http://symbian.sys-con.com/node/1282066

It's just another TLD corpse on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kpHmtA7LOk

So I guess that means all the "backers" are out (sold)?

Some financials on dot-mobi:

http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419...name-operator/

Pretty ugly!

Originally posted by GeorgeK
Some financials on dot-mobi:

http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419...name-operator/

Pretty ugly!

Last week

Dot Vegas said it has been working since summer to win the city’s endorsement to aid its application with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a California-based nonprofit group that oversees the Internet.

If .vegas takes off and becomes a household top-level domain like .com, it could mean millions in new revenue for the city and many millions more for Dot Vegas.

One of two Dot Vegas officials at the meeting, implored the city to move quickly, saying that in a week, ICANN was going to require “expressions of interest” in potential top-level domains.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010...te-citys-vote/

Originally posted by GeorgeK
Some financials on dot-mobi:

http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419...name-operator/

Pretty ugly!

Very interesting George, perhaps the backers weren't willing to put in any more money hence the sale. Perhaps the message from this is that the new tlds to come out will need to be very low cost operations.

New tld launches will be very risky propositions, pose a higher failure rate, and require lots of start-up capital to remotely have a chance of achieving sufficient registration numbers.

Originally posted by snoopy
Very interesting George, perhaps the backers weren't willing to put in any more money hence the sale. Perhaps the message from this is that the new tlds to come out will need to be very low cost operations.

Right, it's all about "pump and dump", for the most part, as has been discussed before. (1) Hype the TLD (2) Get defensive registrations from TM holders (3) auction off the "good" names (4) after a few years, the inevitable plateau and death spiral (5) keep a skeleton staff and/or sell out the remainder to VeriSign/Afilias, etc. (for which an extra TLD is like an extra SKU, like blue dresses vs. red dresses).

It "works" as long as the initial fees to ICANN are low enough (that's why they're all trying to get lower application fees, reducing competition, pretending to have "community" support to qualify for lower fees, etc.). And, it only works if they can get to market before a deluge of other TLDs, because each new TLD has tended to be even less successful than prior ones, e.g. see how .asia fared vs. .mobi or .eu. The population of "suckers" tends to decline, you can only soak them so many times before even they figure it all out (TM holders, on the other hand, are a captive audience for defensive registrations).

Originally posted by GeorgeK
Right, it's all about "pump and dump", for the most part, as has been discussed before. (1) Hype the TLD (2) Get defensive registrations from TM holders (3) auction off the "good" names (4) after a few years, the inevitable plateau and death spiral (5) keep a skeleton staff and/or sell out the remainder to VeriSign/Afilias, etc. (for which an extra TLD is like an extra SKU, like blue dresses vs. red dresses).

It "works" as long as the initial fees to ICANN are low enough (that's why they're all trying to get lower application fees, reducing competition, pretending to have "community" support to qualify for lower fees, etc.).

I guess the thing is even with .mobi they pumped and still lost a heap of money. It would be interesting to know the total amount lost from the start (I think the group got together in 2004 or so?). It must be $10million or more given they lost $5million (converted from euro) in just the last two years. This was easily the most successful new tld launch and still a disaster financially.

I guess pricing wise the application fees and red tape probably do need to be low. I would think operators of future new tlds probably need to bank on running small operations, eg tlds with likely under 500k registrations and perhaps a couple of million a year revenue. Even those numbers could be far too high if there is going to be dozens of new tlds coming out competing with each other.

I would think with .mobi going forward expect a very lean operation. For those who thought mtld weren't doing much to promote it then whatever they were doing probably needs to be cut back alot to get it profitable.

It is good news for industry holders.