COLLAPSE OF the MOBI & IDN MARKETS -- the aftermath

[Gerry]

Again, I ask you - do you believe .mobi is a solid longterm investment? I'll even give you a relatively short period of only 3 years as definition of longterm...it's already been OUT for 3 years and the dollar amounts of their sales are down from the sales at the beginning - so do you think 3 years from now that trend will continue or do you think the mainstream world will have caught on enough for it to have improved?

Absolutely. Without even hesitating I answer that.

.mobi is a descriptive extension.

As I pointed out to seanboy, until there comes a time of unification of everyone using the same way to get people to access the mobile internet, it is a superb viable option because the extension describes perfectly what its intent is.

It does not matter in telling me that any site can be made mobile. What matter are, is it? and if not, when?

Telling me about what browsers will be capable of doing, what phones are coming down the line are not addressing the issues now.

Seeing that I am the one that mentioned BusinessWeek, take a look at what you get from each, BusinessWeek.com and BusinessWeek.mobi, all from the new iPodTouch (which will also be how it appears on the iPhone).

Not to mention significantly longer load times on the .com

Do I think that .mobi is a good investment for the long term? Absolutely.

While others say .mobi was too late in coming out, I say it was too early! Again, with the release of countless IDN's and untold gTLDs, what assurances can you give your customer that a site is capable of being viewed on a mobile device? Seanboy brings up many good points. But, UNTIL every single person designs, builds, creates, publishes a site in exactly the same manner - and until every browser acts and interacts in the same manner - and until every single person has a newer upgraded smartphone with all the newer browsers that will be (key word, as in what is currently in use) - we are looking at the most chaotic and fractured internet that none of us can imagine thanks to IDN and new gTLD's. My thinking is it is going to segregate the internet in an unprecedented manner as the Latin alphabet gives way to native language and script.

I strongly believe that because of all the potential massive confusion on the internet and WIRELESS that .mobi will become more important in the term of what it describes it is - mobile. At present, that is the best option out there (the best ONE option out there) that will tell your customer, client and consumer of being mobile. Suddenly, .modi becomes a descriptive term as well as a URL.

What do you think .music, .sport, .gay, .ebay, .casino are going to be? They are going to be descriptive terms that are URL's. They are going to say something to the consumer about the content they will find.

But well I am a just another clueless developer stuck with W3C-compliant design.

then make all sites work as mentioned by seanboy.

or are you waiting for something?

I just read a new(er) report that esimates 5.9 billion mobile phones in use by 2011.

What are you waiting on?

Don't be clueless. Give your clients the whole package with all the options. Hell, I am not even a programmer or raw hard codeing developer and I can do it. There are now modules, apps, add ons, and such that will do this on Joomla and wordpress.

Don't be clueless. Be informed. And get more clients.

(plus I know you are not clueless)

 

[seanboy]

Until everyone, every site, every person, every phone, every programmer, every developer, every agency, every PR person, every browser, every device, every ad agency is on board with this and doing every thing in the same manner...until everyone is doing the same thing identical in scope and practice then there are going to be massive huge gaps on usability and appeal.

Again, it does not matter if the capability is here and in place or this browser will be capable for doing this and that. What matters is what options the consumer have at this very moment. This whole notion of mobility and mobile sites and wireless connectivity happened faster than anyone anticipated.

Yes it DOES matter. And unlike you, I'm not speculating about what could happen or what will happen. The options are already here and are being embraced by consumers. Look around you. Every smartphone that has been released in the past 3 years now comes with a Full HTML Browser. Why? Because consumers like full html browsers. Our clients like full html browsers. These new generation of browsers allow you to view anything from a full desktop site to a mobile formatted site. That is what "full html" means.

You picture of the Businessweek site again points out the fact that there is so much misinformation when it comes to the mobile web. You use that example as to show that .mobi is some sort of a technical solution to all of this. The problem with your example is 1) .Mobi isn't a technical solution, 2) That Businessweek site could be made on any domain. The code behind the site is what determines if its formatted for a mobile screen, not the domain (I don't know why people still insist on thinking that .mobi is some sort of technical standard).

On a side note, Bloomberg just bought Businessweek for less than $5 Million:
http://mashable.com/2009/10/13/bloomberg-acquires-businessweek/

Maybe Businessweek could have saved money by using their existing domain to serve up their mobile content. But then again, what do I know.

But until those abilities and capabilities are adopted en masse, nothing is going to be standardized. Nothing is going to be agreed upon. Developers and programmers will still have their personal likes and dislikes. Website developers will still have their own little quirks about doing things. Designer URL's and envogue ways will still be the fad.

Except that those standard are already in place and already are being used. More and more people are using HTML to develop their mobile sites, in place of XHTML-MP. Again, I am not the one speculating. I have done nothing but give you facts about what is really going on in the mobile web.

And for every one who says you could make this and that site mobile without .mobi, mobi is not needed to make a site mobile...I say then why has this already not been done?

Again, IT IS ALREADY BEING DONE. The majority of mobile sites in existence DO NOT USE .MOBI.

 

[Gerry]

I'm sure the lower price is because they do use mobi.

 

[seanboy]

I'm sure the lower price is because they do use mobi.

It was a joke. Relax. It was more or less an attempt at making a point. Apparently, you didn't get the point.

 

[Gerry]

I get the point and that is a shockingly lower price than I would have thought.

Even with a circulation of 921,000 the advertisers are just not there to keep this publication in print much longer. I saw where their ad revenue is 37% less than it was this time last year.

Total pages for ads sold on a yearly basis has gone from 6000 p/year to less than 1900 p/year. That is huge.

Don't invest in print media.

Buy mobi.

 

[seanboy]

I get the point and that is a shockingly lower price than I would have thought.

Even with a circulation of 921,000 the advertisers are just not there to keep this publication in print much longer. I saw where their ad revenue is 37% less than it was this time last year.

Total pages for ads sold on a yearly basis has gone from 6000 p/year to less than 1900 p/year. That is huge.

Don't invest in print media.

Buy mobi.

:lol:

You crack me up. I've gotta run. Later..

 

[mattbodis]

Doc Com, I think what we are trying to say is that while there is money to be made on .mobi, as a long term investment, .com will be the most powerful ever.

No need to speculate on .mobi, when you have a proven .com. Even if .mobi were to work out, the prices for .mobi domains were and are already very steep. The prices on .mobi domains won't surpass the .com.

Why speculate when you have a proven investment - the .com. Which will be around for at least the next 20-30 years, because finding your sites won't change in another 20-30 years. It won't be sooner. I'll bet it'll be over 50.

If your home address hasn't changed for decades, why would changing the address bar and how the internet works need to be changed? For now its technology that works perfectly. Nobody is complaining about it, and doesn't need to be changed in any way. I wouldn't be surprised if typing in a domain through the address bar to get to the site is a standard for another 50 years.

So why speculate? As mentioned, mobi is already expensive. Even if it did succeed as you say, it won't go anywhere from where it is now.

I personally have been personally been using the internet for over 10 years now. I have not heard one peep from anyone that some change is coming to the internet. As a matter of fact, for 10 years we went only from IE 5 to IE 8. That's the biggest change. Do you really think the next 10 years is going to be magical or something? Barely anything major will change. And the .com will still be the winner. .mobi I assure you, will not. As a matter of fact, I bet you it'll be the quickest diminishing domain in a few years. Why? Because phones are going to serve regular site HTML, and then everyone will say, "why do we need .mobi AT ALL anymore?".

 

[Gerry]

What can I say. I am just as passionate with .com and .net.

Just as you can not agree with many of my points, I still stand by my points and my assessments of the current market and future market.

If I did not believe in .mobi I would not have wasted my time to begin with let alone still maintain to diversify my domain portfolio.

 

[mattbodis]

That's what makes us all different. Either way that .mobi heads, I'm still certain you'll do just fine.

 

[Vincent]

I just renewed my .mobi today. Darn!

 

[sashas]

Here's the one simple reason why ALL extensions other than .com, .net, and .org will be failures: Google.

Google hates extensions other than .com, .net and .org.

Take two domains with the same keyword, one on .com, one on .info. Put similar content on both domains, build similar quality backlinks. The .com will outrank .info 5 times faster.

That's the truth of the internet. This is the reason why you don't see small time webmasters and developers use .mobi. The only people using it are big companies (who forward it to their .com) for branding alone. You can't get search engine traffic on .mobis, or .infos, or .biz or other extensions without trying really hard.

 

[jmcc]

I'm not quite sure that the .mobi market has collapsed. The initial phase of all new TLDs is a landrush followed by a Junk Dump where most of the domains that could not be flipped or monetised are dumped. Then it is followed by a year or so of slow growth before it recovers market share. The .mobi TLD is beginning to grow slowly. What is interesting about .mobi is that the volume of new registrations has remained relatively solid even through the anniversary of the landrush when large numbers of domains were being dropped.

If you want an example of a TLD that has not fared particularly well, the .asia sTLD is a good one. It wasn't a strong TLD to begin with as it did not share a political identity like the countries of the EU (.eu) and after the landrush in 2008, registration volumes fell away. The economic situation meant that a lot of the highly speculative registrations that drove the figures of .eu and .mobi were just not there and this has left .asia with the growth figures of a small ccTLD for the latter part of 2009.

The IDN market is a fractional market and one that is almost ccTLD specific. Because of the close ties of languages to geography, ccTLDs are better positioned to benefit from IDN registrations than the TLDs. While the gTLDs have IDN registrations, the rise of ccTLDs means that an IDN is far more likely to be found in a ccTLD than a gTLD. For those speculating on IDNs in the gTLDs, this is not exactly good news. However it doesn't mean that the IDN market has collapsed (from my limited knowledge of it). It is more likely that the shift of IDN registrations towards ccTLDs has changed the market rather than collapsed it.

Regards...jmcc

 

[carlton]

One positive aspect I discovered about the .mobi development guidelines -> they do seem to offer a viewing advantage & better functionality over full sites being viewed on an iphone or Palm Pre. A regular website viewed over an iphone or Palm is still tedious to navigate and doesn't come close to the desktop or laptop experience.

Sites that are scaled down via the .mobi guidelines don't require the resizing of windows and scrolling around to find specific content sections. This was something I had taken for granted until I actually started navigating typical websites and doing A-B comparisons between .mobi designed sites and full sites on a Palm.

I'm not blindly defending .mobi, and will concede that it has been slower on the uptake than I had hoped for. Alternatively, nowhere close to a "dead" extension. And there are certain benefits to a .mobi compliant site over a full site on the iphone.

I predict that we will continue to see at least two versions of many websites: the typical full version and a scaled down alternative for viewing on smaller devices. That won't guarantee .mobi success, but it will help support the extension's relevance and long term survival.

 

[bwhhisc]

Yo OP.....another IDN auction for a crappy "$10" IDN. :lol:
Seems at least 5 fools (including native Chinese speakers) bidding it up to $260 in 1 day...and still rising.

Chinese IDN
洗衣机.com [washer] or [clothes washer] or [washing machine]

google SERP 13,900,000 for "洗衣机"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q="洗衣机"&rlz=1R2GGLL_en&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

 

[Gerry]

Here's the one simple reason why ALL extensions other than .com, .net, and .org will be failures: Google.

Google hates extensions other than .com, .net and .org.

You really stepped in that one.

Might want to take that foot out of your mouth.

 

[Newton]

Here's the one simple reason why ALL extensions other than .com, .net, and .org will be failures: Google.

Google hates extensions other than .com, .net and .org.

Take two domains with the same keyword, one on .com, one on .info. Put similar content on both domains, build similar quality backlinks. The .com will outrank .info 5 times faster.

That's the truth of the internet. This is the reason why you don't see small time webmasters and developers use .mobi. The only people using it are big companies (who forward it to their .com) for branding alone. You can't get search engine traffic on .mobis, or .infos, or .biz or other extensions without trying really hard.

You sir... are wholly incorrect.

 

[dn-101]

Why is that a small band of people own most of the top-notch mobi names?

Very simple. When mobi went public most of the market didn't give a flying fvck, and a relatively small number of people (including this character - me) participated in the land rush and the following auctions.

Now, these folks are congregating at the mobi hive run by Andre. Andre regularly reads DNF, but lets his lieutenants do the yelling here. :smilewinkgrin:

 

[Gerry]

Now, these folks are congregating at the mobi hive run by Andre. Andre regularly reads DNF, but lets his lieutenants do the yelling here. :smilewinkgrin:

Yeah, I'm Andres' and Pinky's biatch.

But lets focus on your, poor dear, and the title of your thread:

COLLAPSE OF the MOBI & IDN MARKETS -- the aftermath

Seems most people agree that your own poor decisions are not a true reflection of the market.

 

[Newton]

Why is that a small band of people own most of the top-notch mobi names?

Which small band of people are you referring to specifically?

Very simple. When mobi went public most of the market didn't give a flying fvck, and a relatively small number of people (including this character - me) participated in the land rush and the following auctions.

You live and learn, but now it is all about mobile traffic which puts a nice gregory in my sky rocket every month

Now, these folks are congregating at the mobi hive run by Andre. Andre regularly reads DNF, but lets his lieutenants do the yelling here. :smilewinkgrin:

There is a hive? :lol:

 

[DTalk]

Why is that a small band of people own most of the top-notch mobi names?

Only a small band of people owned motor cars at the beginning, too...Everyone said: '...useless, don't need 'em.....Horses are King'.


Only a small band of people owned a typewriter at home (or learned to type)....Everyone said: '...No one gives a flying fu*k.....Pen & Ink are King'.


Sound Familiar?....Lol

.