five or six figures in .tel .me .co .xxx etc. History always repeats itself. Different players, same game.

 

[domainbartender]

I had just one .mobi domain, I bought it in a bundle and to this day regret renewing it for several years before letting it drop. A complete waste of money.

 

[jmcc]

Looks like a classic IDN bubble bursting in .tel. Of the domains that dropped out of the zone, 26,131 were IDNs. I think that registries introduce IDNs to increase registration volume but they generally result in a mini bubble that bursts a year or two after the initial block of IDN registrations. The .mobi also tried to expand into the Chinese and Asian market in this way with similar results.

Regards...jmcc

 

[jmcc]

Another 38,345 .tel drops today. 32,286 are IDNs so it is definitely an IDN bubble burst. Losing about 30% of the zone count in a month is not a good thing for any TLD.

Regards...jmcc

 

[katherine]

Truth be told, IDN .tel is not exactly crème de la crème.

 

[jmcc]

Truth be told, IDN .tel is not exactly crème de la crème.

True. But it is the scale that's impressive because of .tel's non-IDN registrations. I think that .eu had about 67K IDNs but that's over a group of about 27 countries and with some of the bigger players using IDNs. It did drop back to around 56K or so after the bubble burst.

Regards...jmcc

 

[sitemaker]

Seven years later - Thought this thread worth revisiting:

http://www.dnforum.com/f408/get-any-mobile-domain-you-want-free-thread-185390.html#post975728

Am I the only one who remembers the ORIGINAL sales pitch for Mobi? Or did I just misunderstand it originally?

The idea was that in the future SERVERS would be increasingly mobile, and that the MOBI infrastructure was going to enable dynamicallly assigned IP addresses to SERVE content.

For example, when your mobile server (your phone or car or whatever) loses internet connection, and it reconnects when it comes out the other side of a mountain, its IP address may have changed. But the Internet still needs to know how to find your server. The DNS system for MOBI was supposed to be dynamic in REAL-TIME or nearly so. So your domain would resolve correctly on the other side of the mountain nearly immediately. (Not the 2 to 72 hour propagation of the regular DNS system.)

This justified the (initially) high price of MOBI.

LATER the marketing of MOBI became non-technical, saying that a MOBI-branded site promised a phone-friendly experience (in much the same way that .TV was marketed to promise a video-rich experience).

Am I nuts? Did I misunderstand MOBI's earliest phase, or did something change?

 

[ImageAuthors]

Am I the only one who remembers the ORIGINAL sales pitch for Mobi? Or did I just misunderstand it originally?

The idea was that in the future SERVERS would be increasingly mobile, and that the MOBI infrastructure was going to enable dynamically assigned IP addresses to SERVE content.

That's intriguing. I've only heard the phone-viewing arguments -- and THAT retold as history, since I wasn't paying any attention to domains until the very end of 2011.

.MOBI was already a dead horse when I got involved. If I'd done my homework, I wouldn't have bought any. But even so, I managed to turn a slight profit with .MOBI in 2012 or 2013 by liquidating my poorly judged .MOBI investments. A part of me wonders if .MOBI will survive after the current nTLD onslaught. Perhaps people will see value in it. Yet it seems just as likely that all those unused .MOBIs will begin to drop once the big companies holding them realize they can't protectively register everything under the sun.

 

[Gerry]

dot tel? bah.

I still have several geo .mobi that do get traffic. Ranking is ranking. If that is the end game then there is benefit.

I did have some strong .mobi sales. And, yes, occassionally get offers today.


However, with ICANN's pump-and-dump and pollute-and-dilute scheme, I can not see .mobi being preferred over .mobile. I am getting to the point of wishing I had never gotten into domaining since ICANN has come up with a plan to release thousands of extensions. Very doubtful I have interest in 98% of the "to be released".

The only advantage I see in many of these is the browser's ability to auto suggest the site and the domain. However, that usually happens AFTER the user has actually visited the site at least once.

 

[Gerry]

Thank God I never went for .tel, .me, .xxx (this one is way too expensive as are .adult, .porn, .sex), .ws, .name, etc.

I have one and only one dot .me that I use for email. Feedback from people who contact me is actually very positive. Why? because they have never seen or heard of it before. Novelty name. But novelty does not pay the bills. I always keep in mind that even after all the promo's, no one had seen or heard of dot me.

 

[ImageAuthors]

The only advantage I see in many of these is the browser's ability to auto suggest the site and the domain. However, that usually happens AFTER the user has actually visited the site at least once.

Wouldn't that auto-suggest feature apply to the same name in .COM? In this respect, I see no advantage for Left.right compared to LeftRight.com. Once the person has visited the site and begins typing, auto-complete should apply equally to either.