Weather is #1 in USA

M:Metrics recently released a study that showed “weather” as the top genre of news and information accessed by mobile subscribers in the United States. And that was before the good news dotMobi issued this week about The Weather Channel becoming the first brand to secure rights to a premium .mobi domain via an RFP process. I’m sure that mobile users are now going to be visiting weather.mobi on a regular basis. The site is already live, looks terrific and works exactly as it should ... it’s a pleasure to use. Soon, it will be advertised on TWC’s PC-based site, so be on the lookout.

Here is a photo of (left) Louis Gump, vice president of mobile at The Weather Channel Interactive (TWCi), and Neil Edwards, CEO of dotMobi, when the agreement was finalized.

By the way, another interesting part of that M:Metrics report is that sports information –- especially football / soccer -– is the number one choice of Europeans. Otherwise, the US and Europe are more or less on a par with what they visit; for example, “news” is in the number two spot in both the United States and Europe. As the mobile internet breaks outside of the walled gardens, I suspect you’ll be seeing more variety among the most visited mobile information. By the way, if you’re European, be sure to visit espn.mobi or kicker.mobi. The former is the well-known sports brand while the latter is a German-language site dedicated exclusively to football.

And before the questions come rolling in ... the other names that dotMobi made available under this inaugural process –- ringtones, news and sports –- will not be awarded right now. Although proposals were submitted for these domains, the focus on how they would be developed for content was not as strong as these names deserve. Like all of the domains on the dotMobi Premium Names list, they will be made available once again through an equitable distribution process. But in the meantime, be sure to bookmark weather.mobi on your mobiles.

- Vance Hedderel, Dir. of PR & Communications