dotMobi

Horn Tooting

As you’ve heard many a time, "It’s an honor just to be nominated."

And while that’s true, winning is nice, too.

In that spirit, I wanted to take a minute and congratulation our friends at ZAGAT Survey, who -- earlier in June -- won the Best Listings & Updates site of the year for zagat.mobi in the Webby Awards' People's Voice Awards.

We’ve been talking up the zagat.mobi site since it launched because it’s an excellent example of adapting web-based content to a mobile user’s needs and ensuring those users can easily locate the content with a .mobi domain.

While the other .mobi nominated entries didn’t win, it’s still great that they were recognized. The folks at The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences -- the people behind the Webbys –- are stringent judges, so it is indeed an honor just to be nominated.

But they’re not the only winners this month ...

Registration Open for All dotMobi Road Show Dates

As a follow up to my blog posting yesterday, we've opened registration for all six of the dotMobi Road Show events:

• May 29, San Francisco, mobiThinking / Marketing Event
• May 30, San Francisco, Building Device-Aware Content / Developer Event

• June 12, New York City, mobiThinking / Marketing Event
• June 12, New York City, Building Device-Aware Content / Developer Event

• June 26, London, mobiThinking / Marketing Event
• June 27, London, Building Device-Aware Content / Developer Event

As I noted before, space is limited, so please register ASAP.

We really ARE mobile! dotMobi Road Show starting soon.

.mobi = mobile content on your phone ... and sometimes dotMobi = mobile content in your city. Well, content about mobile, at any rate.

Based on the success we had on the road with our "Happenings" earlier this year, dotMobi is heading to San Francisco, New York and London for three mobile developer mornings and three mobile marketing afternoons.

The developer mornings will be devoted to learning to build device-aware mobile content. dotMobi's Paul Nerger has a dev.mobi blog about the developer mornings, including dates and registration information.

The three mobile marketing afternoons are designed for brands, agencies and in-house marketing teams who are investigating a mobile approach and can benefit from learning best practices, so they can get started quickly and confidently in the mobile world.

The marketing events all begin at 4 p.m. local time and last until 8 p.m. (that's including cocktails and conversation after the session) and are scheduled as following:

• San Francisco: Thursday, May 29 at the Hotel Palomar. Tina Unterlaender from AKQA Mobile will be our special guest at this event. Click here to sign up
• New York: Thursday, June 12 at the Westin Times Square. Sign up info coming soon.
• London: Thursday, June 26 at the Hospital. Sign up info coming soon.

Space for these events is limited, so please register sooner than later if you are interested. I will post updated on this blog as registrations open for the New York and London events.

Left to Your Own Devices ...

... is the name of a free webinar that the dotMobi Advisory Group is hosting on 6 May 2008.

The webinar, subtitled,"Building Device Aware Content - new tools to simplify the process and increase your business," will be presented by Paul Nerger, Vice President of Advanced Services and Applications at dotMobi.I know that many followers of this blog have heard about DeviceAtlas, the dotMobi device database, but many be curious to learn more about it. If so, this will definitely be a good session to attend (and as I mentioned above, it's free).

Date:

• Tuesday, 6 May 2008

Time:

• 07:00 am PDT (USA, Canada – Pacific Coast)
• 10.00 am EDT (USA, Canada - Eastern Time)
• 15.00 pm UTC (United Kingdom, Ireland)
• 16.00 pm CET (Norway, Italy, Sweden, Germany, France)
• 17.00 pm EET (Finland)
• 19.30 pm IST (India)

To register for the session, please send an email to Wendy Holloway with your name, job title and an indication that you wish to attend. Once you have registered, she will send you details on how to join the presentation.

Super Happenings

Toronto was the stage for out latest Happening; since it's a regional center of activity for mobile, we had received many requests to have one there.

So on an unusually warm and gorgeous weekday evening a couple of weeks ago, my colleague Chris Campbell and I were delighted to meet and network with mobile developers, marketers, bloggers, registrars and dotMobi Premium Name domainers and developers from the Toronto metro area. Everyone in attendance was able to introduce themselves and tell the entire group a little bit about what they do in the mobile space. We heard from domainers about what is going on with their sites like ringtones.mobi, price.mobi, scottsdalespas.mobi, roses.mobi; and a quite a few others, too.

We heard what Canadian companies like ooober, jambomobile, Carlson Marketing Canada and Mustard Seed eCommerce are doing with mobile right now. Beginners were networking with more advanced types. Developers were chatting with domainers. Marketers were talking with developers. And of course we spoke about our latest activities, such as what we've done with our DeviceAtlas.

As we heard at previous Happenings, several in attendance said that they are interested in attending more of what I'll call a "Super Happening" for now.

dotMobi Happenings: More happening.

Our first two Happenings -- held in Los Angeles and La Jolla, CA a couple of weeks ago -- were a hit. We enjoyed meeting domainers and others with keen interest in dotMobi and sharing information and ideas. I noticed great chemistry between various domainers and those with interest in development partnerships who were meeting each other for the first time. The energy and ideas that came from these Happenings was powerful, and we learned a few things from meeting dotMobi enthusiasts face to face in an informal setting.

One thing we learned from some is a desire to learn more about mobile development tools and resources, monetization strategies and ways to partner with others with experience in mobile who have the human and/or financial capital and desire to work with someone with a great name portfolio. To that end, we intend to structure future Happenings to address this feedback, and we will continue to refine our Happenings as we gather additional great ideas from the community. And speaking of more of them, our next two Happenings are in:

• Toronto, ON - Wed., April 9th at 7 PM
• Boca Raton, FL - Mon., April 28th at 7 PM

Seating is limited and attendance is limited to those with invitations that will specify the location and other particulars.

Request an invitation. (Please indicate your full name and desired Happening city.)

Stay tuned for details on Happenings planned for New York, Atlanta and various other spots around the world in the coming months.

dotMobi Happenings are free, casual, very conversational and always at a cool place. It’s your opportunity to meet dotMobi executives and speak freely about what’s on your mind and what’s on ours. And of course it’s a great way to network and meet others who are interested in dotMobi. We hope to see you at one of them!

What a difference a year makes ...

This year in Barcelona, the Mobile World Congress -- formerly known as 3GSM -- proved to be an interesting place for seeing the acceptance and growth of the .mobi domain. So many people sought us out to ask about developing their sites, advertising their sites or to debate us about different mobile devices.

A year ago, people who stopped by asked us “What’s a .mobi?” or “Why would I want to go mobile?” or -- as happened several times -- “Can I access the web on my phone? How?”

What brought the most people to us this year was the announcement of DeviceAtlas.

Traffic West: A Buyers' Market

It was in the "wee small hours" this morning when news reached us of the results of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. West auction in Las Vegas. Like many others, we were initially surprised. However, when we analysed the sales over our cups of coffee this morning, it became clear that within the context of the whole event, .mobi domains had in fact fared extremely well.

First off, we are delighted that all our .mobi names sold in the live auction, given that just over a third of the total names in that auction sold. Clearly people once again voted for mobility and the mobile web as being the future of computing and communications. There were 9 six-figure sales at the event - porn.mobi being one ($110,000) - but no seven-figure blockbuster sales this time round.

It's apparent that the market as a whole has gone a bit soft and jittery. The signs of sluggishness have been there for quite some time: the world is facing potential financial crisis and that is affecting all markets, not just the domain market. The subprime lending issues in the USA triggered a nervousness in the world's stock markets late last year and, clearly, investors react to marketplace conditions. Domains are subject to economic cycles, and for that reason, some of yesterday's prices were somewhat depressed (unlike the lucky winning bidders!).

The good news is that cycles are -- by their very nature -- cyclical, and prices will undoubtedly rise again. Premium names continue to be a big focus for us this year, so stay tuned for news on further allocation rounds.

Last week was a big week for the dotMobi team in terms of travel and events as we hit both the ICANN Meeting in New Delhi and the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The troops returning home from that latter event report a seemingly lower-than-usual turnout of participants. The show organizers claim the numbers were the same, so let's just say getting into restuarants this year was not the problem it was in 2007. Another sign of the current economic climate perhaps? That said, it was a fantastic event for dotMobi and we will be sharing our full report of the week very shortly.

A dotMobi Happening. Maybe in your city?

We attend and speak at a variety of domain name industry conferences such as T.R.A.F.F.I.C., DOMAINfest, DomainRoundtable and ICANN, and always enjoy meeting .mobi enthusiasts face-to-face at such events. But one thing that has been missing is the opportunity to meet domainers and others with interest in .mobi who are not able to attend the major conferences, either because of logistics or cost.

To that end we’re looking at hosting dotMobi Happenings in several cities this year. The idea of a happening is just that. They will happen where a concentration of enthusiasts suggest when and where they should happen. The Happenings will be free, casual and very conversational---an opportunity to meet with dotMobi executives, investors and developers and speak freely about what’s on your mind and what’s on ours. And of course any food and beverages associated with such a happening will be on us!

I’ve already fielded interest in advance of this post, and am looking to announce our first Happening very soon. Until then I encourage you to comment or send an email to me at pbrand@mtld.mobi if you think we should come to your city or region. Don’t be shy---it takes time to coordinate these things---the early bird usually gets the worm!

Something's in the Air

I don’t know why these things always come in waves, but I've seen a small hangerful of .mobi airline sites go live over the past week or so. KLM.mobi is live. Aerlingus.mobi is now live (and I'm happy about that even if there's an "aerlingus.com" on the mobile home page.) airfrance.mobi is up but it's currently redirecting to another mobile address and doesn't seem to be redirecting consistently yet.

In the US only, Virgin Atlantic -- one of my personal heroes of an airline -- has launched the stylish lovefromabove.mobi, a promotional web site for a series of Virgin Atlantic events going on in Chicago and NYC.

And speaking of travel ... dotMobi is hitting the road hard next week. Part of the crew is heading to the next ICANN meeting in New Delhi, which marks dotMobi's first formal visit to India. And some of us will be at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. We're working with the dotMobi Advisory Group at a booth in Hall 7 (7H49). If you're attending, please stop by and let us know what cool .mobi sites you've been working on.