dotMobi

dotMobi: One Year Later

First of all, hello to everyone. My first blog marks a special occasion in the life of dotMobi.

September 26 was the one-year anniversary of .mobi’s public availability. Although work started well before that date, that day was the public announcement that dotMobi was no longer a concept, idea or project. It was real. And one year later, there are 700,000 names registered with millions of pages of mobile content behind them, plus a slew of free tools for bringing content to the mobile web content like dev.mobi, ready.mobi, site.mobi and the dotMobi Web Developer Guide.  Much progress made, but much, much more to go!

Today, dotMobi’s challenge is to grow what was launched a year ago. Over the next two quarters, dotMobi will focus on growing mobile services for developers, designers and enterprises with the launch of key products like our device database and search services.

Another challenge for dotMobi is helping more and more brands bring their presence to the mobile web. Recently, we’ve seen strong brands like Wachovia, ESPN, Zagat and Disney bringing mobile properties to the .mobi domain. We’ve also seen innovative business models like MobilePropertySites.com, Zinadoo and dozens of other travel, automobile & media sites basing their services on the advantages of the .mobi domain.

I promise that there is much more to come.  This coming year is going to be an exciting one as we all help bring the mobile web to the mainstream … and I'm including every reader of this blog in that.

I know you have an interest in the success of the mobile web. If you have domains, use site.mobi to build content. Create mobile social networks with your friends using Zinadoo. If you have friends in businesses, introduce them to the benefits of the .mobi domain. Advertising works. PR works. But word of mouth will always be the most important way to reach a mass audience because it’s supported by your credibility and enthusiasm.  You have had and will have a big hand in impacting the growth of dotMobi, so thank you for your support in the past, and thank you for working beside us to build the future.

I'm already excited to think about a year from now, when we’ll be looking back at everything the dotMobi community has accomplished together over these next 12 months. I promise it will be exciting for you as well.

Back to the Block

You may have seen something in your RSS aggregators this morning about Moniker's Domain Name Auction at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East 2007, and dotMobi's participation in it.

It's true.

Following two successful T.R.A.F.F.I.C. auction appearances over the past year, dotMobi is making a select group of 45 domains from our Premium Names List available via auction.

On Friday, October 12, dotMobi will release a select group of .mobi domains at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. EAST 2007 in live and silent auctions hosted by Moniker. Among the specific names that will be available are dvd.mobi, cash.mobi, debt.mobi, food.mobi, recipe.mobi, elections.mobi, irs.mobi, diet.mobi, email.mobi, podcast.mobi, rss.mobi, move.mobi, rap.mobi, face.mobi, who.mobi, buy.mobi and usedcars.mobi.

As an aside, you will see scores.mobi on the Moniker list; that is a private auction name and not part of the 45 dotMoi Premium Names to be on auction.

These names join the almost 700,000 .mobi domains that have been registered since dotMobi's General Registration commenced a year ago on October 11, 2006.

But what about content ...?

.mobi vs. .eu ... Voice your vote!

There is currently a poll on domainnews.com asking which domain name is more important, .eu or .mobi.

While I'm not sure how "important" is being defined, I know where my sympathies lie ... and as of this writing, .mobi is leading the way

If you have strong feelings about .mobi, don't be shy about adding your vote. Scroll down about half the page, and log your vote on the right-hand side of domainnews.com.

Anniversary Present

With our public launch anniversary just around the corner, we thought we would mark the occasion with the release of another few batches of our highly sought after premium names. We have just announced a series of online auctions in partnership with Sedo and the first of those 7 day auctions will open on 26th September, 2007 at 12pm EST with further auctions to follow in late October and November (further details on those auctions available closer to the time).

Each auction will see the release of 100 names with attached auction conditions, namely: site to initially consist of a dotMobi compliant parking page with efforts to launch a full website relevant to the domain name and scoring 4/5 on ready.mobi within six months.

We're excited to be delivering these domains to the market having seen a marked increase in demand  over recent months for generic names which offer huge opportunities around content development. The portfolio of tools that dotMobi and our partners have now made available (site.mobi, ready.mobi and dev.mobi) should help domain holders maximize the potential of those domains. 

Full details on the process can be found at premiumauction.mobi

Good luck to everyone participating!

Ready.mobi 2.0 and more news from the weekend

Some notable news from over the weekend.

1.  Ready.mobi 2.0 released. 

James Pearce, dotMobi's CTO, has done it again. He just launched the next generation of Ready.mobi.  I cannot still believe we offer this for FREE! I am joking, of course, and we have no plans to start charging money. 

If you own a website or if you are a developer building mobile websites, then you need to analyze your current website with Ready.mobi 2.0. One of the best features is that you can now crawl every page of your site. Check it out ... more than 4,000 other people are doing so daily. Type in Ready.mobi today.

I am not going to steal James' thunder because he will explain why Ready.mobi 2.0 is so significant.  More to come from James later in the blog this week.

2.  WIPO Report Released. 

I would not recommend the WIPO report for bedtime reading; however, it is significant because it is the post mortem on the dotMobi Sunrise, Landrush and Premium Names launch program. The net-net: dotMobi ran a good launch and continues to have good, sound business practices. We looked out for the needs of domain buyers, trademark holders, and developed an easy launch for our resellers. The credit for this good success goes to Caroline Greer and outside advice from Becky Burr, Mike Palage, and our friends at Afilias. The more important footnote is that dotMobi's management team and board of directors run a world-class company with business practices that stand the test of outside scrutiny.  dotMobi is a long-term play that will be around in the coming years. It is good to see an outside party say "well done" in a very tricky subject area. We will have the report available on the website this week. 

3.  Enterprise Ireland Funding

dotMobi will soon announce that we have won grants for the development of two of our key projects from the Irish Government's Enterprise Ireland division. A press release will follow shortly on the funding. dotMobi had to go through a rigorous business plan and technical audit on these projects.  Again, dotMobi has been voted by an outside party to be delivering new and innovative technologies for the mobility industry. It  underscores the point that dotMobi is not just a domain name company.  dotMobi is developing some of the core technologies that will make content work in the mobile world. We are the epicenter for mobility -- that no one can dispute. A job well done to Norbert Grey and James Pearce, who led this effort and continue to guide dotMobi forward.