Mobile Corporation just completed the purchase of Mobile.co for $239,000. Our readers may recall that there was an interesting story behind this transaction. The start up based out of Cambridge,Massachusetts has raised $5 million in funding.
Jeffrey Peterson the CEO of Mobile Corporation was kind enough to get on the phone and give me an interview about the company and their strategy.
Interview
1)Please tell us a little about your domain portfolio
Jeffrey Peterson: Working together with our partner corporation for intellectual property, we have acquired over 30 mobile related names over the last six months.
2) Some of those names include Mobile.com.co purchased for $15,000 and Mobile.Asia for $10,000. You have also registerd Mobile in other languages as well correct ?
Jeffrey Peterson: Yes, we have acquired names such as movil.pro and movil.co
3) I see you own some new gtlds, what is your take on the new gtlds ?
Jeffrey Peterson: We own some names like Mobile.Agency, Mobile.Reviews and Mobile.University. We also like some of the regional type names and acquired Mobile in the new Chinese and Japanese character strings.
We are a big believer in new online branding strategies, but it will take time to evolve, I believe some new gtlds will be a big success but of course it will take some time for that to come to fruition.
4) What is the strategy behind Mobile Corporation ?
Jeffrey Peterson: Business in general is becoming more mobile, so our strategy has been focused on mobile. We have been acquiring brands that we feel further our business focus, primarily in th U.S. and in Latin America and Asia.
We provide job listings, and are looking to build a community around those looking for economic productivity through mobile devices. We also have acquired a domain registrar and will looking to make that a cornerstone of our community.
As your readers know many people make money online buying and selling domains, we are going to look to bring some new concepts to the table that we have not seen provided elsewhere.
5)What are your thoughts on the .mobile extension coming out, was there any consideration of starting your own registry ? How do you feel this extension will fare and how do you see it impacting the branding you are doing ?
Jeffrey Peterson: We continue to be enthusiastic about the new domain extensions. Change has always been and will always be a part of working with technology and instead of resisting new gtlds and extensions, my entrepreneurial view has always been to embrace change because it’s going to happen whether we want it or not. It will be interesting to see how the free market values these new domains and ultimately only time will tell.
We are pleased to have the opportunity to bring our products to market in this exciting new environment where new, highly relevant and focused gtlds are available for online marketing and branding.
As for the new .mobile extension, we are enthusiastic to see how entrepreneurs will utilize this gtld to correctly segment out URLs focused on the delivery of mobile content, apps, and mobile centric concepts in general. It is our belief at Mobile Corp. that the entire business ecosystem is getting more Mobile all the time, and therefore the term “Mobile,” and the .mobile extension, ought to be applicable to more than just Mobile technology and communications.
For example, we have a travel oriented brand, Mobile.travel, that we plan to bring to market soon. The concepts of travel, and Mobile, fit together perfectly.
6) Mobile.net sold for $500,000 this year what did you think of that price and what are your thoughts on paying half the price of the .net for the .co ?
Jeffrey Peterson: As you know so well, each domain acquisition is a separate business transaction often involving very complex circumstances and therefore it can be difficult to arrive at precise valuations based on historical comparisons.
The Mobile.co acquisition was a lengthy transaction that took almost half a year to complete in connection with our intellectual property partners and investors, was subject to complex litigation in multiple jurisdictions and ultimately was completed through a negotiated settlement between attorneys and law firms. In my view—and I believe most who have been in the domain industry for as long as we have would agree that this shift has occurred—the .co domain is a superior holding in terms of current visibility and future resale value than a .net equivalent.
That being said, Mobile Corporation is delighted with the outcome and we believe the Mobile.co brand is the perfect addition to our domain portfolio as we roll out our new communities and execute on our exciting new business plans.
Rich says
“In my view—and I believe most who have been in the domain industry for as long as we have would agree that this shift has occurred—the .co domain is a superior holding in terms of current visibility and future resale value than a .net equivalent.”
Michael@Can you share your personal thoughts on the above statement ???
Paul Green says
Sorry but you did not ask any interesting question that guy from Mobile.
That info I could find on their website.
Next time ask Michael Cyger how to do it right way.
You should ask e.g. about their UDRP or how the seller change mind about the domain price etc
Raymond Hackney says
Jeffrey touched upon that,the litigation and settlement was not going to allow for all of that information to be disclosed. This was not an exposé but just to get to know a little more about the company. When they have things developed we will come back to them for some deeper insight.
Michael Berkens says
Rich
Well I have seen over the last couple of years startups going with .co, .me. io .com’s
Not really seeing any new out of the box VC backed companies using .net’s do you?
Rich says
Michael@ No i didn’t.
So are you and Jeffrey are saying that .co’s could be worth more then .net?
Michael Berkens says
Well that is a very broad question, highly dependent on the domain.
As a domainer I’m not spending $240K on either a .co or a .net.
For an end user, I think the .co extension is cooler and trendy than a .net but it really doesn’t matter what i think, its what the end users think.
Raymond Hackney says
I think that most domainers will put .net over .co but .co has done a good job marketing itself in the start up community as to be more popular to build out a business on.
Rich says
Yes maybe it was a silly question but for me it does matter what you think.
Apparently you think how endusers think measuring your success.
Thanks
Michael Berkens says
and I think you will always have more risk of a UDRP with a .CO, than with a .net.
+++ Amazing Domains +++ says
PERFECT domain for this company