Still not convinced that 2007 is "The Year of the Mobile Web"?

Any top-level domain is only as good as the sites that use it.

.mobi is no different. We're a very young domain registry, and we've made amazing progress with the domain uptake. But, like many registries, a large part of our mission is to stimulate the growth of content.

But what adds to dotMobi's responsibility in particular, I think, is an awareness that .mobi sites are, in a way, uniquely representative of a whole new medium: the mobile web.

That's certainly we take that responsibility very seriously. Our developer community, tools, publications and resources are all designed to help grow the mobile web. Over on http://dev.mobi, we service many thousands of signed-up mobile developers and their needs every day, even those that are not (yet! :-) ) running their sites on .mobi domains.

As a result I feel fairly confident that our domain uptake, the numbers of live sites - not to mention the success of the dev.mobi community itself - are valuable barometers for the sector as a whole.

So I thought I'd share some interesting statistics with you.

Just one of the things that we measure here at dotMobi is how .mobi sites are being picked up by search engines. That (at least in relative terms) shows us how fast content is going live, and how actively search providers' crawlers are indexing it.

You can tracking page index size on Google quite easily. The trick is the "site:" syntax, and the fact that the approximate number of matching pages is shown in the top right hand corner of the results. Enter "site:.mobi" into Google and you will see what I mean.

This is presented as a count of pages, not sites or domains. We've been recording this figure regularly for a selection of top-level domains since December. Although I have no way of knowing how accurate they are as absolute figures, they seem to be a fair measure of relative growth.

(Of course they fall sometimes too: presumably the removal of dead or poor sites from the index. But taking a ratcheted monthly peak accounts for that. The highest .mobi result count in July was just over 3 million pages.)

Anyway, normalise to December, plot the percentage growth for each top-level domain, and out comes...

Whoah! Well, I guess we were starting from a fairly low base... our top-level domain was only a few months old then. But nevertheless, the growth curve is astonishing. We have more than ten times as many pages being indexed today than we did back at the start of the year.

As proof of our confidence in this year's growth of the mobile web, and the .mobi domain in particular, this is fabulous.

Of course these figures aren't about us. They're all thanks to the hundreds of thousands of domain holders and site owners out there who are demonstrably living the mobile dream.

These individuals and organisations are already out there, realising the medium's opportunities, overcoming its challenges, and prototyping the future. Basically bootstrapping what is clearly now the web's inevitable evolution.

And, as you can see, they're doing it right now. Are you?

Comments

[Gerry]

Mobi sucks.

How do I know?

People on forums tell me everyday.

[James Pearce]

Hi Gerry,

I'm sorry to hear that, although I guess you're entitled to your own opinions (and those you read on forums...)

What in particular "sucks"? The domain, the company, the tools and assistance we donate to the mobile web revolution? :-)

Seriously, though - would love to know what really bugs you.

James

[Bill]

Hi James,

Nice article. Keep 'em coming.

I think the previous comment made by Gerry was in jest AND accurate (the second part of it). Those of us who saw the huge potential of .mobi to be part of the explosive build out of the mobile web and took the calculated risk of investing time and money into the extension, have endured harsh criticism in many of the domaining forums. But we have also found many like-minded (open-minded) individuals who very much appreciate all that dotMobi is providing to the developer community and doing behind the scenes to promote and establish the extension.

A fine example of the need for fresh blood in the domain market (such as that which .mobi is targeting for the mobile web space ) popped up in a domain forum discussion today. A frequent poster mentioned "wwwmortgages.mobi" as being "parked" and only 3/5 on the ready.mobi scale - evidence to him (a persistent mobi-skeptic) of the doomed nature of .mobi for not being all built out with web sites on all mobi names. The funny thing is, "mortgages.com" which has been around for many years (a heck of a lot longer than the infant dot-mobi) is STILL an undeveloped, "parked" domain which DOES NOT work on mobile screens AT ALL.

So yes, there is a real need for a bottom-up approach to build a useful mobile web and many of us are glad dot-mobi names came along to address that need. Your stats do not lie. We see new .mobi sites coming on line every day. Kudos to dotMobi and to all those developers.

Thank You and Best Wishes.

[Ross Dunn]

Congratulations James and team!! Hey, are any of you going to be at the big Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose this month? If so, I would love to buy you a drink. Drop me a note. Ross at StepForth dot com.

[gary]

It is true that there are a lot of folk saying that .mobi sucks (not necessary, mobile sites don't need the .mobi extension etc) but I'm noticing a drop in the number of posts on some forums re .mobi... I think many of the critics have gone quiet & others are now so busy catching up that they haven't time to knock the extension any more.

There is still a lot of headroom though, very early days indeed but I sense a lot more optimism now than as recently as 1 month ago.

Please try & keep up the momentum the good work.

Gary

[Gerry]

Whoa, James...didn't think folks would take this too serious.

Yes, it was in jest.

I am a huge supporter of dot mobi. At last count I think I was close to 700, only a hand full developed though.

Even this only accounts for about 15-20% of my overall domain portfolio.

I was trying to portray that what is wrong with many of the domain forums is the mentality of most members that want no part of it and feel threatened by it. This is primarily other domainers.

Isn't that a shame...they want no part of it therefore I should not be a part of it.

But these MobiPhobics don't realize 3.5 billion cell phones in use tell me that their opinions do not count.

I was not a landrusher. After sitting on the sidelines for several months, I saw the potential and market trends on a global scale.

Oddly enough, it was no forum that convinced me to consider the .mobi.

Because on many of these forums there is a lack of pure common sense.

That is a big reason mobility.mobi was started. I am simply a member...not a founder, not a moderator...just a member. I am not whoring myself to make a cheap plug here.

It is just good to know that there are like minded people and organizations that exist for the purpose of moving forward this initiative.

And, with 3.5 billion cell phones in use, I want in.

[Frank R.]

There was a "whois" type of directory for .mobi at one point, but I can't find it. Can anybody point me to it?

[Caroline Greer]

Hi Frank,

We have a Whois service on our corporate website - see this link: http://mtld.mobi/domain/whois

Caroline.

[Michael Rotkin]

.Mobi is the best thing that has happened to change the internet a little and how future users will use the search world. As we all know some of us, not me, are trying to resist change. We all use our cell phones, why not search with fast speeds and reliable information?

Michael Rotkin
Founder-Seo Usability Expert
www.Seochampion.com

[Richard Tenney]

Where is the dotmobi speakers, booths at THE CTIA SHOW have you given up on the US market and by your non prescence are you saying that mobi is for third world countrys. This is and incredible blunder not to have a big presence at this show.

[Vance Hedderel, Director of PR and Communications, dotMobi]

Richard --

While your statements are off-topic for this thread, I'm glad to give you some additional context.

There are two CTIA shows each year, one in the spring for a general mobile audience and a more focused autumn show. Based on our experience over the past few years, the spring event is far more productive for a booth presence and related activities like taking meetings, making announcements, etc.; the spring event also proves to be a strong compliment to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

As far as speaking at any CTIA event, that's a decision of the CTIA committees, not dotMobi.

For US presence at events, we're a gold sponsor of the first Mobile Internet World event in Boston on November 13-15. (See http://www.mobilenetx.com/).

If you're in NYC this Monday, please feel free to come to a Mobile Monday NYC (http://www.mobilemonday-ny.com/) event
on "The Ubiquitous Web" where I'll be on a panel with some very interesting people, including Berge Ayvazian, Chief Strategy Officer, Yankee Group; Carl Taylor, Director of Applications & Services, Hutchison Whampoa Europe; Charles McCathie Nevile, Chief Standards Officer, Opera Software; Sean Owen, Software Engineer, Google and Matt Womer, Mobile Web Initiative Lead Americas, W3C.

And while I'm in NYC, several members of the dotMobi team will be at the 30th International Public ICANN Meeting in LA (http://losangeles2007.icann.org/).

In short, I think you might be a bit off base in thinking that dotMobi has "given up" on the US market.

-- Vance