Mobile-Only Domain Shows Its True Color: Helping the Consumer

Carlo over at TechDirt makes a few inaccurate statements about dotMobi in this week's post.  One is entitled to his opinion, of course, but the facts do need to be set straight about dotMobi. 

First, there's the notion that dotMobi is forcing content owners to adhere to rules that could do more harm that good.

dotMobi's "rules" were created in partnership with the W3C's Mobile Web Initiative.  dotMobi is simply making it mandatory that content owners follow the specifications created by the W3C.  dotMobi, more importantly, provides training, documentation, software developer tools for free to the developer community to illustrate proper mobile content development.  dotMobi is the only internet address recommends to content owners that the open standards created by the W3C are the way to build a better mobile experience.  The end result is that the consumer will most likely have a predicatable experience on their mobile device. 

ALso, dotMobi has never said that other Internet addresses will not or should not be mobile-friendly -- another misconception that presumes mutual exclusivity where none exists.  We have only accurately stated that dotMobi provides a consistent experience the consumer on the mobile device that other Internet addresses cannot enforce and do not have as their charter.  In that sense, dotMobi is just as much a service mark as it is a TLD. Try your favorite dot-whatever your your mobile -- and not a high end smart phone -- and see what your mobile experience is for yourself.  Then, try names like bmw.mobi, amf.mobi, weather.mobi, google.mobi, and so on.  You will have a better experience.

The main thrust Carlo's post, though, is the idea that dotMobi's premium names are nothing more than money-grab.

Here's the story: dotMobi held back around 5,000 commonly used words and phrases.  These 5,000 words and phrases will be allocated on an equitable and objective basis either by request for proposal or auction in the coming months.  Our goal is to make sure that words like weather.mobi, search.mobi, travel.mobi, and many others get into the hands of content owners who will actually build a weather, search, or travel application.  If dotMobi did not hold back this small list, then the names would be purchased and held by parties who would only sell them on the aftermarket. 

If we were going for the so-called "money grab," then dotMobi would have held back the hundreds of thousands of well-known commonly used words and phrases.

It seems that there's a bit of education that needs to go on in the domainer space. Domainers are currently driving growth in dot-com today, owning about 25% of the dot-com names for example.  dotMobi has worked to create a more equitable process for allocating dotMobi names as we go live.

Comments

[Brandon]

"If we were going for the so-called 'money grab,' then dotMobi would have held back the hundreds of thousands of well-known commonly used words and phrases." -Neil Edwards, dotMobi CEO

The 5,600+ words listed in your dotMobi Premium Names list may not be the only names that are set aside. The second sentence on the Premium Name pdf says, "A final list will be published prior to the launch of the allocation process." What does that mean? Do you plan on releasing a new/longer list? I don't think this is a "money grab" but if a new list comes out I will definately be suspicious.

Thanks,
Brandon

[Rose Thun]

Brandon, thanks for your question.

The final list will not grow. Rather, to respect IP holders, we will shorten the list to remove any trademark names that are successful through the WIPO Application Process.

[Brandon]

Good to hear - thanks for the response Rose!