nedlog said:
With that in mind, I think it would be very limited in it's usefulness. I have an internet mobile phone, but rarely use it for browsing. It is just to slow. I also could not imagine trying to view data rich pages like something Ebay would have on a 4 square inch screen. It seems that usefulness would be very limited. This would seem to limit value of these names even with otherwise good keywords.
Remember that cell phones aren't the only mobile devices -- there are also Blackberries and T-Mobile-type devices that are infintiely better at displaying web sites. Still no substitute for the Internet, but. These types of phone+web interactions will increase, not decrease, so I don't think on its face it's a bad idea. More companies are designing lower-bandwidth/adjusted page margin type web sites specifically for use with a mobile device (example: m.google.com).
However, my personal opinion is that .mobi's usefulness will be limited more by consumer usage patterns than anything else, at least in terms of the way these devices are used at present. I personally have a Blackberry and while its Web browser works, it can be slow. I don't really use it to go to Google and search for a website, I just type something in directly. If I know I'm going to need a map, I type in google maps. If I know I want to see the IKEA store's hours for my local, I type in IKEA.com.
Similarly, I think most people, if they even knew about the .mobi extension, would mostly use it for large companies with deep enough pockets to expect them to have their own TLD -- and therefore their own .mobi.
Without the utilization of search functions, that renders the sort of domains most domainers would be able to buy (i.e. non-TM'ed stuff) fairly useless.
Maybe this is a jaundiced view, but as I have thought about the usefulness of .mobi, I've tried to come at it from my own perspective as a consumer -- how would *I* use it? -- and have come up pretty blank.
ripley.
