Domainer's Gazette-Home

10 Comments

1. July 27, 2008 @ 12:28 pm

   
   

   Nice Post,

   I feel the same way about .mobi.

   There have been a lot of reports with a bleak outlook on the extension.

   I think with all new extensions coming to life, we are going to some rise and some fall…

   Look at the stats of .info deletes. Recently more have been falling off that are being registered. That’s a bad sign.

   Posted by Thailand SEO
2. July 27, 2008 @ 12:32 pm

   
   

   Good analysis. It’s always helpful to see data outlined.

   I believe, that we’re still pretty early in the mobile game. .mobi is a targeted marketing tool and growing brand for end users. Until companies really learn how to tap into the mobile medium we’re still going to see a lot of rural, undeveloped property. As the technology gets better and the devices become ubiquitous, those who have effectively thought through their mobileweb development ploys and formed strategic alliances and partnerships with the right content distribution partners will be the YouTubes and MySpaces of the Mobile Web. IMO, domain names with the .mobi TLD is a patience play and a call to action investment that is (as of now) reliant upon creative development and proliferation of those developments into highly populated metro zones.

   Patience is certainly a virtue for the lone grasshopper in this field, but those who pull themselves off of the blade and swing hard through the jungle will be the pioneers of this young, developing medium.

   Great post, and I really enjoy your writing.

   .mobi = buy/hold/allign/dev

   Posted by Jamie Parks
3. July 28, 2008 @ 3:44 pm

   
   

   [SPECULATION]I think the reason why most of them redirect to the .com is so that when users visit the .mobi they know that it is LEGIT and not some kind of scam site. Once users are more familiar with the .mobi extension (and they know they can trust the site) then I can see more websites switching from whatever.mobile.info.m.cellular.WEBSITE.com/.org/.co.uk to just WEBSITE.mobi. I predict a couple of years.[/SPECULATION]What is very encouraging is that some of these big corps are promoting .mobi, e.g. BofA.mobi, ESPN.mobi, SwiftCover.mobi, Zagat.mobi, etc. Also some developed .mobi sites are receiving a LOT of traffic but only those who have developed decent sites will know what I’m talking about;)

   Posted by Early Days
4. July 28, 2008 @ 4:32 pm

   
   

   A question about how you checked this sampling of sites: Did you go through a standard web browser or did you use a mobile emulator (or equivalent web plug-in)? Many .mobi sites are designed to redirect to its equivalent PC-based site when accessed on a PC through a standard web browser.

   Also in regards to redirects: the .mobi domain is designed to indicate that a site will work on a mobile phone. A redirect to a .com (or .org, etc.) site is a legitimate — and encouraged — use of the .mobi domain when a site owner has the resources to deliver “device aware” content.

   Another questions: how many of those sites are owned by domainers rather than by the brand in question (and did you investigate other address formulations than a direct one-to-one comparison)? I’ve seen several brands opt for a different mobile URL when their primarily URL string was taken by domain investors. I’ve also seen many brands use the .mobi URL for mobile-specific campaigns rather than their corporate URL. (I know that’ s not true of Craig’s List, the Washington Post and Facebook, but helping them define their mobile strategies and encouraging them to use their .mobi is just one of many activities we at dotMobi are working on a daily basis).

   Posted by Vance Hedderel, Director of PR & Communications, dotMobi
5. July 28, 2008 @ 4:53 pm

   
   

   Hey Vance,

   to answer your questions..

   1. I went through my laptop, as well as my mobile phone.

   2. they’re almost all owned by the trademark holders. Seems like some domainers were able to snap up a few, though.

   Posted by Peter Askew
6. July 31, 2008 @ 3:09 am

   
   

   The .MOBI is going to end up like the .INFO , nowhere. Multiple reasons. Development costs, maintenance cost, branding costs, consumer ignorance……just to name a few. It does not make good business sense to divert finite resources from an existing .COM to these other extensions. Another hyped extension that still has no traction is the .TV

   I do like the .ME simply because of the convergence of explosion of social media and the growing online population of new users in the developing nations. .ME may not be big in the west, however I think it will have huge traction in other parts of the world in Asia and South America.

   Posted by Frank
7. August 2, 2008 @ 4:14 pm

   
   

   Dear Andrew, Frank,

   would you be open for a discussion on this?

   In my view the sampling really shows the opposite actually: It confirmed that dotMobi is used with more than 30% sites within the 100 strong set of major brands as a DISTINCT entry point for the mobile use.

   I fail to see any OTHER namespace that made any comparbly strong inroads to becoming one of the default entry points to a main brand web sites within less than two years. Sugegstions?

   Secondly: The next two billion folks entering the internet will be folks from emerging markets. They will start out fully targeting mobile.

   Frank, you says diverting finite ressources does not make good business sense: Yes and no. No, it you don’t get additional traction / audience from it, that you other wise would miss to be able to reach. Yes it the default audience is no looking for a desktop expereicen as their first interest.

   Wher should the in the long run check if not in dotMobi?

   Nowhere, becasue - the dilution of the few sites that actually HAVE invested into device independant content delivery that can serve desktops and mobile equaly well is absoutely minuscle, as in 99% of all cases .COM is short for .CrappyOnMobiles

   Those guys who have not grown up in Dektop expereince will by far quicker understand that an expereince that doesn’t exploit what mobile can do is going to be kicked out of the market - and sites that do serve mobile to the full extend possible will need to make themselves stand out, including by their choice of TLD.

   I can’t see how they can stand out with dotCom - so what will they use?
   CountryCode (everybody adressing a local national audience needs to at least ALSO serve country codes domins for his key markets) and dtotCom fro theri Desktop Entry Point and dotMobi for their mobile Entry point.

   This embraces the legacy, national markets and mobile support all equally well, and in fact will most of the time technicall be deliverd by the same web server - but the technical implementation that totally irrelevant.

   What counts in the global game is that a good marketing naming scheme conbined ALL these key targeting aspects.
   * Entry Point to Main Brand for Desktop User
   * Entry Point to Main brand for Mobile User
   * Multiple Entry Points for Main Brand for Desktop User in National Markets
   * Multiple Entry Points for Main Brand for Mobile User in National Markets
   A scheme that allows for representation of Product brands as entry point on top and sub-hierarchy in any of the four entry point schemes above.

   You simply cannot solve that with dotCom alone.
   If you use look at anything but a TLD as mobile entry point indication its going to mess up either the national entry point scheme or the product entry point scheme

   I don’t say that it’s obvious - even folks at Google or Internet Veterans like Yahoo or AOL have not come up with a consistant naming scheme to reflect all the above in a consistant way - but it falls all into place nicely if introduce usage of dotMobi in the global brand naming structure.

   Your bonus is that the mobile entry point http://yourbrand.mobi is briging out the value of yourbrand better than any other representation for the mobile entry point - reducing the amount of informoation outside of the brand to the absolute minimum.

   What doesn’t work are parking pages, becasue mobile users don not only PAY for having to see the parking page, the also have to accept waiting. And if parking pages are ignorantly created not mobile friendly, users will hate you for possible even crashing the device embedded browser.

   dotMobi from a practical maning viewpoint simply works best and most consistantly.
   I don’t expect anyone to believe me right there, but - try to come up with a scheme yourself, that can handle it all - a global and all national entry points, product brand entry points golbal and national and all of that for mobile and dektop expereince.

   All the best wishes,

   AllKindsOfThings

   Posted by AllKindsOfThings
8. August 6, 2008 @ 7:47 am

   
   

   I disagry with your so called ‘facts’

   .1.
   It is about marketing. Not about a redirect. Many big corps market their .mobi d$omain.

   .2.
   Another VERY IMPORTANT fact:

   In some countries .mobi is used by their biggest websites and brands.
   Countries like Australia, The UK and South Africa, because their ccTLD is .co.uk of .co.za of co.au or something and .mobi is much more easy to use.

   .3.
   I’m from the Netherlands and here the biggest Online Media Brands use .mobi. In the Netherlands the standard url is domain.mobi…

   ____

   So many websites/brands in the world use .mobi, and these wont change to .com or whatever all of a sudden. THERE IS NO WAY BACK and more .mobi websites are going live every day…

   Posted by Stijn
9. August 9, 2008 @ 7:25 am

   
   

   Do Top Brands Actually use .Mobi?

   ANSWER: http://Why.mobi/brands.php

   Posted by What is .mobi?
10. September 27, 2008 @ 7:59 pm

    
    

    How would you currently rank the value of TLDs?

    1 = com
    2 = mobi
    3 = info
    4 = net
    5 = org
    6 = biz
    7 = us
    8 = me
    9 = ws
    10 = name

    1) Of course, Dot com is the leader and probably always will be.

    2) Dot Mobi with millions of user surfing the Internet via mobile devices will increase in demand.

    3) Dot Info is growing as a reference site but fails as a business dot com. People will most always type dot com with domain names unless you spend a million or two on branding.

    4) Dot Net was for networks (social and physical) and for people who couldn’t get the Dot Com.

    5) Dot Org is for not for profit organizations. Ok for them but not main stream.

    6) Dot Biz Yeah right… couldn’t get the Dot Com. People will still be typing Dot Com with domain names so Dot Biz is a loser.

    7) Dot US. Couldn’t get the Dot Com. Again people will still be typing Dot Com with domain names so Dot US is also a loser.

    Dot ME. Another country name. Cute with a social name like Kiss.me. Again, people will still be typing Dot Com with business domain names so Dot me is a loser And you can Quote.me.

    9) Dot WS. Another country name (West Somali not web site). Again, people will still be typing Dot Com with business domain names so Dot ws is a loser .

    The none dot com are also usually more expensive to register!

    Posted by Ken Gettys

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