COLLAPSE OF the MOBI & IDN MARKETS -- the aftermath

[DTalk]

Nice come back, Doc...

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[I Sold Grandma]

Will the holders of premium .mobi names spend some of their profits registering .cell domain names when .cell goes live ?

[Doc Com]

Will the holders of premium .mobi names spend some of their profits registering .cell domain names when .cell goes live ?

want to bring this discussion back to reality?

The reality is .cell is totally fictitious.

And the reality is those who do not like .mobi have failed to make it go away.

Why?

The consumer did not hear you and does not read DNF.

All the wishing and talking and condemning in the world did not stop its release and has not killed it. Now, that must really piss off a lot of domainer because the were wrong. Pure and simple, they were wrong. And they do not like to admit they were wrong.

So much for the influence of domainers over consumers.

Honestly. What is the big deal? If you don't like mobi, don't buy mobi. I know a few people on here who can not stand .net. Others its .info.

I dig .com, .net, .org, .mobi, .info, .us. That's about it. And I have been equally successful in all of these.

So how can someone say it is a failure based on their likes and dislikes.

I don't like it therefore no one else should like it.

Wow, that's really powerful stuff and shock the planet off its axis.

But it must piss off domainers to the core when they see or read about another successful .mobi site because they swear it sucks, was a waste of time, and would never succeed.

To each his own.

[dodo1]

All the wishing and talking and condemning in the world did not stop its release and has not killed it. Now, that must really piss off a lot of domainer because the were wrong. Pure and simple, they were wrong. And they do not like to admit they were wrong.

None of your arguments shows that .mobi is a success. Fact is that it is not. Consumers (website owners) and Internet users don't use it. Only a small number of people uses this small TLD, just like a very small percentage uses the other unknown (and, relatively speaking, worthless) TLDs.

DotMobi is still around, but that doesn't make it a success. I do agree on this one: On the reseller market, .mobi isn't a failure. Domainers keep buying and selling .mobi domains.

But as a TLD with the end user in mind, .mobi has pretty much failed. If you look at where .mobi is now and what the .mobi advocates said the TLD would change, nothing of that has happened. DotMobi has had no influence on the way people utilize mobile devices for Internet browsing at all. I can even take my old Nokia mobile phone and visit practically any website I want. People want to use .com, they won't suddenly change their behavior only because they're using a mobile phone instead of a personal computer. In addition, most people outside the domain business don't even know about .mobi. They do know about that .com button on the iPhone, however.

[dn-101]

I own Finance (mobi), Investment (mobi), Calls (mobi), Condos (mobi) - and many other similar top flight .mobi names...

My guess is that those great names get monthly traffic in the range of 5 to 20. That is barely enough to buy a small coffee at Starbucks. Once a year.

And how do I know? Well, I own comparable names.

On the positive side, I saw 60 minutes on CBS the other day, and they played the footage of people gliding at 140 MPH in their space suites. Doc posted the same footage 2 or 3 years ago. Absolutely amazing!

[britishbulldog]

I agree with above which is a well done and good post. Mobi can be popular as a good alternate tld especially based on well taregted keywords and not just for technical reasons only. In fact, I have one mobi site I made using Moniker's new mobisitemaker tool which gets surprisingly good traffic including typeins.

p.s. just noticed an area bank who for a few months was advertising their bankname.mobi site on several prominent signs attached to the bank drive-thru lanes had changed the signs to bankname.com

says it all then for .mobi

[Doc Com]

Yup, its a failure.

Does that make everyone feel better?

On the positive side, I saw 60 minutes on CBS the other day, and they played the footage of people gliding at 140 MPH in their space suites. Doc posted the same footage 2 or 3 years ago. Absolutely amazing!

I saw that last night as well. Oh, no no no no no...not me. The mountain peaks those guys were jumping off of. How dizzying was that! Hats off to those dudes and much respect. Pure athletics in the finest (and fitness) sense.

[MobileDesigner]

seems to still be too early. The mobile industry is idling at the moment. Soon, it will grow. .mobi, .com, .idn, whatever, as long as you can get that user to a mobile device.

[Doc Com]

seems to still be too early. The mobile industry is idling at the moment. Soon, it will grow. .mobi, .com, .idn, whatever, as long as you can get that user to a mobile device.

Your points are about to become a reality:

One of Today's Lead Stories on Business Week

M-Commerce's Big Moment
Mobile commerce is gaining momentum as consumers get comfortable
with ordering all sorts of products by cell phone and companies
such as Papa John's watch sales climb

[sdsinc]

Moot point as usual.
M-commerce was in the news well before .mobi was even released.
No mention of .mobi in the article, as usual.
papajohns.mobi redirects to http://mobile.papajohns.com.
End of the story.

[Doc Com]

End of the story.

Yeah, you've made that comment numerous times in .mobi threads.

Oddly enough, it is not "end of story". Just a story you and many others want to end.

The story continues...

[sdsinc]

At this point .mobi & IDN are still speculative.
Right now I prefer to invest rather than speculate. At the end of the day it's all about ROI (and personal taste).

[Doc Com]

At this point .mobi & IDN are still speculative.

Yes, speculative for domainers. Not speculative for consumers.

Despite all the objections of "old school" domainers, .mobi was launched and IDN.IDN will be launched. And the generic TLD's (gTLDs) will also be launched.

It must be humbling for all those who objected to these events.

Right now I prefer to invest rather than speculate.

All investment is speculative...ALL.

[dn-101]

The IDN craze grabbed China a few years ago. A lot of kids borrowed money form the families to invest in idns.
I ran into a guy who borrowed $100,000 from his folks and regged 10,000 domains. He was regging 300 names daily, primarily one or 2 character .com and .cn.

He was hoping to flip them instantly. It didn't happen. A year later renewals came, but he had no money left. He was desperate. I bought a week worth of registrations from him, around 2,000 names. That was before Jose introduced his amazing tool, www.idn.bz
Most of those names were either worthless, and/or I had no tools to analyze them. I kept a few hundred, and pushed the rest to other folks.

A few years later I managed to sell some of them. The rest of those Chinese are sitting in my portfolio, sucking my money and my blood.

[Doc Com]

The rest of those Chinese are sitting in my portfolio, sucking my money and my blood.

again, you can not take your own poor judgements and decisions and use them as a benchmark for all domainers, let alone the success of the extension.

You try, it didn't perform, you dump it. How hard is that?

The problem is, people jump into things head first without any market analysis or studies. Its like they just reach for the bright light... Ooo. Shiney!

[DomainsInc]

I have a handful of great mobi's I am holding on to. It might pay off, it might not. No risk, no reward.

[dodo1]

All investment is speculative...ALL.

Actually, there is a difference between pure speculation and investing. But if you want to say that riskless profits are impossible in a well-functioning market, I agree.

[dn-101]

There are currently around 1,200 quality (generic, single word, regged 3 years or more ago, etc.) idns being offered on several idn forums in the range of $1 to $20

[Doc Com]

There are currently around 1,200 quality (generic, single word, regged 3 years or more ago, etc.) idns being offered on several idn forums in the range of $1 to $20

Honestly, I am not sure of the point of all of this...

Quality? Again, this is all a matter of opinion and interpretation. And countless factors. Chinese, French, German, Arabic, Portuguese, Slavic, Spanish, Hindi???

But if you want to say that riskless profits are impossible in a well-functioning market, I agree.

Riskless profits impossible?

So a reg fee domain (8 bucks) turned into 5 thousand bucks ($5000.00) - where does that fall into your philosophy of "riskless profits are impossible"?

I am not sure what that term means or how it is even applied to any market.

It just reads and sounds odd.

Care to eloborate?

[dn-101]

2 years ago quality idn generics were trading in the $100 to $5k range