Why .mobi domains? iPhone proves people do not want
Filed under: Cell Phones | By: Daniel
Posted on: January 15, 2008 | 20 Comments
Why .mobi domains? Following my last post about the news that the Apple iPhone is the number one phone used on Google with only 2% of the smartphone market, the people are proving they do not need or want the .mobi domains and the mobile web that way.
Why have .mobi domains when you can view the websites as they are on a phone, many more phones will go the iPhone route with full web browsing in the next 5 years.
One friend said to me “of course and it is very good what apple iphone have got I have used one and they are amazing, if they can get sim free (unlocked) versions then we can see a massive appeal”.
I replied by saying that .mobi seems a hyped up waste of time, in the real world people are proving they like browsing the web as is (iPhone no.1 used phone on Google and only having 2% of smartphone market share KIND OF PROVES THAT) and it does not have to be an iPhone.
You have the PSP which is another portable web browser, other phones can and will create there own version of browsing the web the same way.
China can make phones very cheap and I am sure they will make phones that browse the web as it is and these will be good for 3rd world countries where people have little money.
Remember we are talking the future here, not now so in 5 years why have .mobi?
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I think that people miss the point…. .mobi is a universal extension & a global one too.
There are many .mobi sites that just go the the top left corner of your desk top monitor BUT this isn’t how it need to be… there are numerous great .mobi sites out there that look good on a large screen….. this means that .mobi sites (future) will be universal - desk top & small screen.
.com is just an extension at the end of the day…. 1,000’s of big companies get by without one, they use .net / .org / cc’s etc.. .com is only a few years old in the scheme of things; it will not remain the default TLD forever & there are billions of pages of content that will never render well on a small screen… I don’t have superman magnifying eyesight nor do I wish to scroll around pages left & right just so the text is big enough to read…
.mobi solves all these problems - with one extension, a mobile extension - with the term mobile being used in it’s broadest sense…. a .mobi site can be used as a single site for ALL PC’s mobiles / cells / PDa’s GLOBALLY.
One extension…. not two!
Any other extension can be used to host identical websites suitable for every screen type but with billions of non-small screen friendly content on all other extensions it will always be hit & miss.
.MOBI is a trustmark for sites that will render on ALL devices, will load fastest, use less bandwith & data allowance & be user friendly…
The question is, with everything going “mobile” why will people need .com???
That’s why there’s such a stick out there in domain world… there are a lot of scared investors in yesterdays TLD….
Tomorrows premier TLD will be .mobi…. for future content, future business, the future…
.com is looking very passe!
Regards to all who are bringing the internet to the mobile masses around the world…. no use looking back at yesterdays internet when you can make tomorrows internet now!
Gary
In your article, you’ve said “people are proving they do not need or want the .mobi domains and the mobile web that way.” Funny, Apple itself does not share your opinion.
If they did, they would completely ignore .mobi sites, but instead they have one featured on their apps page. http://boroughs.mobi is one of the first developed .mobi names to be featured on their iphone apps page, and it surely won’t be the last.
Here’s the link with proof: http://www.apple.com/webapps/travel/boroughsmobi.html
Oops… that line near the end should read
“That’s why there’s such a stink out there in domain world… there are a lot of scared investors in yesterdays TLD”
(don’t know where the “stick” came from
I am finding myself more of a critic of the critcs than perhaps a mobi supporter.
“only 2% of the smartphone market, the people are proving they do not need or want the .mobi domains and the mobile web that way.”
Yup, lets neglect to mention the other 98% of the market and lets neglect to mention that Google is NOT the search engine of choice on a global scale.
The people? Who are the people?
There are 3 billion phone subscribers globally, 1/3 of them have smartphones, so that would put the smartphone numbers at 1 billion. The people.
“Remember we are talking the future here, not now so in 5 years why have .mobi?”
Lets talk about the future. First, lets talk about the now. The technology used in the iPhone is not new and is not the future. It is technology that has been in use for the past couple of years in those same Asian countries as you pointed out that make the phone.
By 2010, industry analysts predict that there will be an estimated 7 billion cell phone subscribers.
The iPhone is just as much hype as witnessed by the pre-launch. Only to find that it was not all it was touted to be. Mr. Jobs himself was keely aware of this. On the eve of its launch, Steve Jobs and the CEO of AT&T admitted many problems with the iPhone and lack of performance on the EDGE network. This was well known even before the release of the iPhone as what was to be a “closed box”, not open to third party applications, suddenly became a reversal in Steve Jobs decision.
Why? Early testers and reviewers of the iPhone blasted its sluggish speed, the edge network, and it’s battery life along with its price and service contract. Even the Wall Street Journal in its own test in its own building noted that Yahoo too nearly one minute to fully load while Google and WSJ.com took nearly a full two minutes. Not to mention that wi-fi that alternates between signals and lost calls or addition load times.
So Steve Jobs decided to open up the closed box to third party applications to make it a much better user experience. The .mobi applications and sites worked faster, better, were much more responsive and user friendly. The result was an enhanced iPhone experience.
I am sure, being the able bodied reporter or blogger that you are, you knew all of this already, right? I mean, we wouldn’t want your readers to get facts and your opinions mixed up. I would imagine that you were aware of everything I just mentioned or else you would not be reporting the early death of .mobi…again.
That must be why some of the most popular applications found on Apples own site for the iPhone are .mobi sites. But you knew that already.
But, in case you did not know this here are some useful links:
http://www.appsafari.com/?s=.mobi
http://www.apple.com/search/?q=.mobi
Now I could go on and on and give you more links, but I would really rather you search for those on your own.
Actually, it would be nice for someone like you to not only do a tad bit more research before posting something but to also look at things a little more objectively and from more than one perspective.
“I replied by saying that .mobi seems a hyped up waste of time” I would hardly qualify as being an “experts” opinion and one of a slanted point of view.
“And 2008 is already seeing many phones coming with the same sort of web browser as the iPhone”, which would be the safari brower, Daniel. As mentioned previously, not new technology as I could equally have said “and 2008 is already seeing many phones coming with the same technology that the iPhone uses which had already been in use for nearly two years in Japan and Korea”.
That’s kind of the downside to things. I’ll bet if you go back to the CES of 2005 and 2006 you will see iPhone like products at that show.
“…so .mobi still seems a waste of time and using 2 domains”. So, m.site.com, site.com/mobi, mobile.site.com, wap.site.com are not two different domains? And the site would still not have to be configured as such? Take the OTHER 98% market share smart phones and try any full .com site on one of those. You will soon find what a waste of time that is.
Your assumptions of all devices being like the iPhone is a Steve Jobs hand job, at its best. In order for it to crack international markets, you can forget the default .com button, forget the slowness of speed, forget the 2 year contracts, and forget the high prices. In order for the iPhone to compete with the Nokia’s, LG’s, Motorola’s in the world, Apple would practically have to give away the iPhone and it’s services and the connectivity plans.
The iPhone is a wonderful tool and does exactly what many were hoping it would do. It puts another means of connecting to the wireless internet into the hands of those that perhaps would not be in the smartphone market.
But that is alright. Those that did buy into the iPhone hype, like yourself, are going to be dealing with the issues I outlined for the next year and a half or so when your contract finally runs out.
In the meantime, instead of bashing .mobi, something that you clearly do not understand nor want to take the time to try and understand it, why not visit some notable sites featured on the Apple iPhone apps site like Zagat.mobi, Boroughs.mobi, BofA.mobi…they are recommended by Apple for Apple devices for a reason. And it has nothing at all to do with .mobi hype.
Daniel,
You are obviously a very Intelligent Person that is at least starting to look at the “Big” picture on how the mobile web WILL transform our way of obtaining information just like the PC did 10+ years ago.
One thing to note:
The United States is at the very least 2 to 3 years behind in this field compared to some places in the World that is already far ahead of us as far as usage. We are very much a minority when it comes to surfing the Internet via the Mobile web.
The .mobi is the “One and Only” extension that is a World Wide extension specifically catering (branding)the Mobile web.
MOST people that use the mobile web in the “World” do not even own a PC and their cell phones are their only way to access the Internet.
That being said, most of these people are using out dated cell phones(at least to our current standards)and it most likely will be many years before they are able to obtain (or afford)anything even close to an iphone.
By that time the minimum current standards for mobile specific web site’s will also evolve and will only get better as time catches up to what will be acceptable and what can be accomplished on the mobile web.
By then the .mobi extention has a Very Good Chance to already be “Branded” in the minds of the Majority (World Wide)as their preferred extention to use via the Mobile Internet.
The iphone is a great product, no doubt, but it’s hardly a good debate trying to compare it with what .mobi is all about and the Billion plus people around the World that have no access to even anything close to it or prefer not to spend several hundred dollars for the sole purpose to surf the PC Internet on a mobile phone.
The iPhone has completely changed how I interact with information on the go. When I travel I leave the notebook at home. I take the iPhone, an Airport Express for the hotel room (or anywhere) and an APC power pack for heavier use days. Everything else lives on a 8 GB USB stick or “the cloud.” The exception is if I think I am going to need to create or edit rich content, like a Powerpoint deck.
Still, for all of the enthusiasm about the iPhone and it’s ability to browse most of the broader web, it’s made me realize that there will always be a place for the mobile Internet. More than two-thirds of the time I am accessing the web from my iPhone, I am connecting to mobile or “iPhonized” sites that are in between the stripped down versions and the real thing. This includes when I am using wifi. I have two bookmarks for many of my favorite sites - one for the mobile or iPhone-specific version, another for the real thing.
That’s bad news for web developers who are hoping that one day they won’t need to re-code sites for handheld devices. The problem is they will always have to even if broadband is truly ubiquitous. The reason is cell phones and other gadgets are designed to fit in your hand. It doesn’t matter if it’s a PSP, a Treo or an iPhone or whatever comes next. From a UI perspective, mobile sites work beautifully on phones - as do information apps if the platform supports it.
This means web sites increasingly need to give consumers a choice when browsing from a mobile device. Many do not. They “sniff” what browser you’re using and then serve up the site that will give you the best experience. The problem is that browser sniffing, particularly on devices like the iPhone, doesn’t work because it supports all page formats.
Consider weather.com, for example. The popular weather site determines your browser and then serves up a site that’s best formatted for it. Enter the iPhone, however. There are times you want to browse the lite version(weather.mobi) and other times you want the big daddy(weather.com). Unfortunately, they don’t give you a choice and this in particular has caused some iPhone users to get upset.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is digg. You can browse the full version, a mobile site or an iPhone flavor. You get to decide.
The mobile web is far from dead but consumer choice is just as critical as these devices get more sophisticated.
And, here are major companies that are advertising their .mobi websites..
Banking
BofA.mobi (Bank of America)
Deutsche-Bank.mobi
Wachovia.mobi
Barclays.mobi
UnicreditGroup.mobi
Insurance
Ing.mobi
StateFarm.mobi
AXA.mobi
Allstate.mobi
Hotels
Marriott.mobi
Hilton.mobi
DoubleTree.mobi
Car Manufacturers
Ferrari.mobi
BMW.mobi
Rolls-Royce.mobi
FordCA.mobi (Ford Canada)
Entertainment
HSM2.mobi (Disney’s Highschool Musical series)
TBS.mobi
UFC.mobi
USANetwork.mobi
FOX.mobi
Transportation
Amtrak.mobi
AAA.mobi (American Automobile Association)
Sports
ESPN.mobi
NBA.mobi
WNBA.mobi
MLB.mobi
Magazines
Time.mobi (Time Magazine)
BusinessWeek.mobi
CNNMoney.mobi
Alcohol
Smirnoff.mobi
Internet
MSN.mobi
GoDaddy.mobi / TDNAM.mobi
Netsol.mobi (Network Solutions)
Technology
Cisco.mobi
News
FoxNews.mobi
ABCNews.mobi
TBS.mobi
AlJazeera.mobi
Newspapers
TheSun.mobi
Guides
Zagat.mobi
Mobile Operators
ChinaMobile.mobi
T-Mobile.mobi
Three.mobi
Vodafone.mobi
TIM.mobi
Orange.mobi
3Next.mobi
Mobile Manufacturers
Nokia.mobi
SonyEricsson.mobi
Telecommunications
Ericsson.mobi
3Skype.mobi
Weather
Weather.mobi (The Weather Channel)
Cities
Helsinki.mobi
Dublin.mobi
Airlines
SAS.mobi
Spanair.mobi
Clothing
Polo.mobi
Quikstore.mobi (Quiksilver)
BenettonPress.mobi (United Colors of Benetton)
Airports
Schiphol.mobi (Amsterdam)
Nicely put William but I don’t share your views on web developers having to develop two versions of each site they build…
a .mobi site, when built well using all the small screen friendly bells & whistles can still look great on desk top monitor.
The future as I see it, comprises of a few billion users of the mobile internet on portable devices of whom, some will have a home PC (but certainly not a majority by 2012 imho)… this places a great deal of pressure on all the desk-top based extensions and really focuses on just how perfect .mobi is for the job in hand; being both global & universal.
All of this is supported by devices like the iphone as they will work great with .mobi sites because when you use the pinch / part view feature; a .mobi site will be even easier to read than when viewed on a very small screen whereas existing websites have to be zoomed in twice as far just to be readable…. case in point; I use excel quite a lot & I hate scrolling left & right… my response to scrolling aint going to change…
Traffic is up on .mobi sites since the launch of the iPhone, enough said.
“Traffic is up on .mobi sites since the launch of the iPhone, enough said”.
Isn’t that odd. That is what I am hearing from others.
.MOBI…it’s iPhone friendly.
You could say that people accessing .info sites on laptops shows there is no need for .com…
but if you want straight info that you can be sure will render on a phone you want .mobi because that is a guarantee.