.Mobi Will Temporarily Slow Mobile Internet

So thinks off-deck vendor Bango‘s VP Anil Malhotra has expressed concerns the introduction of the .Mobi top-level domain name “might temporarily slow down the development of the mobile internet”. He claims the constraints on the mobile internet are “much more to do with network provider and device level restrictions on getting out to the internet on the first place”. He cites five reasons to back up his argument:
–The domain is unnecessary. There is well defined and simple technology for identifying what kind of device is being used to browse a web site. Good sites already detect the user’s device and direct to the appropriately formatted site.
–It requires brands to market two domains. Will a billboard advert now have to say “go to brand.com on your PC, or brand.mobi on your phone”?
–It creates additional costs and management overheads for content providers. We now have to get our .mobi domains to prevent cyber-squatting, even if we have no intention of using them. With IPTV, will we need a special domain to tell users the site will work properly on their TV screen?
–You have to spend time and effort telling users what a “dot mobi” is all about. Since with just a bit of effort your mobile site can be easily accessed from a mobile device as a dot com, why bother?
–A consumer who is familiar with going to united.com to get the carrier’s PC web site should be able to type this into their phone and get the mobile site for United Airlines. What do they do, type this, or dot mobi?
(as an aside, and purely from a journalistic experience, I often try to access overseas mobile websites from my computer to get an idea of what they’re like — if they do device recognition it won’t even let me look at the site from my PC. Still, I can’t imagine that having a big effect on business…)
[Disclaimer: Bango is a sponsor of MocoNews]

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