.MOBI crashes Sedo... WOW!

[Seraphim]

I'm not a fan of .mobi, but even if Alvaro can't flip the domains for profit, he should still be able to develop his away into green on such solid keywords. If I were him, I would put together a development plan for each domain, having a parachute will cause him no harm.

[Focus]

.mobi is the flashy big business backed cheesy politician of the Internet right now who's only intentions are profit and this image of success and acceptance when in reality as many companies have stated themselves they just sorta jumped on the .mobi bandwagon so nobody else gets their domain name...not to mention their ad agencies are in bed with the people pushing this whole thing and its ALL money motivated, just not in the companies favor...I feel really bad for the people blowing big money on these domains actually, it's a damn shame when you could have bought .com's and seen some real profit and growth in the future. Once these "premium" names are all auctioned off as planned since the inception and this is all over with .mobi is gonna fizzle out like a firecracker in a toilet while the .com fireworks finale keeps lighting up the sky for the next 25+ years if not for good.

[Raider]

Alvaro..I would definitely have a lawyer check into this whole sedo "after the auction closed and then we re-opened it" bidding discrepancy..it sounds like a few hundred k swing that was NOT in your favor my friend

I'm sure a Lawyer can move to subpoena the IP and user account records.

[Focus]

You know, this whole soon to be .mobi scandal might be the straw that finally breaks the camels back..karma is a mofo

[Gerry]

Doc, by bidders 2 and 3, I was referring to bidders 12 and 13 (or was it 13 and 14?) who entered the auction late and ran up the whole price. These guys entered the auction AFTER it had been closed at $66,000 and the first guy had won the name. When the auction reopened, these bidders, 12 and 13, entered the auction, bid it up to $600k because sedo knew that the original winner had a highest proxy of 600k.

Doc, you'll agree that all this sounds highly highly fishy.

You might also want to check this out: http://mobi.music.us/

Look at the screenshot. Its bidder no. 12 and 13 were absent in the original bid. And these two bidders came in after the auction, drove up the prices.

It sounds highly fishy, that I can not argue.

And I am already aware of this matter as I have been in contact with several people who were bidders and got losing and winning notices.

I know there are many pissed people. There may in fact be legal action pending and this is a mess and perhaps will be for some time.

I also know that without a doubt, sports was above $300K, I believe at $325,300.00, before the outtage and downtime experienced here in the states and in the UK. So this is not rigged or a game as I know who was bidding.

But rigged by who?

Here's the point.

Someone was willing to pay that much. The "original" winner before the extended time. And more than one person.

I have no idea what number Alvaro was. He won. Was he 12 or 13? Frankly, it is none of my business and if he wants to disclose this that is entirely up to him.

I am aware of the original bidder's outrage. And rightly so. If I recall, he lives in Austrailia. There was no down time from sedo in .AU. It was 4:15 am when he received notice that he won. He won, case closed, went to bed.

But it was not only this one auctioned name that got caught up in this mess. It was numerous that ended up the same way.

And several are pissed. I was pissed at one auction that I received an email say I had lost when the amount I entered as a proxy bid was more than the winning bid in the notice. So I have no idea what the hell was going on.

But one thing is clear. There were legitimate bidders willing to pay this kind of money, and more than one person. Music, Games, Sports are all ripe for a mobile internet. And many more.

So someone does have some explaining to do. And I am sure this debate will go on for quite sometime.

All I can say, is stay tuned.

[Seraphim]

You know, this whole soon to be .mobi scandal might be the straw that finally breaks the camels back..karma is a mofo

I would love to see sedo brought to it's knees.

[Poker]

definitely think it's true that you can never steal as much as you can earn (mainly because you eventually go to jail or somone you ripped off takes care of you)...lol

[Vision]

IDName

I agree with you.

I keep thinking about the business.com deal, I remember people talking bad about the deal many said, "I look for business at Yahoo or Google.. etc.." Then developed they business.com got a great return. Many of the people not in the .MOBI van were probably many people saying "Internet is not going to replace yellow pages, or email is not going to replace fax"...

I am sure my vision is shared by Verizon Wireless, or Nokia or ATT, or even AOL..:

One day people will rather go to bet on NBA games by going to: http://sports.mobi/nba rather than http://sports.com/mobileready/nba.html

How about a live cast via: superbowl.sports.mobi ///??

Or I see someone telling someone over the phone,: Hey get my photo at the beach at: "myname.photos.mobi" and not: flickr.com/mobile/user987K.html

Or I see the big studios purchasing: "thegladiator.movies.mobi" to promote their films over cell phones..

I could go on and on...

.MOBI like it or not will be like a new land where people are going to be building businesses.

I do respect everyones comments, even negative comments. I am sure the big domainers had the vision we all didn't have back in 1995.. Well in 2007 all of us investing in .MOBI should discuss this in 2010 or even before.

Alvaro

Alvaro,

A warm thank you for speaking openly about your .mobi acquisitions and for sharing your wise perspective. Good luck with your investments.

Sadly, some dotMobi smear merchants are publically demonizing your investment choices...

the current auctions have bids that are waaaaaaayyyy too high. Whoever is bidding $$$,$$$ is taking a huge gamble with their money (I say: financial suicide).
I still have zero confidence in the future for that TLD.
To me it is an investment that can only lose value rapidly by quickly becoming obsolete and irrelevant (as it had ever been...).

I still do not understand how people equate others spending stupid amounts of money on .mobi domains with their success or legitimacy as an accepted or commonplace extension like .com...

and in my personal opinion .mobi is a big distraction from the .com market

and big time waste of money for investors looking for long term growth

I'm not a hater, or a lover. I'm a skeptic about .mobi

I cannot see any reason why any reasonable investor would put in 600k+ for a domain in an extension that'll take at least 5 years to register into the public mind. 60-80k for Music.mobi would've been digestable, but this is just going way way over the top.

Some people have alot more money than sense...they lose it somewhere along the way and I have a feeling that's the case (and cash) with these recent .mobi purchases...

Great. I was a skeptic, but now I'm confirmed that the mTLD hype has worked if buyers like that could be lured.

Classic example of someone who doesn't know the domain industry jumping in with a load of cash and not really knowing what to do.
If he really believes he can flip a 611k Music.mobi for a profit anytime soon, then he's really really dreaming. I would much rather buy Invest.com.

I would say you are at the extreme of the scale and took a major gamble.

dotMobi is the little guy. The average Joe. Or Joanne.

Often dismissed. More often ignored. And on most elitist corners of domain forums, much more often disparaged.

Dumb money to their condescending "old guard" smart money. I'm not so sure about that.

I've been domaining since October 1999, involved with businesses for several years now, and you know what I've discovered?

Smart people do dumb things -- like condescendingly tell others how/what to do with their money.

They're stunned we have the audacity to buy .mobi domains. Stunned more that several Fortune 1000 companies like Barclays, Disney, ING, Bank of America, BMW, Smirnoff, ABCNews, MSN and others build and market their MobileWeb sites using the .mobi extension.

Some of us have the gall to smile.

I'm sure we do. Which is why we do buy dotMobi domains, invest/speculate in the dotMobi namespace, and help build the MobileWeb.

We trust our instincts. And not the mobiphobic forecasts.

The ones that said all the dotMobi Auctions would fail, but didn't. Or that dotMobi would be miserable for businesses and the domain industry, but wasn't.

Smart people get things wrong.

We see that. It's a pity, they do not.

Since 2007 is coming to a close, here is a recap of a year gone-by.

The dotMobi sales, the sites by Fortune 1000 endusers and the .mobi tools which has fueled the success of 15 month old dotMobi.

.mobi support tools:

http://dev.mobi/

http://dev.mobi/node/197

This is quite a comprehensive guide to mobile web development. It layers on the advice from the W3C's Mobile Web Initiative Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 document, but takes it further. We feel that it is very important to take the base of these best practices and make it more accessible. With this in mind, our developer guide starts by describing the mobile landscape in detail, and the importance of the mobile context. There are code samples and a lot of useful information. We then go on to describe actual techniques for putting together a mobile-friendly site and how to publish it. This guide is designed for developers who are already familiar with web development in general, but now want to try their hand at mobile. For now, the guide does not cover more advanced techniques such as adaptation, but this will come with Part II

http://site.mobi/sebase/signup_login...id_pack_id=201

Sites by Fortune 1000 Endusers

Banking
BofA.mobi (Bank of America)
Deutsche-Bank.mobi
Wachovia.mobi
Barclays.mobi
UnicreditGroup.mobi

Insurance
Ing.mobi
StateFarm.mobi
AXA.mobi
Allstate.mobi

Hotels
Marriott.mobi
Hilton.mobi

Car Manufacturers
Ferrari.mobi
BMW.mobi
Rolls-Royce.mobi
FordCA.mobi (Ford Canada)

HSM2.mobi (Disney's Highschool Musical series)

Transportation
Amtrak.mobi
AAA.mobi (American Automobile Association)

Sports
ESPN.mobi
NBA.mobi
WNBA.mobi

Magazines
Time.mobi (Time Magazine)
BusinessWeek.mobi
CNNMoney.mobi

Alcohol
Smirnoff.mobi

Internet
MSN.mobi
GoDaddy.mobi / TDNAM.mobi
Netsol.mobi (Network Solutions)

Technology
Cisco.mobi

News
FoxNews.mobi
ABCNews.mobi
TBS.mobi
AlJazeera.mobi

Newspapers
TheSun.mobi

Guides
Zagat.mobi

Mobile Operators
T-Mobile.mobi
Three.mobi
Vodafone.mobi
TIM.mobi
Orange.mobi
3Next.mobi

Mobile Manufacturers
Nokia.mobi
SonyEricsson.mobi

Telecommunications
Ericsson.mobi
3Skype.mobi

Weather
Weather.mobi (The Weather Channel)

Cities
Helsinki.mobi

Airlines
SAS.mobi
Spanair.mobi

Clothing
Polo.mobi
Quikstore.mobi (Quiksilver)
BenettonPress.mobi (United Colors of Benetton)

Airports
Schiphol.mobi (Amsterdam)

2007 mTLD sponsored Auction Sales & disclosed private sales:

2007 music.mobi $616,000
2007 games.mobi 401,500
2007 poker.mobi 150,000
2007 ringtones.mobi 145,000
2007 sportsbook.mobi 129,800
2007 news.mobi 110,000
2007 Hosting.mobi 101,000
2007 sports.mobi 101,000
2007 realestate.mobi 85,000
2007 movies.mobi 82,000
2007 stocks.mobi 70,000
2007 juegos.mobi 61,000
2007 game.mobi 61,000
2007 casinos.mobi 52,000
2007 bank.mobi 51,501
2007 download.mobi 51,500
2007 videos.mobi 51,000
2007 photos.mobi 51,000
2007 email.mobi 50,000
2007 girls.mobi 49,000
2007 currency.mobi 47,000
2007 insurance.mobi 42,005
2007 chat.mobi 42,000
2007 singles.mobi 41,000
2007 sportsbetting.mobi 41,000
2007 traffic.mobi 36,008
2007 books.mobi 33,510
2007 scores.mobi 33,000
2007 gamble.mobi 33,000
2007 buy.mobi 32,500
2007 fashion.mobi 32,000
2007 free.mobi 31,500
2007 wine.mobi 30,000
2007 horoscope.mobi 30,000
2007 play.mobi 28,150
2007 phonenumbers.mobi 28,000
2007 video.mobi 25,555
2007 podcast.mobi 25,000
2007 mortgages.mobi 25,000
2007 pussy.mobi 23,098
2007 pics.mobi $ 23,000
2007 invest.mobi 22,500
2007 jokes.mobi 24,100
2007 dictionary.mobi 21,500
2007 flower.mobi 21,500
2007 pizza.mobi 21,000
2007 musica.mobi 20,600
2007 movie.mobi 20,500
2007 photo.mobi 19,500
2007 directions.mobi 19,000
2007 horoscopes.mobi 18,000
2007 celebrity.mobi 17,500
2007 cab.mobi 17,500
2007 musicvideos.mobi 16,500
2007 art.mobi 16,500
2007 entertainment.mobi 16,500
2007 vodka.mobi 16,500
2007 soccer.mobi 15,000
2007 classifieds.mobi 14,500
2007 deportes 14,500
2007 film.mobi 11,611
2007 b2b.mobi 13,829
2007 betonline.mobi 13,500
2007 cash.mobi 12,500

Like I said I've been investing and developing domains since October 1999. I know dotcom is top-shelf, certainly no argument here -- 65% of my portfolio is .com, 25% .mobi and 10% other.

dotMobi is not a technogical breakthrough, but more technologically useless things have caught on.

dotMobi is increasingly becoming the most successful domain extension to emerge since .com. And that fact bothers people...

Laugh and enjoy dotMobi smear merchants hyperventilate and demonize a domain extension, .mobi

Stay tuned....



Michael

[DomainsInc]

You know, this whole soon to be .mobi scandal might be the straw that finally breaks the camels back..karma is a mofo

You can't pay for the kind of publicity .mobi is getting, good or bad.

[Poker]

You can't pay for the kind of publicity .mobi is getting, good or bad.

Sure you can, just buy an overpriced .mobi

[Focus]

yawn...are we there yet

Vision..do you bring your pom-poms with you to your computer while typing out your one sided pie charts for the misled .mobi cyber fans? Whatever they are paying you, I'll double it..


.mobi

[wantonsoup]

Sure you can, just buy an overpriced .mobi

lol!

[Acro]

The pump-and-dump .mobi posse calls us, down-to-earth pragmatists, "smear merchants"?

That's a good one, Vision

I am not the one to dictate how Alvaro will invest his money. Personally, when I have money to burn I buy my friends a round of drinks.

But wait a minute: This page is interesting, don't you think?

And this one completes the profile of a solid .mobi investor

[namewaiter]

You can't pay for the kind of publicity .mobi is getting, good or bad.

great point ... i wonder of any major news outlets will pick this up? hmmm

[Seraphim]

If I buy a domain and feel it's a good investment, I don't talk about it openly, and I don't give a rats ass about what anyone thinks about it. Cheerleading .mobi just makes it look even weaker.

[Raider]

I would love to see sedo brought to it's knees.

So would a guy named "Bubba" in State Prison.

[Focus]

The pump-and-dump .mobi posse calls us, down-to-earth pragmatists, "smear merchants"?

That's a good one, Vision

I am not the one to dictate how Alvaro will invest his money. Personally, when I have money to burn I buy my friends a round of drinks.

But wait a minute: This page is interesting, don't you think?

And this one completes the profile of a solid .mobi investor

Cocaine is a helluva drug..lol

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kh48CcSXzIM

[Acro]

Nah, "religion is the opium of the masses"*
* Copyright 1843 Karl Marx

[Seraphim]

Nah, "religion is the opium of the masses"*
* Copyright 1843 Karl Marx

Karl Marx ever go to church? If religion is a drug, it's more like a sleeping pill.

[Poker]

so this month, to insure a postive experience while visiting with the family, restrict from conversation anything related to "sensitive" subjects like:

religion
politics
sex
mobi