COLLAPSE OF the MOBI & IDN MARKETS -- the aftermath

[Banned: dn-101]

COLLAPSE OF MOBI & IDN MARKETS was precipitated by the general market downturn.
But, as usual, there was a flight to quality. Investors dropped pink sheets and loaded up on blue chips, got rid of $$ in lieu of gold, etc.
In the DN market the shitty names prices dropped precipitously. On the other hand, premium quality generics shoot up in price tenfold.

Last year we saw the mobi market in a tailspin when the 2-year renewals came and went. Most mobi regged at the landrush weren't renewed. Good quality generic names were trading in the $1 to $5 range. At the main mobi hive Andre set up a forum where the mobi 'investors' could simply push dozens of names to each other for free.

And now we see a similar pattern in the IDN market. There are literally hundreds of top-notch (Chinese, Greek, Russian, Japanese, French, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.) names being offered for a song. Last month I bought a few premium IDNs for $10 or less. The surprise was that the sellers pushed additional 20 names to my account.

At this point I'm not sure whether I like those gifts. Are they Trojan horses or the The Gift of the Magi?

Any thoughts on the subject?

[draggar]

IMO .mobi came about 3-4 years too late. When cel phones were first getting internet capabilities, .mobi would have been great (especially if the phones auto-redirected to them).

But - my the time .mobi came around cell phones had much better web capabilities to handle actual web sites and most companies redirected mobile visitors to a mobile version of the site.

Now, they will be extremely hard to catch on.

[Gerry]

Um, I wonder why my mobi sales are up, one reported in DNjournal, and why offers are coming in?

Oh well.

And this "announcement" on IDN - how about letting the IDN.IDN come out first.

This thread reminds me of threads seen on this forum in 2004 saying mobi was dead coming out of the starting gate. 2004 you say? Yup, when the domain extension was announced, already the "gurus" of DNF were pronouncing it dead in the womb.

[bwhhisc]

[SIZE=5] And now we see a similar pattern in the IDN market. There are literally hundreds of top-notch (Chinese, Greek, Russian, Japanese, French, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.) names being offered for a song. Last month I bought a few premium IDNs for $10 or less. The surprise was that the sellers pushed additional 20 names to my account.

LMAO!!!

Please direct us to these sellers of "Top Tier" IDN domains for $10 and less, or better yet have them post them up for sale here. I haven't seen even ONE top tier name in the IDN For Sale section here at those prices for many months, if not the past year.

Sure you can go on the various IDN forums and get some second and third tier stuff for $10 to $50, still nice bargains at this stage of the game but even those are few and far between for the MAJOR languages. Behind the scenes the top tier 1 names, geos, and cities in .com, .cn, .jp etc. are fetching mid xxx and x,xxx and up.

Feel free to check out the 25 pages sales figures for IDNs at idntools.com (link below). A good many IDNs are selling at Snap auctions with the bulk going mid to high xxx, and a good many going over x,xxx. A few have even hit xx,xxx. Lots and lots of IDN sales are going on without being reported, seems that those out there buying (including a few notable ascii domainers who wish to remain anonymous) don't want to spoil a good thing.

http://www.idntools.com/idnsales.php

[Banned: dn-101]

Bill & Doc: You should combine your efforts (Bill - IDN, Doc - mobi) and shoot the messenger

[Gerry]

Bill & Doc: You should combine your efforts (Bill - IDN, Doc - mobi) and shoot the messenger

Your post is just another classic example of reality vs. Perception -

It happened to me therefore it must happen to everyone.

[bwhhisc]

Bill & Doc: You should combine your efforts (Bill - IDN, Doc - mobi) and shoot the messenger

No shooting yet....at least not until you point us to that $10 IDN gold mine. lol

[dodo1]

I still don't understand why we would need a .mobi TLD, so, although I wouldn't say the .mobi market has collapsed, I don't think it will skyrocket. (Unless there will be a second .mobi bubble.) Modern mobile devices can easily access the Internet without utilizing .mobi domains. Just type Domain.com into your smartphone and let technology take care of the rest.

Regarding IDNs, saying that IDNs have failed is just wrong. Internationalized domain names have only increased in popularity. If IDN sales are down for some, it is most certainly because of the poor quality of the majority of IDNs on the market. It does make sense to have IDNs in place and there is actual demand for such domains in the respective countries.

Concentrate on quality and you should be fine. This also means that you should only invest in IDNs if you really understand the language of the domains you're buying. I have the suspicion that many IDN investors have had to realize losses simply because they tried to invest in obscure Asian-language domains they didn't understand themselves but which they were told to be good by some translation tool or another seller.

[Bodis.com]

IDNs I view as a very good investment.

But .MOBIs indeed are a failure. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. Mobile sites can be launched on the .com, even on the same website as the company non-mobile site. Can be easily adjusted via server-side code or even through HTML code.

Overall: .MOBI is a failure because it offers no difference from the .COM which is an already established, trusted, and known TLD.

[Gerry]

IDNs I view as a very good investment.

But .MOBIs indeed are a failure. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. Mobile sites can be launched on the .com, even on the same website as the company non-mobile site. Can be easily adjusted via server-side code or even through HTML code.

Overall: .MOBI is a failure because it offers no difference from the .COM which is an already established, trusted, and known TLD.

Then why wasn't it?

Why did the global industries, programmers, web developers not do this if it was so easy to do? How many WAP sites do you recall the URL with clarity?

Why did the industry wait until mobi was released to say, gee - we should have thought of this. ?

I mean, come on, hind sight...where were these geniuses? They were denying that mobile, wireless, and mobility were not even going to be worth pursuing and will never have a chance. I am not talking about mobi here. I am talking about the years of all the BS talk that mobile and wireless were not going to be big and there was no use in putting money into it.

My god, as little as two or three years ago bloggers and industry experts were saying that handheld, mobile devices had no chance of success. Remember all the talk of how nobody wanted to look at a small screen.

And by industry experts, I am talking not only domainers but people globally in a business, marketing, and even the telecomm and wireless industry itself.

[Banned: dn-101]

Histerical remark:

Many domainers (myself included) loaded up on all those meaningless tlds:
biz
us
tel
eu
asia
com.us
kz - the land of Borat

and wrote off the losses. And forgot about it.
But not the mobis or IDNs!
They organized themselves as Bullshevik and Al Gebra cells. With secrecy, paranoia, and sh!t kicking.

[Gerry]

But not the mobis or IDNs!
They organized themselves as Bullshevik and Al Gebra cells. With secrecy, paranoia, and sh!t kicking.

My bank account tells me otherwise.

Based on my personal sales, sites built, From PPC, from Admob and Adsense, you are obviously (again) categorizing every one else based on your ill advised decisions and selections.

Sorry to hear that.

[stbmax]

Please send any cheap top-notch IDNs, my way!

I'm getting unsolicited offers, every week, for mine.

[DTalk]

No question that general aftermarket prices for .mobi (especially domainer sales) are currently down from the 'bubble' prices of 2007, early 2008. This is not unique to .mobi, of course, tho, the price decline, generally, for .mobi has been steep.


Having said that, individual deals are being done for .mobi domains that are giving their owners a great ROI.....And, increasing numbers of .mobi site owners are gaining revenue traction from developed .mobi sites. No reason why - in an increasingly mobile world - this won't continue, imo.


Now that mobile phone internet usage - and mobile Ad spend - is tracking straight upwards (and the iPhone was the circuit-breaker that created the mass awareness) - there is serious interest in the mobile space amongst corporates now. There's no reason why top flight .mobi domains shouldn't be as lucrative an option as any other gTLD extension in this mobile space - and, I'd argue, with better long-term potential than most.


The reason?...Brand Marketing.....ie a .mobi site can so easily be branded & promoted as '.mobi = Mobile'.....NOT because the technology is superior, but, because .mobi is simply a term that can be easily exploited to promote a product/service, as mobile.


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

In investment terms, I can see no reason why this quality of .mobi domain won't eventually be a massively valuable ROI - in an ubiquitous 'mobile' world - to major corporate end users in the respective markets - eg major Banks/Finance/Insurance - leading telecoms/communication outfits - Top Real Estate firms etc - who have the funds to brand these names globally for their corporation.


Sure, they can 'mobilise' their .com sites....And, at the moment, many do.

But, its not a big stretch for a major Finance House to see that owning & globally promoting Finance (mobi) - for their mobile internet customers - could give them an edge in a 'mobile' world.


Like anything in the domain world, its about finding the right horse for the right course....And, the .mobi = mobile horse has every bit as good a chance to do well - for well-targeted names - in a mobile internet world, as any other TLD, imo.

.

[David G]

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

[Bodis.com]

My god, as little as two or three years ago bloggers and industry experts were saying that handheld, mobile devices had no chance of success. Remember all the talk of how nobody wanted to look at a small screen.

I don't understand.

I didn't say mobile sites are a failure. I said the .mobi TLD is a failure. But technically, there is no such thing as a "failure". It is just, not a good long term investment compared to .com. IMO, .com is the best long term investment of all TLDs. So for me, everything technically is a failure as a long term investment outside the .com.

There is absolutely no difference in setting up a mobile site on .com vs .mobi. And there is no reason for an entire TLD for it, since it offers no advantages. It's at a disadvantage because it is not widely accepted as .com is.

And yes, people made money on .MOBI. People made money on .ASIA. Bernard Madoff made money by lying to people. It is possible to make money in many different ways, that doesn't make the .MOBI a great investment nor a successful TLD.

[Gerry]

that doesn't make the .MOBI a great investment nor a successful TLD.

Nope. Mobi is not for anyone. Especially domainers. Domainers have not figured out a way to make money from parking a .mobi.

[ordersomething]

Nope. Mobi is not for anyone. Especially domainers. Domainers have not figured out a way to make money from parking a .mobi.

Yeah... it's like Captain Ahab searching for the great white whale, Mobi Dick.
You can monetize a .mobi, but it might cost you an arm and a leg!

.

[Gerry]

You can monetize a .mobi, but it might cost you an arm and a leg!

Yup, very, very steep and costly. I just hate paying those annual reg fees.

For those that can not afford reg fee I strongly recommend not to get into it.

[ordersomething]

Yup, very, very steep and costly. I just hate paying those annual reg fees.

For those that can not afford reg fee I strongly recommend not to get into it.

I agree.