Lunch with Trey Harvin CEO dotMobi

I had a lovely lunch yesterday with Trey Harvin the CEO of dotMobi.  Trey is a charming, tall, interesting guy and in all honesty nothing like I had imagined!

Trey wanted to address issues of dotMobi following some comments I made on GoMo News about its Mobilizer initiative. I was desperate to get to know Trey as I wanted to know what the company was up to and how a top level domain company was run more like a business with venture arms.

So we ended up having a lovely conversation.  First we spoke about sports, colleges, children, Ireland and then we got down to business.
I have had my personal ups and downs with dotMobi loving some services and initiatives and hating others. Now hate is quite a strong word and so the first thing we spoke about was Mobilizer.

Mobilizer

I took time to listen to the issues of Mobilizer and in all fairness – I might have gotten the wrong end of the stick when I wrote the initial article. 

Trey said that Mobilizer was simply an enabler for business. The aim was not to take business away from site creation companies that created quality sites for business. But to simply enable the masses in the most affordable way.
I thought that Mobilizer was more than a converter tool for online sites to mobile but a richer mobile site creation tool.  Originally, I was against this but it seems that I was slightly out. I had to explain that it’s the start-ups and CEO’s and small site creation companies that have been on GoMo News radar for the past two years and you build relationships.  I am for any company creating new initiatives to mobilise the mobile web but only if it helps everyone.
So basically – Mobilizer is an enabler to go mobile rather than a competitor to Zinadoo or Mobi Site Galore or Winksite.

Strange feelings for dotMobi
This actually made me have a few fast thoughts in my head that I didn’t actually mention to Trey. But, for some strange reason because dotMobi is a top level domain I have felt it should be responsible or act more like an industry body than a business. I have always felt that way - and I don’t think that I am alone.

Mobile is vital for the Internet and the eco-system and my harsher criticism must be based on this feeling that dotmobi if it wants to be more than a domain must have the whole industry and promote services and other companies that support the same dream.
This is strange when I reflect as I don’t expect the same from .com or .net? Anyway, I digress.

I did mention the dotMobi Advisory Group and I was shocked when I realised that it was dotMobi endorsed but not managed. It is independent. I don’t think that this has been communicated very well.

All in all we had a delightful and much needed chat. I got an insight to some new developments which will come out during CTIA and Trey encouraged me to pick up the phone and call him with questions about future releases.

….picture to follow!