Tag Archives: .mobi

Mon 16th February 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.XYZ Passes .Mobi in Domain Registrations As It Closes In On 800K - According to ntldstats.com,  the new gTLD .XYZ has passed .Mobi in the number of registered domain names. The .Mobi registry which went live on September 26, 2006  according to RegistrarStats.com has 791,396 domains under registration having lost over 1/3 of the registrations it had at its peak in 2014. According to ntldstats.com (which does not track legacy TLD’s), .XYZ has almost 795,000 registrations. Registrarstats.com shows that .Mobi had around 1.2 million domain name registrations as of ... read more ...
Wed 14th May 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
New gTLD’s Take 1st Toll On Existing String? .Mobi Falls Below 1 Million Registrations -   According to RegistrarStats.com the Top Level Domain (TLD) .Mobi  fell below 1 Million domain name registrations. .Mobi hit a high of 1.2 Million registrations in January 2014 before the new gTLD were released. .Mobi increased registration from late 2011,  from below 1 Million hitting  1.2 Million on January. We can’t peg the losses of 200,000 domain registrations since January just to the new gTLD’s, but it certainly could be a factor which is why the headline has a question mark. What ... read more ...
Mon 4th November 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Afilias loses combined fibre difficulty box opposite .mobile - Amazon, Donuts, and Dish DBS prevail in dispute over .mobile. Afilias, the registry that operates the .mobi top level domain name, has lost a consolidated string confusion objection against applicants for .mobile. This is, I believe, the first objection in which more than one applicant agreed to have the case heard on a consolidated basis. .Mobile applicants in the case included Amazon.com, Donuts, and Dish DBS. Panelist M. Scott Donahey determined (pdf) that .mobi ... read more ...
Tue 14th May 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Responsive pattern is another blow to .mobi - Responsive web design is a much more efficient approach to mobile browsing than a separate domain name. I really liked the idea of .mobi before it was launched. It was the only “new” top level domain that made sense to me. The idea of creating a domain solely for mobile devices made a lot of sense because it served a function; it wasn’t just a label of the site’s content like many other top level domains. In many ways .mobi was prescient; mobile browsing was ... read more ...
Mon 10th December 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Over 20 NNN.mobi Domains Dropping Tomorrow: What Are They Worth? - Looking at the Pool.com daily list of the top back ordered dropping domain names  for tomorrow December 11, 2012, I noticed an abundance of NNN.mobi domain names. 24 in all. While .Mobi hasn’t been the greatest investment for domain holders its rare to see so many NNN domains dropping in any extension in any one day. What do you think, worth $60 each? 205.mobi 208.mobi 209.mobi 221.mobi 223.mobi 225.mobi 228.mobi 229.mobi 347.mobi 377.mobi 455.mobi 644.mobi 718.mobi 771.mobi 775.mobi 856.mobi 884.mobi 887.mobi 967.mobi 973.mobi 974.mobi 977.mobi 979.mobi   Google+Michael ... read more ...
Thu 28th June 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Some .mobi owners endangered about .mobile domain applications - Competition? Confusion? It remains to be seen. Some owners of .mobi domain names are concerned about confusion and competition if one of the applicants for a .mobile domain name should be approved. Indeed, the strings mobi and mobile are very similar. ICANN’s String Similarity Assessment Tool assigns a similarity score of 72, which is quite high. My take is .mobi owners don’t have to worry much about .mobile. Two of the three applications for .mobile were filed ... read more ...
Thu 14th June 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
.Mobi Domains Have Been Around Since 2006 So Why Do We Need A .Mobile & .Mobily - Everyone is the domain name industry is quite aware of the history of the .Mobi TLD and the various stories behind it. The .Mobi Registry started selling domains in 2006 at the TRAFFIC auction even before launching. Now it seems its deja vu all over again, as four applicants are going for very similar new gTLD’s. There are three applications for .Mobile that would be .Mobi +le and one application for .Mobily which is .Mobi + ly. Now beyond the question of how ICANN would ever approve these extensions ... read more ...
Wed 6th July 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
French Company Wants to Cancel Adwords Trademark, Hit with UDRP - French company files to cancel one of Google’s trademarks, gets hit with UDRP over .mobi domain name. Google has filed a UDRP against the owner of a French trademark for “adwords” over his domain name ad-words.mobi. The domain owner, Francotel, LLC, has a French trademark for “adwords”, but Google has some as well. Francotel has also filed for cancellation of Google’s European Union trademark for “Adwords”, although it appears the company has filed ... read more ...
Wed 6th April 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Playboy Launches Playboy.Mobi - Its been a while since I have seen a press release announcing the roll out of a major .mobi site but today both AVN.com and Xbiz.com are reporting that Playboy has launched Playboy.mobi. “”Playboy Webmasters has announced its newest addition to the family—Playboy.mobi, the mobile version of Playboy.com.” “Forecast to be the number one method of internet access by 2013, mobile devices have quickly become the go-to choice for millions of consumers around the world.” “With an estimated ... read more ...
Mon 31st May 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Miami Herald Covers .Mobi & Concludes: “Names Are Now All But Worthless” - Domain Names are in the news again over at the Miami Herald, which covered them for a second time in a month (They wrote a story on DomainFest as well). This time its the .Mobi extension that get covered by the south Florida publication. Once again the domain king, Rick Schwartz is quoted extensively, this time in regards to his record setting purchase of Flowers.mobi for $200K back in 2006. The newspapers comments on .Mobi, are less than kind: “Schwartz and other Internet tycoons who paid tens ... read more ...
Tue 16th March 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How a iPad Will Further Fragment a Web — and Learning from .Mobi - iPad-friendly sites are a reminder of mobile-friendly web sites. In January I wrote about how the iPad could be bad for domainers because it will change the way some people navigate the web. Today news of a different sort regarding the iPad and web sites has surfaced: NPR and The Wall Street Journal will show different versions of their web sites to iPad users. At issue here is the iPad’s lack of support for flash, which both NPR and WSJ apparently use heavily ... read more ...
Wed 2nd December 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Pinky Brand Discusses a Past, Present, and Future of .Mobi - Pinky Brand explains what’s going on with the .mobi domain name. From the moment it launched, the .mobi top level domain name has been divisive in the domainer community. As people paid tens of thousands — even hundreds of thousands — for .mobi domain names at auctions, onlookers thought these people were crazy while the buyers thought they were getting a bargain piece of property on the mobile web. Even though the rush has slowed down and people have had ... read more ...
Fri 6th November 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Mobi Domain Registration Base Down 10% Over Year - Registered base of .mobi domains is sinking. The total number of .mobi domain names registered fell to 850,712 in July 2009, the latest number available through ICANN. That represents a 10% drop from the same month in 2008 when the total base was 946,357. The number of .mobi domains registered has held stagnate this year, hanging around 850,000 domains. .Mobi has been one of the best marketed new top level domain names to ever be released. A couple months ago ... read more ...
Tue 15th September 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
U.S. Postal Service Delivers USPS.mobi Domain Name - Dub-A, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT READ: Think about the logic of the USPS (which won’t take long to thing about), and maybe these “1984” manipulators are actually seeing some value for use in this domain. This could be frightening, and here’s why: Why else would they bother fighting for this domain? Could the USPS be preparing an “innocent” ad campaign, using “USPS.mobi” to engage in collecting data from cellphone users? Ahh.. consipiracy nuts! I love em! They’re so… correctly ... read more ...
Tue 8th September 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Casino.Mobi Sells For $135K - Moniker just announced that it has brokered the sale of Casino.mobi to Infomeda Ltd for $135,000. This sale represents the second highest price ever paid for a .mobi name. As you may recall,  Flowers.mobi sold for $200K, Fun.mobi for $100K RealEstate.mobi for $85,000. Certainly this  is the highest priced paid for a .mobi since the extension’s initial release premium auctions held at TRAFFIC shows in 2007. The resale market for .Mobi’s  has been very quite, to say the least, almost non-existent, ... read more ...
Tue 3rd March 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
First 2 Letter .mobi Awarded - .mobi announced a back in January that it would awarding 1 and 2 character domains for use, based on application, not auction. Today in the for the first time I have seen, the .mobi registry gave a 2 character domain away. The domain 53.mobi to was awarded to Cincinnati based Fifth Third Bank for its recently launched mobile banking service. The bank launched its mobile banking service in select markets in February and continues to roll out the service throughout its 12-state footprint. With Fifth ... read more ...
Tue 24th February 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
dotMobi Steps Up Enforcement for Non-Compliant Domain Names - Registry to take additional measures against buyers who haven’t developed domain names. It’s taken a long time, but buyers of premium .mobi domain names appear to finally be developing their domain names. dotMobi says it will take additional measures against those who have not taken this step as required in their purchase agreement. I’ve written several times about lack of enforcement of dotMobi’s premium domain buyer rules, but the registry finally started ... read more ...
Mon 26th January 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
dotMobi Details 1 and 2 Character Domain Allocation Process - Short .mobi domains are “free”, if you develop them. As Domain Name Wire reported in November, dotMobi has the green light to allocate one and two character .mobi domain names. The company explained the process for acquiring these domain names on its blog over the weekend. First, you’ll need to complete a very short form to express your interest. This form requires basic contact information and a short description of what you want to do with the domain name ... read more ...
Mon 17th November 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
One and Two Character Domains Coming to .Mobi - ICANN approves short domains for .mobi. ICANN’s board has approved the release of one and two character second level domains on the .mobi top level domain. dotMobi announced the decision today and said it will release the domain names in a request for proposal process rather than an auction. This is a smart move — it’s imperative for the long term viability of .mobi that these domains are used as real web sites rather than just held for resale. For example, ... read more ...
Wed 12th November 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Auction Results: Games.mobi Headlines Lackluster .Mobi Auction - Games.mobi sold for $44,000 in .mobi domain name auction. If you believe in .mobi, the top level domain for mobile devices, then today was a great buying opportunity for you. The Sedo .mobi auction concluded with many domains selling at discounts of 50%-90% of what they would have sold for just 6 months ago. Back in September I said this auction would be a “defining moment” for .mobi. It has been defined, as the economy and perhaps an oversupply of “quality” ... read more ...
Thu 23rd October 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Yale Wants Its Mobile Web - Yale University goes after Yale.mobi. Ivy League institution Yale University believes in the mobile web. Or at least it believes in protecting its name. The university has filed a UDRP arbitration at World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for the domain Yale.mobi. Of course just because the first thing that may come to mind is the prestigious university doesn’t mean that this domain is cybersquatting. It could be registered for someone with the last ... read more ...
Tue 23rd September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
November Auction is Defining Moment for .Mobi - Auction of 200 reserved domain names will test the aftermarket for .mobi domain names. I know the folks over at dotMobi like me, but I’m honored they selected my birthday to launch a massive .mobi auction over at Sedo. The auction starting November 5 will include 200 reserved domain names, and there are some doozies such as Blackjack.mobi, Games.mobi (which previously “sold” for $401,500), and xxx.mobi. After slowly auctioning off many of its previous domains ... read more ...
Mon 22nd September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Two Domain Name Observations on a Plane Trip - Domainers always notice interesting domain names. Here are two examples from my recent trip. Last week I traveled to San Francisco. On the plane trip home I checked a bag at San Jose airport and was given my boarding pass with a claim check for the bag. The boarding pass and claim check each had domain names on them, and each made me recall domain stories. First, the back of the boarding pass had an ad for accessing flight information at AA.com on your mobile phone. ... read more ...
Thu 11th September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
mobiSiteGalore Creates Mobile Web Sites Fast - Online site builder makes creating .mobi-compliant web sites easy. Any premium .mobi domain name owners worried about creating their .mobi web sites by the compliance deadline need not worry — they can make them in about 10 minutes with a free online tool. I initially didn’t pay much attention to mobiSiteGalore, an online web site builder that builds mobi compliant web sites. But this week I saw an announcement that it now lets you create mobile web sites by ... read more ...
Wed 3rd September 2008
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
dotMobi to Enforce Compliance Rules for Premium Domains (Eventually) - dotMobi says it will start to enforce guidelines for domains won at auction. In June I wrote a second article about premium dotMobi domain names that were won at auctions at Sedo. At the time, not a single domain won at the first Sedo auction was in compliance. Compliance basically requires a dotMobi compatible parking page followed by a mobile web site within 6 months. Although it’s not surprising that few of the domains had real web sites within 6 months, ... read more ...