Mobile web growth explosive as one million .mobi domains registered

30 Oct 2008

The promise of the mobile web – boosted by more web-friendly handsets – is finally being realised, and the Dublin-headquartered dotMobi registrar has revealed that more than one million mobile domains have been registered.

The organisation said that mobile content consumption is increasing, while the lack of consistency and navigation issues that previously hampered mass-consumer adoption are lessening.

Joint research by dotMobi and AKQA found that some 90pc of consumers surveyed were interested in learning more about the mobile web.

Sites such as Nokia.mobi, Mercedes-Benz.mobi, Zagat.mobi and Bank of America’s BofA.mobi have been successfully promoted as custom, intuitive experiences for their users.

These brands, dotMobi’s CEO Trey Harvin said, represent a small handful of the thousands of businesses that are embracing the mobile web, with sites across dozens of categories, including travel, automotive, consumer packaged goods, publishing and financial services.

“dotMobi has established relevance, order – and now success – in what two years ago was a muddled, confusing mobile web world,” Harvin explained.

“With the mobile web gaining speed, and .dotMobi paving the way, we are excited to soon unveil the next generation of mobile web tools and resources that will assist small-to-medium businesses in using the mobile web to reach a new audience: the mobile consumer.”

The entertainment industry is also moving onto the mobile web. Country music star Tim McGraw engages his audience via http://mcgraw2go.mobi/, where fans can download music samples, watch videos and keep tabs on the latest tour, while followers of the Wu-Tang Clan can get the latest information about the group at http://wumusicgroup.mobi/.

Recent hit film Eagle Eye featured a special promotional ‘tie-in’ site with US electronics retail giant Circuit City at http://ee.mydas.mobi/, as does the upcoming blockbuster James Bond film Quantum of Solace with Sony Australia at http://quantumcode.mobi/.

Along with the .mobi domain, dotMobi as a company has continued to grow. To aid the expansion of the mobile web, the company has created a wealth of free tools for developers, available at the mobiForge.com mobile web developer forum, which now boasts more than 20,000 members.

Free resources such as the ready.mobi report and award-winning DeviceAtlas device database show business owners what they need to do to make their site successful with their customers on virtually every web-enabled cell phone on the planet.

“To help continue the phenomenal growth of the mobile web, dotMobi is making 200 highly desired ‘premium’ .mobi domain names available via a special online auction with Sedo, beginning 5 November and running through to 12 November,” said Amy Mischler, dotMobi’s vice-president of brand and identity service.

“These .mobi names include actors.mobi, bands.mobi, blackjack.mobi, boys.mobi, cellphones.mobi, dvd.mobi, dvr.mobi, games.mobi, model.mobi, racing.mobi, stamps.mobi, vip.mobi and xxx.mobi,” Mischler said.

By John Kennedy

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com