Comparing .mobi to .us is like comparing apples to oranges. I doubt highly that the success or failure of .mobi will have any effect on .us demand or prices.
- Rob
I think Mobi has impacted many of the domain sales on the "wholesale" domainer to domainer sales level. This impact will be felt for some time but the huge surge from the landrush is settling down.
That said I agree with duceman that now is the time to be looking at dot us and possibly other tlds like dot biz and dot TV. I call it "the path of least resistance"
A year and a half ago I started investing in dot TV because I thought the Dot TV market was very soft. I started picking up names like WestVirginia.tv, WashingtonDC.tv and others like LifeInsurance.tv , CosmeticSurgery.tv etc.
I consider them at least a 3 year hold as far as investments go.
I got into Mobi about 6 months before the landrush not so much as I thought it would be successful but because I didnt see anyone speaking about it and those that were talking were bashing it. My initial thoughts were "even if MOBI is a terrible failure there is a possibility of grabbing a few top keywords since there is very few people interested.
After I started to research I realized not only had I found the path of least resistance but that most people (myself included) had false impressions and no real clue as to how important this tld could be. Obviously this TLD can still fail. It is still very speculative and I'd recommend not putting all your eggs in one basket.
Also newbies investing in Mobi or other TLDs really need to ask themselves; "Would I buy this domain as an end user and try to develop it?"
If you can honestly answer yes after thinking it through then reg it.
Otherwise don't waist your money. This is coming form a guy who wasted plenty on crappy domains and just trying to help you save your money.
You are better off saving your money and investing in a higher quality domain be it dot info ,dot com , dot biz or dot whatever than buying a single word domain just becuase it's one word. What works for com does not necessarily carry over to the other tlds.
When Traffic hit Miami on October I went thinking I would buy a top dot mobi like Hot , Fun , Flowers, StockQuotes , for a steal. Instead it was just like Ron stated in the DN Journal people's jaws were dropping, mine as well as these names hit figures unheard of for a new TLD.
I then switched to plan B at Traffic and scoured the Silent auction list looking for the diamond keyword in the TLD boneyard. I found austin.biz and quietly (almost silently ) bid and bought the domain. Most peoples response to my purchase has been pretty silent also
but that's ok. I still think it was a great buy from the standpoint of developing but not for holding for resale.
I think IDNs due to the necessity of the investor to comprehend a foreign language and text represent a great "soft spot" for those that are dedicated to THOROUGHLY COMPREHENDING idns and are willing to do the research necessary.
Personally I am intimidated by IDNs and do not trust my ability to make a good investment. Hopefully this will change as I consider IDNs somewhat the "intellectual domain" almost sophisticated if I may say so, as it shows a domain investor has a working knowledge of a different language AND culture.
That said I hope you find a path of least resistance Duceman.
Cheers,
C.T. Kirkpatrick
aka: Think
