[Domain Jedi]

Dotmobi Plans Certification and Unveils Directory

MTLD Ltd, the company that operates the .mobi top-level domain, will next month unveil a certification program for all mobile sites that will be free to join and not restricted to buyers of .mobi sites.

"It will serve as a trust mark and further enable the development of the mobile internet community," said Alexa Raad, MTLD's VP of marketing and business development. The Dublin, Ireland-based company, which is better known as Dotmobi, this week announced plans for a directory of mobile sites with information about their content, again not restricted to .mobi sites.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/dot-mobi/294915-dotmobi-plans-certification-unveils-directory-thread.html

"There is scant information about mobile content," said Raad. "Though some of the big search engines are rumored to have carried out research of their own, they haven't shared it." She said that although .mobi sites number only 380 to date, there are currently some 200,000 mobile sites, which she said compares with around 90 million domain names on fixed lines. That disparity also explains why there is an ample supply of reports on quality, usability, and ease of access for the fixed-line internet, with companies like Keynote and Gomez specializing in this area.

The idea is to publish information specifically on mobile sites. "We estimate that around 35% to 38% of sites have good, multilayered content rather than just operating as parking sites," said Raad.

She said Dotmobi has yet to decide whether or not to charge companies to have their site listed in the directory, or publish it for free with a view to fomenting overall growth of the market. She said the company currently uses the money from .mobi registration fees "to pour back into the development of the community."

These initiatives join others from Dotmobi designed to stimulate the development of the mobile internet. There is a site called ready.mobi where a non-mobile site can be gauged on a scale of 1 to 5 for its "mobile-readiness" which takes into account how long downloads take and how much they cost.

site.mobi offers free site creation with templates and uploads, and a developer forum called dev.mobi, with information about creating more complex sites to run across different OSes, handsets and browsers, plus open source tools.

Source: Datamonitor

[mjnels]

great idea... and not restricted to .mobi sites...nice, that is what's needed.

it is this sort of thinking that helps the entire mobile world... if they were only doing something for the sole benifit of .mobi it would be pretty transparent and im sure some people and companies would be reluctant to hop on board "the mobi cult"
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=294915

But this way, the dotmobi registry is (and hopefully will continue to) blurring the line between .mobi and the mobile internet, i believe a lot of people still expect .mobi to try to "convert everyone" to a .mobi address... like they are going to take on the attitude that YOU NEED A .MOBI ADDRESS TO BE ON THE MOBILE NET.

On one side of the fence the extremists saying you NEED mobi or you DONT need mobi... and on the other side I say "we dont need mobi but it is there to use" and i hope to see a bit more of this sensible attitude in the coming years...

[scandiman]

I look forward to seeing the full details when it comes out.