.mobi My Take On .MOBI

[dgridley]

Domain speculators are currently rushing to grab up premium .MOBI domain names in record numbers.

Question is: just how useful or popular will these domains be in the future? What percentage of the total population of cell or mobile phone users actually use their phone to access the Internet on a regular basis? My gut feeling is: “not many”.

more: http://cellularphone.at/2006/09/28/mobi-domain-names/

 

[slugraduate]

I use my cell for news all of time. The the advent of mp3 phones, music probably does well also. I understand that in Asian countries cellular surfing is doing very well. Sure, maybe it isn't all the rage in Oshkosh or Cedar Rapids, but I think you will find that as technology improves and the big players enter the game, the teens of today will be the cell surfers of tomorrow.

Hell, were all on the go. Why not surf while on the bus or subway. What about waiting at the airport? Anyone want to lug a laptop around just to check email or thier ebay auction on vacation?

Don't be fooled. Just because your grandparents think that the "internet" is a waste of time, doesn't mean that you or your kids do.

 

[amcdonald]

Currently your estimate of "not many" may be accurate, but are we not entering a new age of mobile computing/web use?

smart phones,umpc,wibro,mobile office,mobile tv, all these things as they evolve i believe will help expand the .mobi market as more devices become avaliable with faster and cheaper surfing.

remeber
its .mobi
not .cellphone

 

[Damion]

When you go to Japan virtually everyone on the subway is watching tv shows or other type of streaming entertainment and this will certainly blow over to Europe and the rest of the world.

I say Internet over the phone is on the rise and phones are getting more and more sophisticated to handle this time of entertainment.

 

[cityforums.com]

Folks, we all know we will have the internet everywhere ... but remember

you DON'T need a .mobi to access it when all the other domains will

do just as well ... take a look at the emulator for google.com and google.mobi

same freakin' thing !

This will go the way of WAP.

Sell your .mobi now !

:imho:

 

[dgridley]

I agree.. it's gonna take a big push for MOBI to catch on vs the other better known ext... Joe Average doesn't yet know about it or care most likely.

(I do agree tech advances will see more use of the Internet by phone.. however, as pointed out, you don't need .mobi domains to access the web. Just another cash raiser is all...

but remember

you DON'T need a .mobi to access it when all the other domains will

do just as well

 

[amcdonald]

with the costs of mobile bandwidth won't a user want to ensure they goto a mobile friendly site vs taking a guess at something and using their bandwidth to get gibberish?

with good advertising users know going to a .mobi will get them mobile friendly content.

 

[dgridley]

That's the key.. good advertising. Every .mobi will require extensive branding ( ) so will it be worth the expense and risk?

 

[amcdonald]

with the backing that .mobi has it's possoble the extension will be branded as the safe surfing for mobile devices.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

.mobi is backed by just about every company in the mobile communicaitons business. I think it will get plenty of promotion. However, I think they will promote the ones they WANT to promote, not necessarily any site.

I see a good market for things you would want to find while mobile, such as restaurant phone numbers or reservations, movie showtimes, weather, news, etc. However, I did some preliminary searching and it seems almost all of those are reserved as "Premium Domains".

At $99 per year, you need to be pretty sure there will be a mobile market for your domain, and that it will get type-in, search, or self promotion. The cell providers will want a piece of the pie to actually list you or make it easy to get to your site.

 

[dgridley]

Some good points.. IMO the promotion will be up to the domain holder.. hopefully the major cell services will support .mobi, but I really don't see them coming off the .com wagon.. they'll simply also provide WAP emulation for their sites.

they will promote the ones they WANT to promote, not necessarily any site.

At $99 per year, you need to be pretty sure there will be a mobile market for your domain.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

... hopefully the major cell services will support .mobi, but I really don't see them coming off the .com wagon.. they'll simply also provide WAP emulation for their sites.

I don't think there's any question that the cell services and those creating mobile phone software and browsers will support and give preference to .mobi. They are the ones who created it. See this statement from the .mobi site:

...the company behind the .mobi domain, is backed by the most prominent mobile and Internet players in the world – the same companies who have delivered the promise of today's information society: Ericsson, GSM Association, Google, Hutchison, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, Telefónica Móviles, TIM (Telecom Italia), T-Mobile and Vodafone.

This is actually an opportunity for them to create a new dotcom for other devices. I have no doubt that .mobi will be the default TLD if none is entered, or that it will be at the top of any drop down list of TLD's to append.

They have save some of the most valuable domains probably either for themselves or to auction as "premium names". Just about anything you can think about wanting to look up on a mobile device like hotels.mobi, restaurants.mobi, contacts.mobi, calendar.mobi, are all reserved for either their preferred providers or possibly to be contracted out to service providers. Weather.mobi appears as a "Premium name", but has The Weather Channel in the whois as well. I would almost bet that they either have agreed to pay a huge amount for that domain to buy or lease it, or are paying a portion of revenues to the .mobi company. I'd be curious to see how the "Premium Name" thing actually works.

I think some can be successful at .mobi, if it becomes the WAP default TLD as .com has for PC's. On the other hand I see an awful lot of domains registered that I think just won't work on .mobi, either becuase the content doesn't quite fit the mobile user, or the development would be difficult. I think buying domains for parking on .mobi is very speculative. Mobile users are going to be in a hurry for information, and probably not clicking links a random surfer might. Remember, any PPC links that don't render in the .mobi browser window are useless. Some PPC services may not count mobile clicks to protect advertisers from paying for clicks the clicker cannot really see. This would be much like PPC providers not counting clicks from countries in different languages or out of the normal sales territory of the advertisers. Actually, I think this has snuck up on most parking providers on not having something ready for this to make sure .mobi and all links clicked on them are compliant with the size/bandwidth limitations.

I'm not as negative on .mobi as I once was, but I would still be very carful at picking picking domains that work at an initial cost of $60+ for a 2 year reg.