The story of .mobi and .mobi domainers book FAQ

jm_small_55.jpgThank you for your kind emails and for visiting this page. Here I address some of the questions you have privately asked me. I hope this helps you to decide to be part of the project of the .mobi domainers book.

Can I trust you?
This is up to you. Notice that I said that all the questions I ask are optional. However, if you only give me part of the information, you make it more difficult for me to paint a consistent picture of you to readers.
If you google my name (Javier Marti) you’ll see that I am everywhere, particularly associated to Trendirama and my blog, which is around 4 years old. I am also Trendirama.tv. Basically, I am not going out of the internet anytime soon and have no interest or need to be dishonest with anyone. I am to busy. Not worth my time. If you are in the UK you can also meet me personally. I live in Bristol.
I have domains myself and understand your concerns, but sometimes our concerns make us lose opportunities. In the end of the day, there are only two options about .mobi as we see it today…either the extension makes it big, and in that case you have nothing to worry about since many of you may become very wealthy over time, or the extesion becomes totally irrelevant. Either case, as long as all those domains are registered under your name, you don’t have as much to lose as you think. If you got a few hundred names, you’ve already made your bet. You can hide it if you want, but hey, nobody expects you to be right about .mobi. We are all in the same boat.

How will you handle confidential information?
I shall keep any information you CLEARLY ask me to keep confidential, away from public eyes, until the date you tell me I can release this information.
If you are not comfortable releasing a piece of data, just don’t do it, and we’ll all sleep well tonight. It is not my intention to steal anyone’s information. I am not into that business I am afraid. I am in the business of learning, and sharing what I learn. That’s it.
If you trust me, you trust me. If you don’t, you don’t. It is up to you.
But I understand perfectly the value and concerns you guys may have about this and you can rest assured that as long as you CLEARLY tell me what is confidential…that won’t be included in the book until you say so.
There is a risk though, that you release information too late, the book is almost finished and your info changes things dramatically. In that case you will complicate my life enourmously and I wish you wouldn’t do it. But there is nothing I can do about it.

When will you release the book?
I don’t know even if I’ll release it guys. This depends very much of your participation. So far, I received a few positive emails and replies to the thread, but need a lot more.
You see, in order to write a good book, I need enough background information about you and the whole .mobi scene. I can get information about .mobi’s history, but I can’t get to know you guys if you don’t tell me about you. The human side of the story would be missing.
Then, the more I know, it is “just” a matter of spreading all that information in a big “table” and carefully put all the pieces together to build something that makes sense, flows naturally, and is interesting and informative. (not easy to do, I can assure you)
My original idea is to start making these interviews now, so you can send me your notes and replies, and perhaps release the book a few months after we all have confirmation that .mobi has either a) made it, or b) not made it. I think only then the book will make sense. I am sure you know what I mean…the book should show a contrast, an outcome…in order to be interesting. Something like “these people believed, and this is what happened”. The .mobi story may be ongoing for many years to come, but I need some big events to make the book interesting. And I don’t know when these will happen.
The events will in turn dictate the release date of the book. Suppose that there is a .mobi default from Google in 6 months and we see a huge marketing campaign from the mltd at the same time. People start to talk about .mobi a lot and 6 months later registrations have increased at a rate of XX%. That woul be a good moment to release the book.
Get my drift? But in order to do that, I need you guys to send me info as soon as possible.
(Update 8/07 - Third question: how long will it take?
As I said in the FAQs or the other thread about the book, the book may take anything between 8 months to a year to be released, depending on the events and how busy I am (I am not paid for this and the book may well be free)
However, sudden events that confirm the fate of .mobi in one way or another could well accelerate the release of the book
I am trying to make a good job and I won’t release it until I am satisfied with it. There is a lot of mediocre writing already on the internet, and a lot of misinformation regarding domain names. I don’t want to be part of that.
Suffice to say that I wouldn’t like it to take more than 8 months from now, but it is not a promise.
Regarding how the project is going, I can tell you that I just finished the table of contents (not as simple a task as it seems if you want to make a good book on this subject) and have started a draft to document all the information that I am receiving from different sources and scraps that I have seen in many websites, for later polishing of the text. Let’s say that 20% is done up to now.)


How do you plan on handling royalty distribution among the participants?
It is too early to think about this. First we bake the cake, then we cut the pieces. If there is no book, there is nothing to share. If you guys don’t send me the info, there is nothing to write about. If you do, there are many things we can do. We can do some kind of wiki to document the advance of .mobi even after the book. We can make a second updated edition of the book. We can make the book for free just to spread the word about .mobi. Some of you can co-write a second version with me…who knows?
Nobody knows today. too early to tell. Let’s start by writing the book, and then I think things naturally will develop from there, since I would like to have your opinion guys during the whole writing process.

Will the participants have any editorial controls and or capabilities regarding their own information and contributions to the book?
Not at this point. I am the writer and editor. For confidentiality reasons, it all starts and finishes in my head.
For the moment, many people tell me about themselves, I get a good picture of .mobi domainers, and write about them. Participants will only have the control of what’s printed and what is not, by telling me exactly not to published a certain bit of information. We all assume that you are comfortable with making public all and any other information you send me.

Can I send you new pieces of information as I get to them?
Yes. In order to make a good book, it is important that I know very well what’s going on in the .mobi scene. I am not sure how this will happen, but I am sure you guys will help me with this sending me tips and things I should pay attention to. I’ll do my best but can’t cover absolutely every angle!

When do you want the answers to your questions?
The sooner you reply, the more chances to be featured in the book.

How many domains do I have to have to be featured in the book?
I’d say minimum 200 .mobi domains. That shows that you start to be serious about it and believe in the extension. Also, I may give priority to people who send me their info now, since what’s the point of learning that someone has 10000 domains when I am about to finish the book? They should have talked before.

I know such and such domainer that should be featured in the book, what should I do about it?
I am not going to be chasing people around…I have no time for people playing hard to get. So if they want to be featured, please refer them to the threads in the forum (or copy and paste the original thread message to them) or ask them to contact me. Thank you!


Do you realize Javier, that there are people that will speak badly about your book and yourself?
Yes. It is human nature. People hate losers and hate winners the same. If you have visibility, people will attack you. I count on it and don’t care about it. All my life has been so.
But I don’t have time for negative people, sorry! Those of you who choose to participate…welcome to the club!

Are you doing this to get rich?
No. Intellectual works are a rich subject that I wrote about in the past…
As you may know, the editorial and record industry and distribution systems are changing very rapidly right now, and nobody knows what’s next. I have the impression that anything that can be digitalized, will be pirated, so I may well choose to release the book for FREE. We’ll see about that at the time of release.
I do this mainly because I like to learn (as you can see in my Trendirama.com project), because it’s an interesting challenge for me as a writer, and because I think it will be a really interesting story to tell, and nobody is paying attention to it.

Why exactly are you doing the .mobi book?

Well, there are many reasons:
1) promote .mobi?
2) help to take away the “stigma” associated with domaining in general (domaining = cybersquatting)
3) show the human side of domaining
4) help people tell their little stories (we all have them)
5) create debate around the extension and its future, in which we all learn, respectfully hearing each other’s opinion
6) express my opinion, or rather, my analysis of the situation. I believe some people will find it interesting
7) help increase sales and prices of our domains by showing this world to people, who will in turn become domainers
8) helping to promote .mobi forums (I am a little biased on this one as you may have noticed, as long as people treat me well)


Why do you write this book now?
Because now is the moment. You see, now is when things are happening, now is the time to gather the information. My thinking is that there will be in the next 8 months some events that will either confirm or dethrone completely .mobi, and I would like to tell that story. What would be the point of making a book when everything happened already? I am not into historical books. I study the future, and .mobi seems to be quite part of that future. So I am betting my time and tallent on a project associated with it.

I hope this answers yours and everyone’s questions for the moment. THank you for your interest!


Ok. I read this FAQs but haven’t read the questions…what should I do to participate?
Send me an email to info@trendirama.com telling me a little bit about yourself and I’ll send you the questions.

July 3, 2007 · Filed Under Domains

Comments

2 Responses to “The story of .mobi and .mobi domainers book FAQ”

  1. **Would you like to be featured in a book about .mobi domainers?** - Mobility.mobi on July 3rd, 2007 8:16 am

    […] made a list of FAQs respoding to all the questions that you asked me privately, you can see it here http://trendinews.com/?p=64 There are comments there about privacy and confidentiality, the project itself, my motivations, […]

  2. NamePros.Com - Would you like to be featured in a book about .mobi domainers? on July 3rd, 2007 11:40 am

    […] made a list of FAQs respoding to all the questions that you asked me privately, you can see it here http://trendinews.com/?p=64 There are comments there about privacy and confidentiality, the project itself, my motivations, […]

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