.mobi Sir Tim Berners-Lee contradicts himself on Dotmobi

[quasar1138]

For those who may not know, Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, somewhat recently knighted in 2003 "Knight Commander, Order of the British Empire" by Queen Elizabeth, is credited along with Robert Cailliau for creating the World Wide Web as we know it today.

Tim Berners has made some disparaging comments about many of the new top level domains and has especially sounded off about DotMobi. I guess I somewhat then baffled at the contradictions in his comments regarding information and the ease of access for individuals.

Berners is famously quoted as saying, "Web users ultimately want to get at data quickly and easily. They don't care as much about attractive sites and pretty design."
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/tim_bernerslee.html

It is interesting though in 2004 when DotMobi was being considered that he criticized the need for the domain.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1595560,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594.

Again, he continues to be critical of DotMobi and was recently quoted on Oct 9th, 2007.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/127826/dotmobi-cashes-in-on-domain-name-auction.html

So my quandary is what does Sir Tim Berners-Lee have against DotMobi? If the ultimate solution is for people with mobile devices to have access to data quickly and easily, which is what DotMobi is all about, then why does he feel the need to continue slamming the TLD? Hey, I see a contradiction in his words....do you?

Just my opinion people.

Later.

 

[Pred]

Yeah, sure know about him.
He's a Brit , invented the net etc

But tbh, i dont care what he thinks. LOL
Seriously, it matters not.

 

[Kate]

I don't see a contradiction really. He advocates device-independence which IMHO is the way to go (and keep).
.mobi is not a magic wand that will make your site accessible to mobiles, you have to develop with specific guidelines. I would rather go for a CSS-based liquid layout using .com or a ccTLD.
OK, if you really want to spit out less content to a mobile it's no big deal:

if (mobile_browser) {
  display_short_content();
} else {
  display_full_content();
}

:]

 

[Jeff]

As of the time of this post, and specific to the .MOBI extension, I concur with the following: :gl:

Nonetheless, it is still a lot of money. Tim Berners-Lee, the web's inventor, has criticised the proliferation of domain names, arguing they serve no purpose other than the enrichment of registrar companies. The fact that Insurance.com paid more than $40,000 for insurance.mobi suggests he may have a point.

My feelings, although not likely, may be different in SIX MONTHS ("development requirements" and mTLD enforcement and major promotions, etc.) time! :imho:
Stay tuned!
-Jeff

 

[Mobi Cheap]

As of the time of this post, and specific to the .MOBI extension, I concur with the following: :gl:
...

My feelings, although not likely, may be different in SIX MONTHS ("development requirements" and mTLD enforcement and major promotions, etc.) time! :imho:
Stay tuned!
-Jeff

That's good enough for me.

Should Sir Tim decide to come and post here, I'm sure we can have a good debate.

Even if he does ego-surf daily it seems unlikely he'll find us among the tons of daily references to his name, but now at least we are in with a chance.

Until/unless that happens, I would humbly suggest we park it for now.
:imho: