Comments on: Dot Mobi, Dot Flop?

By: AllKindsOfThings

AllKindsOfThings — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:07:09 +0000

Notably, please keep in mind that dotMobi made increadible progress over the last 18 months, including passing one million registered names already a while ago, seeing dotMobi sites win a Webby Audience Award and massively contributing to the creation of a global W3C standard to make high quality Device Descriptions available to EVERY site owener, to allow device adaptation even for the tinyiest site on the planet by sponsoring the DDWG Mobile Web Initiative for the W3C.

What most people did still not acknowledge is, that mobile AS SUCH is different from desktop – like a totally different axis in the ccordinate system. Still – over time they hopefully will, as otherwise the wave of mobile targeted content from the next two billion (the emerging market wave of users and site authors whose first, prime and only internet expereicen is deliverd via phones) will push their legacy content into obsolence.

Users are actually quite happy to have some easy to understand way to know upfront if the expereince they will come with the promise that the author valued their concerns (of not being served badly formatted data that makes the mobile device browser stack crash for a fortune of data fees). Indicating this by using a dotMobi site name to brand a mobile entry point is simple and obvious enough for an end-user.

This also clarifies that the “m-Dot” prefix is not really a good answer for many reasons – mostly for being a kludge and a convention that is less obvious and stringent than using a truely global anchor point that can consolidate all mobile traffic of a brand into the most simple and clean form as “http://brand.mobi”.

It might be actually worthwhile to make the remark that dotMobi is NOT about names only; its about mobilizing the internet one site at a time, and about discussion with developers and marketeers why mobile indeed IS different.

You can join the debate on marketing at http://mobithinking.com/, shooce to discuss mobile site design and site building at http://dev.mobi/, and get your ahnds on a comprehensive content adaptation device database at http://deviceatlas.com/ – the latter being one of the first and most complete freely developer accessible W3C DDWG complicant Device Database.

Give it a try – it’s free but could proove as quite valuable for you.

Best regards, AllKindsOfThings

By: Pierluigi Fabbri

Pierluigi Fabbri — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 01:22:44 +0000

I think that walkink in Internet with a mobile is very expensive so why meet million of sites unreadable with a bad html design ? (think to a long row) With .Mobi instead, You are sure to visit all sites well readable with a mobile and You will not loss time and money so people will navigate more and more with a mobile.

By: Kenny

Kenny — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 09:35:37 +0000

.mobi is a over hyped extention will be a super duper floppy lol

By: joy antony

joy antony — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 13:48:27 +0000

I am a fan of .mobi. I never used internet thru mobile phones before. But I have purchased hundreds of .mobi names because of the supporters behind .mobi. Microsoft or Google will support any tlds for nothing.

I am sure, future of .mobi domains are bright. Flowers.mobi sold at TRAFFIC Conference for US $ 200,000, fun.mobi for $100k, hot.mobi for 40k etc.

By: Bullish on dot Mobi

Bullish on dot Mobi — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 23:16:09 +0000

Study Japan and korea's cell phone market and it will all make sense.

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 19:23:29 +0000

Any big site worth their weight already redirects mobile users to their mobile designed page. IE google, who is a backer of this extension. I don't really think the .mobi will go anywhere for a few years. As PDA's advance I'm sure .mobi will have more of a presence. I work for a company that owns many web sites and collectively we get well over 1 million page views per month. I sorted through all of the traffic this past summer and less than 3 percent were mobile users…that's roughly 30,000 users. Not quite worth our time just yet to develop specific mobile sites. For now, the phones format our pages good enough for visitors read as do many non graphic intesive sites. Plus, the download speeds aren't up to par just yet to handle graphic intensive pages.

By: Parker

Parker — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 19:01:07 +0000

It does take a lot of key pushes to type .mobi on a phone, however this was thought about long before you said it here. Plans are definitely being pushed to make the .mobi extention automatic unless another extention is specified.

There are many "big boys" backing this extention, and I hope that with there clout it will succeed. In theory, having an extention for mobile sites makes a lot of sense, but it is WAY too early to see if this will take.

By: Ajit Jaokar

Ajit Jaokar — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 02:00:39 +0000

Hi Katie. I agree with you on dot mobi and am no fan of .mobi. Having said, that, I have bought http://www.futuretext.mobi for defensive reasons i.e. to avoid the cybersquattors! kind rgds Ajit

By: Hans Blaauw

Hans Blaauw — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 11:09:27 +0000

What is easier to remember? One domain name or two domain names? I know the answer :-)

Simplicity is when the website renders to the device you use.

You probably noticed the domain extension is not cheap. Marketing bla bla.

By: Jim J.

Jim J. — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 17:29:56 +0000

Simplicity: on your cel, on the go, all that the user will have to type is the site's name, ala an AOL Keyword. I think the debate over the usefulness of the domain itself is misplaced.

What gives this functionality the possibility to fly is the collusion (I admit it) on the part of Google, MS, and the phone carriers involved to push this standard.

Yes, for folks who know the web and browse lots of different sites it doesn't make a lot of sense, but we're the vast minority. The majority is going a handful of the same sites, and that's the user experience which mobi will better integrate with their user experience.