In Support of dotMobi's proposal for the Allocation of SC SLD's via RFP

["Andres Kello" <andres@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As a board member of the dotMobi Policy Advisory Board (PAB), Steering
Committee member of the dotMobi Advisory Group (MAG), and owner of the
largest community of .mobi domain owners in the world - Mobility.mobi - I
would like to express my strong support for dotMobi's proposed allocation of
Single Character Second Level .mobi's via an RFP (Request for Proposal)
framework.

Having won a Premium .mobi domain via the RFP process myself, I can speak
from experience as to the advantages of this framework.  The RFP process
allows the Registry to filter potential candidates for a domain, ensuring
that the best qualified candidate with a proven development plan, time line,
and track record that best benefits the ecosystem, is granted the domain.
For example, after a successful application for the Why.mobi Premium Domain,
the Mobility.mobi community and I launched a not-for-profit .mobi awareness
Campaign "for the people, by the people" that is currently expanding
internationally into over 10 languages.  An auction of this Premium Domain
would have made it prohibitively expensive for us to acquire it, and would
have forced us to forgo the Awareness Campaign altogether.  This Campaign
would simply not have been possible without the RFP process and I believe
that this Campaign - launched less than a month ago and already linked to
from over 100 websites - is a perfect example of the benefits to the .mobi
ecosystem of the RFP allocation framework.

Single Character Second Level domains are particularly useful and valuable
in the .mobi extension because of their short nature - there simply is no
shorter alternative - making them considerably easier to type in on a mobile
device.  So it would make sense for these highly-coveted domains to be
granted to the person or company with the absolute best development plan for
it - as determined by mTLD - in order to maximize their potential, rather
than to the company or individual with the biggest wallet - as determined by
a highest bid - who might not have the best intentions for the extension or
is purely speculating on the future value of the domain, particularly since
good content is critical for a young extension such as .mobi.  The only way
to ensure that for the SC SLD's is via the RFP framework.

Sincerely,

Andres Kello
Mobility.mobi, Owner
Steering Committee Member, dotMobi Advisory Group (MAG)
Board Member, dotMobi Policy Advisory Board (PAB)