Speculation in the .mobi namespace

[katherine]

So I was curious to known the actual extent of speculation in the .mobi TLD.
I thought having a look at which name servers are used would provide some clues.

I parsed today's zone file and looked for domain names parked with known PPC providers.

I used the following sources to compile a source of known parking name servers:
http://www.namepros.com/parking-and-...ameserver.html
http://www.ohashi.info/domain_parking

Remarks:

• A few mobi names have no name servers set, so they are missing from the zone files
• It is possible to park a name using managed DNS, so the list is conservative
• I am pretty sure that many domains are redirected, or not used at all

You can check the report here.

Now I will let you comment the results. I know there will be a lot of ifs and buts
Personally I think the number of parked domains is pretty high.
Now don't get me wrong, there is a lot of speculation going on in other extensions, but the other extensions are well-established and not lacking development. Anyway I am not surprised at the results.

Is the glass half empty or half full ? You decide

[namewaiter]

wow, almost 900,000 regged - nice!

[katherine]

Coming next: a .asia analysis (hopefully)

[accent]

Mobi is coming along, slower than we would like, perhaps, but the people running the registry have a lot of good ideas and are not afraid to change course if something is not working.

[dagersh]

Mobi is coming along, slower than we would like, perhaps, but the people running the registry have a lot of good ideas and are not afraid to change course if something is not working.

Personally, I don't think it's slower than I'd like -- well, okay, sure, I'd love if it were huge right away -- but many of us have been saying since the beginning that we'd be looking at a 3- to 5-year buildup.

The progress in this year and a half has been great.

[hugegrowth]

The progress in this year and a half has been great.

I agree, no one can really say it's been a flop as some predicted at the start. If anything, what's holding it back is the slow adoption of mobile internet use in North America compared to places like Japan.