From Burger King to Building Mobile Sites

I came across some really comical blogs on the NamePros site during the past weeks commenting that "Edwards should be flipping burgers at Burger King" and "Edwards is that guy with the really bad red tie." I love flipping burgers on the grill, but I have to say that I do like my red tie. I love the good craic as we say here in Ireland, but I think the discussion needs to be more about how to build mobile content. You can buy all the names in the world that you want, but they are worthless without content and traffic to them. Content and traffic are important whether you are an individual, big brand, small brand or domain investor.

The big brands are doing it daily in the press. dotMobi is about helping the small and big brands alike to reach 1.6 billion internet-ready mobile phones around the world. This is where the future traffic lies for small businesses, big brands and pay-per-click sites. If you are not there today, then you are going to be late to the game in the next 12 months. I am often asked what are the minimum requirements for a dotMobi site and, more importantly, what makes a good dotMobi site.

The minimum requirements for any web site behind a mobi name are brain-dead simple. Most registrars and their tools implement these requirements today. We built the minimum mandatory rules with help from the W3C and dotMobi's investors so that consumers would get a mobile experience that works every time. You can run a Ready.mobi report to find out if your site meets the three simple rules. If you want to build a site with GOOD mobile content, then you need to do a little more work and read on past the rules below. 

The three rules are:

1.  XHTML Mobile Profile

XHTML mobile profile is simply a tag for your mobile landing page, signifying that your site does XHTML (the preferred language for mobile web browsers). It makes sense that your web site should tell the browser to select a mobile display. Mobile browsers will take on a number of behaviors, and your web site should signal what kind of behavior it wants the consumer to experience. This rule is mandatory and .mobi sites not implementing it will be turned off with due notice before the year end.

2.  No frames

The zero to nine keypad on mobile phones do not provide an easy way for a consumer to navigate around a mobile web site. Frames also tend to break mobile browsers in some cases. Hence, we have a mandatory rule that says no frames because it produces a bad mobile experience for the consumer. This rule is mandatory, and .mobi sites not implementing it will be turned off with due notice before the year end.

3.  myname.mobi must be the landing page

This is another practical rule guaranteeing consumers that they do not have to worry about what comes before the name. Was it "www" or "whatever 3rd level name"? Mobile consumers on the go do not have time to type lots of characters on a zero-to-nine key pad. dotMobi makes it simple for the mobile consumer to get to the site they want quickly and dependably. We did research on this mobile consumer behavior, by the way, and this is how we created the rule. This rule is mandatory, and .mobi sites not implementing it will be turned off with due notice before the year end.

The three rules are simple and practical, but they do not mean you will produce a mobile site with a great consumer experience. dotMobi and the investors (the guys with the real mobile web experience) have literally spent the last two years and several million dollars building information resources and tools for free to the global community. You should check out Dev.mobi today to learn about how to build a web site with a great mobile experience. 

I will summarize some of the highlights that will help you build a world class mobile site that will work on any phone or network in the world ...

1.  Dev.mobi

Dev.mobi is a FREE developer web site that is a community of more than 3,500 web developers who are trying to go mobile today. This is not just a guru site, but a site for the average Joe who needs help going mobile. You will find books, blogs, forums, tips, tools and a certified developer directory at your disposal for free. It is quickly becoming the place on the web to learn about building mobile content. Sign up for Dev.mobi today to start learning about going mobile today.

2.  Ready.mobi

Have you tested your PC-based web site with Ready.mobi?  Type in Ready.mobi and get ready for several thousand dollars / euros of FREE advice. In less than 30 seconds, Ready.mobi will tell you how your current PC site needs to change to target a mobile phone. Ready.mobi also shows you exactly what a consumer will experience on their phone if they type your .com or .country code PC-designed site into their phone. Most people are shocked to see bad it displays, how much it costs or how long it takes to download. Ready.mobi literally has all of the collective experience from dotMobi's research engineers and, equally as important, the engineers from our mobility investors like Nokia, Vodafone and Microsoft, among others. It is the only FREE product in the world that I know of that gives you a clear roadmap for going mobile based on real industry knowledge. Ready.mobi is used more than 5,000 times daily ... and you are missing out if you don't use it.

3.  Site.mobi 

Site builders range from do-it-yourself to advanced publishing products. dotMobi created a site builder, Site.mobi, so that the average Joe can create a GREAT mobile web site in 20 minutes or less. The average Joe does not know anything about mobile networks, browsers, .mobi rules, etc. Site.mobi is a what-you-see-what-you-get editor that is fast, easy and produces superb mobile web sites. Site.mobi is constantly being updated to embrace the lastest features supported by mobile browsers or other services like commerce or advertising or different templates.

Since the average Joe will know dotMobi through our resellers, we make Site.mobi available in a co-branded form for FREE to partners or people who want to use it in their business. Site.mobi is the BEST deal in the world for any developer, web hosting company, or marketing agency who wants to create mobile web sites for big brands, small businesses, individuals or even pay-per-click sites. I do not know too many companies providing tools like this. Site.mobi is being used by a number of dotMobi's resellers. Network Solutions also has a tool where you can build a .mobi-compliant web site for $2.00 per month at www.buildmymobi.com.

Check out Site.mobi today and get started on your mobile web site. More importantly, you can contact Gesu Sood, our Site.mobi product specialist, to learn how you or your company can use or co-brand Site.mobi.

4.  Insist on a dotMobi Certified Developer

Anyone can say that they can develop a mobile web site. But can they really? Two years ago when I started dotMobi, I lived this experience myself to build the mobile version of our company web site before the annual 3GSM show. I found a "reputable" mobile consulting firm in northern Europe who claimed to be the expert in mobile development. They built me a 15-screen, static text mobile site for more than 30,000 Euros. I knew I was being ripped off at the time, but had to pay because I had no alternative. There were no free or low-cost publishing tools like Site.mobi. There were no lists of affordable mobile-certified developers. I vowed that dotMobi's bad experience would not repeated by companies in the future by rogue firms charging crazy prices for simple work. dotMobi recently released mobile developer certification program in partnership with ETS-Prometrics. 

Are you trying to find a mobile developer? Then you need to insist that whatever developer you employ has a dotMobi certificate or gets certified before delivering you services. That way you can know that your developer partner can complete the job for you. You should at a minimum make sure they follow the developer best practices found on Dev.mobi.

Are you a developer? Then get certified at one of more than 1,000 testing centers around the world. You can read the book on Dev.mobi to get up to speed on proper mobile coding standards. If you earn your certificate, then you will be posted in the Dev.mobi certified developer directory. I can already tell you that we have several certified developers and they cannot keep up with the new business referrals.

My personal offer to developers who want to get certified. dotMobi will reimburse your testing fees for the first 150 developers who pass the certification test between now and the end of September. Write me an email to contact@mtld.mobi with the subject "Certify me." We will make sure to help you get certified. 

I realize that this is a long blog post, but I felt compelled to make sure we keep the information coming on how to build good mobile content. Good mobile content is the key to producing traffic by mobile consumers. The tools are there today, and it is getting easier and easier everyday to go mobile.

Comments

[Matthew Nelson]

haha.. great post.

[B]

"You can buy all the names in the world that you want, but they are worthless without content and traffic to them. Content and traffic are important whether you are an individual, big brand, small brand, or domain investor."

So why are you sitting on 5000 premium dotMobi domains?

[Matthew Nelson]

without those 5,000 premium names they have nothing to work with... what if they had 0 premium names?

if you really think that leaving those 5,000 premium names available for guys like me to freely register is the answer, god help your soul.

if you think distributing them in a hurry is the answer, god help your soul.

learn to look at the long term.

[Paul G]

Neil, we tried having that productive discussion at NamePros but just about every time some skeptic would badmouth .mobi regardless. That's why we formed Mobility.mobi to have a place in the domain community dedicated to .mobi that was free of the relentless skepticism. It's been very well received, come check it out sometime.

[Gerry]

-=Posted by: B | August 30, 2007 at 07:33 AM=-

"You can buy all the names in the world that you want, but they are worthless without content and traffic to them. Content and traffic are important whether you are an individual, big brand, small brand, or domain investor."

So why are you sitting on 5000 premium dotMobi domains?

-------------------------------------------------

Wow, stinging commentary.

B must not be aware of the fiasco called the EUrid. To refresh Bee's memory, 4 Brits were arrested and over 30,000 domains siezed as illegally obtained with fake registrars and false TM claims and rights.

Here in the US, front companies illegally obtained more than 300,000 .eu domains under false pretenses. Those domains have been seized by the EUrid.

In both instances, and many more, it was the prime LLL and premium words that were sought after. That may account for why out of 176 .eu domain pre-registered by myself and a partner in the UK, we got a grand total of 6.

These domains were siezed and taken back by EUrid. They remain in limbo today. EUrid is in shambles and will remain so. I can not see them recovering from this heaping pile of B.S. Poor management and fraud from the top to the bottom. Undoubtedly this fiasco has been a big reason why nearly 18 months after the public landrush .eu is still, in my book, a dismal failure and all the oxygen on the planet won't resuscitate life into that dead animal.

I think if there is one thing learned, that is HOW NOT TO RELEASE DOMAIN NAMES. mTLD obviously were taking some cue's. I imagine there was a great sigh of relieve from the folks at mTLD over those lessons of how not release prime, premium, and TM domain names.

So rest assured B. If you are entitled to any of those 5000 or so premiums, you'll get yours.

And for those premiums that are not TM'd, then you and everyone else will have an equal chance to bid on the domain you want.

I certainly hope that helps clear the picture for you.

[John McCormac]

EURid is a masterclass in incompetence. It is a third rate ccTLD registry trying to run what is in effect a gTLD. It failed utterly to maintain the integrity of the .eu ccTLD and is complicit, by its failure to take action, with cybersquatters and cyberwarehousers in turning .eu into a cesspool. It does not matter how many press releases that it or the European Commission issues claiming that it was a great success. The reality is that .eu is a disaster for Europe. Luckily .mobi obviously learned from this disaster and did not release all the premium generics immediately. That drip feed of domains smoothed the growth curve.

EURid has not, as far as I know, seized the 300K or so domains cyberwarehoused by US operators. EURid was so incompetent that it managed to lose a court case against the Ovidio syndicate, the Cyprus front company operation responsible for warehousing over 75K .eu domains. It lost because it broke its own rules. Now EURid is taking action against a Chinese cybersquatting operation,(Zheng). It has blocked over 10K .eu domains that have been registered using a UK phone number and postal address. Zheng is the biggest single loser of ADRs.

Compared to .eu ccTLD, .mobi is pristine. Sometimes, it is better to learn from the mistakes of others and mTLD had one of the best opportunities to learn from one of the worst registries ever. I surveyed approximately 1.7M .eu domains in June and only 16% of the websites were actively developed. (not holding pages, PPC pages or framed pages.) There is a distinct lack of development in .eu ccTLD and the blame for this lies with the incompetent EURid registry and the fools in the European Commission and their "expert" advisors that selected the EURid venture.

Comparing the development in .mobi to that in .eu is interesting. There is natural development in .mobi but the .mobi still has to go through the junk dump phase of the landrush anniversary. There is a motivation to develop sites in .mobi that is largely absent in .eu ccTLD. This may be because .mobi does not follow the rules of an ordinary TLD in that it is device specific. The smoother growth curve is also making development rather than the quick flip a more attractive option. Right now, looking at the html from .mobi websites, it is like looking at Web 0.2 - a lot of possibilities.

[SJP]

Are we supposed to receive a confirmation about the certification offer? I thought I was pretty quick off the mark.

[Gerry]

-=Posted by: John McCormac | August 30, 2007 at 06:55 PM=-

John,

Great information and stats presented as a follow-up to the post of mTLD taking a few cues from the EURid circus.

I think this also validates the securing of certain domains for legitimate endusers and TM, SM, WM holders.

[Reece Berg]

Glad you enjoyed your stay over at Namepros and didn't take my comment too seriously :)

We domainers do get a bit frustrated sometimes and admittedly sometimes have unrealistic timeframes. The large majority of us over at Namepros -- and I believe everyone over at Mobility, are very pleased with how things have been moving along lately.

The level of corporate adoption by the likes of Disney, AAA, Zagat, Bank of America,... is not going unnoticed.

Your promise to get more premium names out on the market is very encouraging to domainers, web developers, and Internet-enabled cellular customers alike.

We look forward to hearing more news on these matters and I'll certainly be encouraging all Namepros members to develop their names.

Regards,

Reece Berg
Domainer, web developer, Namepros Dotmobi moderator

[Vance Hedderel, Director of PR & Communications]

John (McCormac): we are planning to send out confirmations about the certification offer in the coming week. We are finalizing the back-end structure to make sure your test sign-up goes smoothly.

[WAPNews]

"You should at a minimum make sure they follow the developer best practices found on Dev.mobi."
- Please check the Dev.mobi hyperlink.
- It links to deb.mobi instead of Dev.mobi