TBL And "Why dotMobi?"

Well... Paul Knag thinks dotMobi is a scam. We've addressed much of those claims before (and even dedicated a section to it), so we can agree to disagree here.

Citing this article, though, Knag points out a longstanding criticism of dotMobi from Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, which we've never addressed here.

Tim Berners-Lee’s criticism was that existing content should be smart enough to recognize device being used and that we should not fragment the web into mainstream content and content for small screens.

In an ideal world, the client-side device type would direct the type of page served, but that is not how things have evolved.

The fact is the majority of the 80 plus million sites across the web do not work well on mobile devices and do not detect device type before redirecting you. So, mobile operators and service providers (as major competitors) formed dotMobi to address the need for a usable and reliable mobile content.

The data also shows that mobile users look for different kinds of information from their mobile devices than on a PC. This is why dotMobi suggests a site with mobile-relevant but lighter-weight content. A registrant can put up whatever content they like; we only mandate that it comply with three simple rules to work well on mobile devices -- XHTML, no frames, and no "www". The unique ability dotMobi has to enforce those rules, per our contract with ICANN, makes it effective in a way no other TLD is.

dotMobi as a new TLD provides a service-marked mobile internet. And that is based on solid open industry standards, not marketing hype.