Straight from Belgium ...

The team at Belgian-based train service Thalys have been heavily promoting their thalys.mobi site with some very nice poster advertising in train stations around Europe. This is a shot from the very busy Gare du Nord in Paris. The text says, "All of Thalys on your mobile."

I've also been seeing some cool sites like Paramount.mobi (the movie studio), time.mobi (as in Time magazine), wnba.mobi (basketball), thesun.mobi (the UK newspaper, famous for the "page 3 girl"), blackhawk.mobi (cigarettes) and usanetwork.mobi (US television channel).

Comments

[cricket fan]

this is just what .mobi needs some MAINSTREAM ADVETISING i think this will atleast get the mobile internet out there to the masses.

[Andrew]

Is it true that Weather.mobi was awarded to the Weather Channel? Sports.mobi was awarded to Sports Illustrated? News.mobi was issued to Sky News? and Ringtones.mobi was issued to Bertelsmann Group?

Is it also true that litigation precipitated by those that were rejected during the RFP process induced the major delay of the RFP allocations?

What is the mTLD's reaction to the failure of i-mode? Does dotMOBI share parallels to the imode as articulated in the below article?

InfoGin claims mobile tech has to offer the total internet experience
Mobile web tech firm InfoGin, which specialises in internet integration on mobile handsets, has stated that O2’s recent decision to ditch i-mode is no surprise, and that the sector has to instead concentrate on a full-blooded mobile internet experience.

“O2's recent decision to drop its i-mode services in the UK, followed by the Australian operator Telstra's decision to drop the i-mode in Australia is no surprise," comments Eran Wyler, CEO & Founder of InfoGin.

Just like dot Mobi, i-mode content is limited to both specific content as well as devices.

“O2 believes it is the limited range of handsets which has constrained the growth of i-mode. However, it is also insufficient Internet content, as well as 'thinner' mobile versions of websites, that have led to such a low take-up of i-mode content.

“Today's mobile users expect nothing less than access to websites they're familiar with on any mobile device they desire, whether it be a WAP 1.0 phone or a higher-end device such as Apple's iPhone.”

Thank you,

Alexander

[mike]

Andrew,

I'd like to know where you got your info from. I had no idea about the other winners besides weather.mobi.

Let me tell you this also:

Yesterday I received 4 times more visitors from the iPhone than any other mobile device to my .MOBI names.

That traffic earned me money.

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

Andrew / Alexander –

As we've said before, we'll announce information on the premium names RFPs as we can; however, I can tell you that anything you may have heard in terms of "litigation precipitated by those that were rejected during the RFP process" is false.

Also, you ask, "What is the mTLD's reaction to the failure of i-mode? Does dotMOBI share parallels to the imode as articulated in the below article?"

First, the article you mention is actually a press release from InfoGin, who transcode corporate sites for mobiles. That is a solid approach and one that dotMobi supports. It seems like the team from this company sees .mobi as a threat. I'm not sure why. We've had many successful brands – such as Hilton.mobi, Amtrak.mobi and 1800Flowers.mobi – build their fully compliant .mobi sites using transcoding methods (in these cases, from NYC-based Usablenet). What these brands understand is that the functionality users want on the go and what PC sites offer are usually different, but may have some parallels – and that is what transcoding at its best offers. They also understand that ".mobi" indicates simply and effectively that their content will work on a mobile phone and is appropriate for mobile users.

My take in regards to i-mode’s lack of acceptance in the UK: It does not demonstrate “that the sector has to instead concentrate on a full-blooded mobile internet experience.” One reason i-mode is so successful in Japan is that it's part of a complete mini-ecosystem, analogous to iPod / iTunes. That implementation didn't happen with i-mode in the UK ... and further, it gave users a limited version of what the mobile web could offer; basically, it had the "freedom" that a lot of video game players would call "on rails": you have the illusion of freedom but you're being led each step of the way. I think once users get a taste of the true potential of the mobile Internet, they'll embrace it fully.