In excess of 200,000 dot.mobi mobile domain names have been registered by the Dublin-headquartered Dot.Mobi registry, it has emerged, including the auction of two mobile domains — flowers.mobi and fun.mobi — for US$200k and US$100 respectively.
Since its public launch in September, the Dublin-based Dot.Mobi registery has registered some 218,000 domains by customers in 104 countries.
As well as the standard mobile domain sales, the registry auctioned the first set of dot.mobi premium domain names, netting US$300k (€235k) in the process.
The first set of nine dot.mobi premium domain names were auctioned via Moniker dot.com during the TRAFFIC East domain conference last week in Miami.
Selling for US$200k and US$100k respectively the domains flowers.mobi and fun.mobi are among the top 20 domain sales for 2006 and unprecedented for a newly introduced top level domain (TLD).
“I bought flowers.mobi because I believe in the near future people will use their mobile phone — more than a computer — to buy flowers quickly and efficiently wherever they might be,” said self-titled domain name king Rick Schwartz, the new owner of flowers.mobi. “My company looks forward to launching the world’s first mobile site for flowers and becoming a dominant force in this new space.”
Dot.Mobi’s open standards for mobile content are gaining momentum among existing registrations with sites being added on a daily basis.
“It is obvious that Dot.Mobi strikes a chord with content providers large and small who want to build a direct to consumer mobile channel,” said Neil Edwards, CEO of Dot.Mobi. “Dot.Mobi provides the first open solution for internet-based content on a mobile phone that the average person can afford and access. We are excited to see such a positive and strong market response to Dot.Mobi this early in our business.”
The Dot.Mobi Premium Names list is a compilation of commonly used words and phrases which Dot.Mobi has set aside for equitable allocation as an alternate to the traditional “first come, first serve” procedure.
These names will be distributed in batches through until 2008 using both auction and Request for Tender (RFT) processes. The first set of dot.mobi domain names to be offered through the RFT process are news.mobi, ringtones.mobi, sports.mobi and weather.mobi.
In October last year siliconrepublic.com reported on how a major consortium of technology industry giants — including Microsoft, Nokia, Vodafone, 3, the GSM Association, Hewlett-Packard, Orange, Samsung and Sun Microsystems — decided to locate its headquarters for the management of the world’s first mobile domain name in Dublin. The operation employs at least 15 people.
By John Kennedy
