- Impact
- 0
.MOBI will become the next .COM
(if certain conditions occur
)
Here are some of my observations and thoughts which led me to this conclusion:
Technical Aspects
- The technical requirements for .MOBI hosted sites (see here), do not in any way prevent non-mobile device browsers from accessing them. It only requires that if the site detects a limited capability browser (as expected on a mobile device), it must present the content in a strict subset of the HTML markup (XHTML-MP), and other minor things like not use frames. If the site detects a more capable browser (like Internet Explorer on the PC), the site can return markup which utilizes the full capabilities of it.
- There are no restrictions on the content of .MOBI sites, as long as you meet the technical requirements. This means that even if a particular type of content may not be useful to mobile device users (e.g. home loans?), it can be useful in general and be accessible from PCs through the .MOBI domain name.
- All of the technical requirements are not difficult to meet. In fact I expect all decent web development tools to eventually make this part dead easy and automatic.
- The technical requirements are actually good for site owners, as it helps ensure that their content has the largest reach possible, on both mobile devices and PCs.
Branding Aspects (mostly IMO, I could just be blowin' smoke)
- Although .COM is still by far the best known TLD, it has some inherent weaknesses when it comes to branding. In many people's minds, the term ".COM" is commonly associated the Internet hype and crash of the late 90's early 00's. In fact, if .MOBI becomes successful, then .COM names may end up looking antiquated from a branding perspective.
- The TLD extension is part of the brand, so even a generic word like "cars" or "homes" can become quite valuable combined with the TLD (with proper marketing of course)... guess what, the generic .COM's are gone, but .MOBI is still open.
- The success of .MOBI will happen only if people develop and market sites with the .MOBI name, getting it burned into the mind of the public. I think the success of .COM was largely due to the marketing provided by .COM based names by the early successful players (yahoo, amazon, etc).
- I agree in theory with another NP'er's concern that the failure of .MOBI's can be brought about if the growing number of domain name investors snatch up all the good names, keeping them away from those who may have otherwise created real value out of them. But its hard to put a finger on what the actual impact of the "domainer effect" will be, and whether it will be significant. Also, remember that as domain investors holding on to these potentially valuable names, there's nothing stopping any one of us from developing the next hugely successful .MOBI which provides value to the world (while increasing the value of .MOBI for investors). With that in mind, I hope that everyone here is always keeping an eye out for that gem of a name to develop into the next killer app
(if certain conditions occur
)Here are some of my observations and thoughts which led me to this conclusion:
Technical Aspects
- The technical requirements for .MOBI hosted sites (see here), do not in any way prevent non-mobile device browsers from accessing them. It only requires that if the site detects a limited capability browser (as expected on a mobile device), it must present the content in a strict subset of the HTML markup (XHTML-MP), and other minor things like not use frames. If the site detects a more capable browser (like Internet Explorer on the PC), the site can return markup which utilizes the full capabilities of it.
- There are no restrictions on the content of .MOBI sites, as long as you meet the technical requirements. This means that even if a particular type of content may not be useful to mobile device users (e.g. home loans?), it can be useful in general and be accessible from PCs through the .MOBI domain name.
- All of the technical requirements are not difficult to meet. In fact I expect all decent web development tools to eventually make this part dead easy and automatic.
- The technical requirements are actually good for site owners, as it helps ensure that their content has the largest reach possible, on both mobile devices and PCs.
Branding Aspects (mostly IMO, I could just be blowin' smoke)
- Although .COM is still by far the best known TLD, it has some inherent weaknesses when it comes to branding. In many people's minds, the term ".COM" is commonly associated the Internet hype and crash of the late 90's early 00's. In fact, if .MOBI becomes successful, then .COM names may end up looking antiquated from a branding perspective.
- The TLD extension is part of the brand, so even a generic word like "cars" or "homes" can become quite valuable combined with the TLD (with proper marketing of course)... guess what, the generic .COM's are gone, but .MOBI is still open.
- The success of .MOBI will happen only if people develop and market sites with the .MOBI name, getting it burned into the mind of the public. I think the success of .COM was largely due to the marketing provided by .COM based names by the early successful players (yahoo, amazon, etc).
- I agree in theory with another NP'er's concern that the failure of .MOBI's can be brought about if the growing number of domain name investors snatch up all the good names, keeping them away from those who may have otherwise created real value out of them. But its hard to put a finger on what the actual impact of the "domainer effect" will be, and whether it will be significant. Also, remember that as domain investors holding on to these potentially valuable names, there's nothing stopping any one of us from developing the next hugely successful .MOBI which provides value to the world (while increasing the value of .MOBI for investors). With that in mind, I hope that everyone here is always keeping an eye out for that gem of a name to develop into the next killer app
