dotMobi

Open Letter to the dotMobi Community from Trey Harvin, dotMobi CEO

Dear Members of the dotMobi Community:

We have been following the discussions surrounding the dotMobi online auction, hosted by Sedo, that was scheduled to end on 5 December 2007. We think that there are several key misperceptions in the community, and I would like to clear them up so that we can continue having constructive dialogue and move forward.

We have noticed that some people seem to believe that the auction participants who received notifications and invoices before the extension of the auction were the highest bidders at the close of the original auction period.

Sedo, however, tells us that:

a) this is clearly not true in some cases,
b) this is unlikely to be true for the names generating the most activity, and
c) this is possibly not true for any of the auctions.

To those points, Sedo has told us the following:

Update: Sedo Premium Name Online Auction #3

Over the past couple of weeks, we have reviewed the Sedo auction which closed on December and spoken with many members of the dotMobi community – developers, brands, and domainers. Sedo's systems problems at the end of the auction created confusion for everyone (including dotMobi) and the result was unsatisfying for us and community participants. The question is, “What is the fair and right course of action for the good of the whole community and everyone collectively involved?”

Permitting the auction to stand, whichever ending time was validated, would invariably disadvantage some auction participants. Therefore, we are supporting the rights of everyone involved by exercising our own rights to void the auction results of December, and plan to conduct a new auction beginning January 23, 2008.

In the meanwhile, we continue to examine Sedo's preparedness to handle the historically high level of bidding the recent dotMobi auctions have drawn. Sedo has had a solid track record for its auction operations in the past, and they have assured us that they are dealing with each of the systems and process issues that have been found to date. We continue to hold Sedo and its commitment to the community in high regard, but we will always be diligent in protecting our partners and friends in the community from problems of this sort.

We believe that our actions now are the best, most fair course of action for the dotMobi community as a whole, and we will continue to protect your interests in everything we do.

– Trey Harvin, CEO, dotMobi

What a Day....

It takes some doing to crash Sedo's servers....but we managed it! Tensions were high in the last half hour of yesterday's auction as it became apparent that Sedo's servers were buckling under the pressure of the sheer volume of traffic on the auction site. A first in the history of Sedo and it speaks volumes about the popularity of dotMobi's premium names.

A decision was taken to extend the auction by three hours and that time was spent working on the system, contacting all bidders and contacts, posting blogs, updating sites etc. [And we would like to say a big thank you to all those who helped with the efforts]. Within an hour it was apparent that traffic was back up again and we closed with a spectacular result - over $2 million in sales with music.mobi reaching  $616,000 and games.mobi fetching $401,500. Thanks to all who participated!

This is a tremendous result and it could not have come at a better time as we lay our plans for 2008 and continue with our efforts on ready.mobi, dev.mobi and some new technology that we have planned (stay tuned for more on that one). Stick around folks - 2008 is going to be our best year yet!

NEWSFLASH - Auction has been extended!

Anyone watching and participating in the latest Sedo auction will have seen that there were a few hitches. So many people visited the Sedo site that their server went down for the first time in history.

The auction is now back on and has been extended - remaining time is just over and hour and a half as I write.

Sedo and dotMobi are working hard to inform all participants - please help us spread the word and revisit the site!

.mobi: Changing the Course of Politics

The title of this post is (playfully) overblown but it is interesting to see the recent Australian election results in which incumbent John Howard lost to Kevin Rudd. Among the many differences between the two candidates, the one that interests me is that one had a .mobi site and one didn't. Which one? The winner: Kevin Rudd with kevin07.mobi.

Over the past thirty-five years, it's been interesting to note that shifts in content delivery have often been heralded by two "verticals": politics and pornography. Aside from any obvious jokes, the one thing both have in common is the sprit of trying all means available to get their messages out there.

Some of the first .mobi sites I saw last year after the .mobi domain was generally available were ones for the 2006 U.S. gubernatorial elections; I think these came too late in the election cycle to be noticed, much less move any needles. So it was exciting to see a .mobi site used as a part of an overall communications strategy for a winning candidate in 2007 ... and I suspect you'll be seeing candidates using .mobi in that same way as the 2008 US presidential election heats up.