Domisfera

The recent auction of .mobi premium domains conducted by Sedo had surprises again. The first was the change of reserve prices during the auction.

The second surprise (not for all) were the prices achieved by the 124 .mobi domains, sold by 206,379$ (a little more than what was paid by flowers.mobi) with an average 1,664$ per domain. The 10 most expensive domains were:

These results are very different from those obtained in the previous auction of .mobi premium domains where the  10 most expensive were:

The domain games.mobi which began its journey last year (in December), appears to have finished his odyssey, 11 months after it was awarded by a fraction (a 10.95%) of the price initially reached.

Below are two lists containing the full results of the auction conducted by Sedo, from 5 to November 12, 2008. They are ordered alphabetically. The first corresponds to the domains that reached the (dynamic) reserve price and the second contains those that not achieved it:

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On February 7, 2008 dotMobi reported that he had contacted all the winners of the disastrous auctions conducted by Sedo December last year. According to dotMobi of more than 70 involved less than 10 rejected the proposal for allocation of premium domains.

By having the majority support of the community affected, dotMobi went ahead with this proposal which was basically to be paid the highest price reached by domains (in the original auction or extensions thereof) or nothing (domains would stay in dotMobi).

On February 13, 2008, Caroline Greer of dotMobi has clarified in relation to the question made by Domisfera that "As regards publishing a list of domains and final prices arising from the December auction / settlement, this is not something that dotMobi has done in the past and there are no plans to do so."

It has been more than 5 months after the conclusion of the auction and 3 after dotMobi began the allocation process. It is time to know what happened to these premium domains.

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American Airlines, the largest airline in the world has launched a version of its site for mobile devices. Through aa.com you can reserve, cancel or check the status of flights and see the offers or promotions available.

American Airlines has an excellent domain in the king extension of Internet, widely known (receives 1.6 million hits daily), easy to remember and easy to type on a mobile device. Aa.mobi it is not possible because the minimum number of characters 3.

However, American Airlines obtained the domain americanairlines.mobi on October 2 last year through a lawsuit filed with the National Arbitration Forum (American Airlines, Inc. v. Michael Nakhleh). That ruling was recovered with a defensive character and not to use it, as evidenced by the fact that not even have bothered to be redirected to aa.com.

Certainly, the marketing people of dotMobi have lost a great opportunity to publicize the extension and was being better known and used by the general public (outside the industry domaning).

So Domisfera asked Mr. Pinkard Alan Brand from dotmobi about this case. When he came back from Easter holidays, his response (also published by himself in DomainNameWire) was:

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Domisfera wanted to know more about the real state of .mobi domains, so asked for an interview with Pinkard Alan from dotMobi.This is the result, if they are enough and relevant questions and comments from the readers, Domisfera will make a second interview.

(1)  [Domisfera.com] What is your full name?, Where do you come from?

[Pinky Brand’s response:] My full name is Pinkard Alan Brand. Everyone calls me by my nickname, which is "Pinky."  I am originally from Houston, Texas. Since 1998 I have been located in the Washington D.C. area after selling my first domain name related business (idNames) to Network Solutions. You can obtain information on my background and history by visiting my personal mobile site at pinky.mobi or my PC-based web site at pinkybrand.com.

(2)  What did you do before working in dotMobi?, How do you begin in the domaining world?

In the 80s I worked in the television news and advertising industries. In the 90s I became an entrepreneur and started investing in a variety of businesses. In 1996 I became very interested in the domain name industry literally after seeing the original InterNIC WHOIS site in the middle of the night. The next day I co-founded a ccTLD registration company called idNames that I later sold to Network Solutions when they were still a monopoly.  This company went from $0 to $33 million in annual revenue in 4 years. In 2002 I co-founded a corporate domain name registrar called Arcemus that we later sold to Iron Mountain. It does millions in annual revenue as well.  Again, you can obtain information on my background and history in the domain name industry by visiting my personal sites at pinkybrand.com or on mobile at pinky.mobi .

 (3) What is your daily work in dotMobi?, How is any day for you in the firm?

I am the Director for New Markets at dotMobi. That means I’m working with domain name professionals, domainers, content, brand and trademark owners and others worldwide to inform them about the mobile Internet ecosystem opportunity, to register .mobi names and how to develop relevant and compelling mobile Internet content.  I also share responsibility for policy and processes related to the allocation of our Premium Names.

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