dotMobi

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 ...

The most popular three rumors answered

There are three rumors floating around the blogosphere about dotMobi right now. I feel compelled to give you the CEO view on them. You may choose to ignore what I say, but I have no problem answering the mail in a public forum. 

1.  dotMobi investors are doing nothing with .mobi and  created the company as a money making scam.

dotMobi's investors are  building new products and services utilizing the .mobi domain name, the new tools available at dev.mobi, and using dotMobi to push out new industry services like our upcoming mobile phone database and our content directory. You have to remember that we are talking about the biggest mobility companies in the world whose product life cycles are long ... and confidential. The investors behind dotMobi are no more going to publicly pre-announce their competitive services using dotMobi than Apple did with the iPhone.

I do know one thing for sure: dotMobi's investors are very active building their own .mobi services which range from using the domain or developer tools to launching mobile hosting services. The mobility industry is quickly going "open Internet" and they have chosen .mobi to be one of the anchor points for their work. The signs are publicly available through dotMobi's press releases, the Membership Advisory Group which now has more than 100 companies in its membership, and the visible use of dotMobi by the investors. 

For example, 3 (Hutchinson) had more traffic to their .mobi mobile site than they did to their PC-based web site last month. Telecom Italia sells a complete package to their small business customers in Italy based on .mobi. The list of examples go on and on. And that's not to mention the industry requirements for .mobi being mandatory in browsers: it will happen; it is not a matter of if, but when.

Like anything, making a new domain name for mobility integrated into the glue of the mobile web takes time, and it is occuring month by month.  The signs are visible everywhere and there will be no big bang announcements. But everyone will wake up one day and either have caught the dotMobi wave or been left behind.

On to rumors number 2 and 3 ...

Since everybody likes visuals ...

... here are a couple of screen captures for some current .mobi-related media activity.

First a shot of the Disney Channel TV commerical for hsm2.mobi:

 

And here's a shot from the August 20, 2007, CNET TV segment on zagat.mobi.

Don't be shy about letting us know if you see .mobi advertising elsewhere.

America's New Teen Heartthrob is Mobile

Sometimes dotMobi is way ahead on brand launches -- for example, there's a well-known .com wine site going .mobi very soon that will cool -- but other times, news comes in over the transom (or, in this case, as a comment to this blog).

Anthony wrote in via a comment to ask, "Can you please share with us more about the launch of Disney's High School Musical .mobi website....HSM2.mobi ....there is a commercial running on tv for HSM2.mobi."

It's true!

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the High Scool Musical 2 .mobi site: hsm2.mobi.

In case you aren't part of the teen set, High School Musical 2, which premiered on US cable a couple of weeks ago, has made instant superstars out of Zac Efron (the teen heartthrob I mentioned in the title of this post) and Vanessa Hudgens. (And they're so cute together that they've become "Zanessa"). The soundtrack the #1 album in the US, and the movie is in the process of premiering all around the globe. If you don't know it yet, you will.

The best part about this site is that it's from Disney. That Disney. That mobile operator Disney. I knew we'd eventually see .mobi sites from Disney, but I'm thrilled that it's this soon and tied to one of their biggest properties of the moment.

From a technical perspective ...

.Mobi Advisory Group [MAG] - Get Involved

Dev.mobi  gets a frequent mention on this blog and I wanted to draw attention to another .mobi industry group which is rapidly gaining pace and doing great work to help build the .mobi ecosystem - the .mobi Advisory Group [MAG] .

Before I go any further, I should point out that MAG is completely independent of dotMobi - it is self-financing (MAG is a not-for-profit organization), self-organising and it sets its own agenda entirely. However, it is endorsed and accredited by dotMobi and naturally works closely with the dotMobi team.

MAG is a fantastic vehicle for dotMobi to gather feedback from the marketplace on the direction it is taking and any future plans. Members get early access to new products and play an important part in planning and development. Equally, MAG is able to pitch new ideas to dotMobi and suggest different initiatives.

MAG has a wider membership profile than the Developers Forum but like dev.mobi, MAG welcomes those who are passionate about the growth of the mobile internet and the .mobi TLD. Members include dotMobi registrars, companies involved in mobile commerce / content / advertising, web and domain developers, individuals and dotMobi investors. MAG has also reached out to  industry associations such as the CWTA  and  the MMA  to form global alliances.

MAG's various taskforces have been looking at issues such as mobile advertising, browsing, commerce, mobile email, PPC and mobile internet in developing countres. I believe domain compliance is on its agenda for the coming months as is illegal content / mobile web and mobile search.

I would encourage those of you who take an active interest in dotMobi and its activities to get involved in MAG. Further information on how to join is available on the MAG web-site.

sex.mobi To Go On Sale, And More

Have you seen the zagat.mobi or AAA.mobi going live this week? Weather.mobi's service is really cool and a testament to a major brand making a decision between m.myname.com (or myname.com/mobile or mobile.myname.com) and myname.mobi.

We are poised to break 700,000 names under management very soon. More significantly, both small and big brands are putting their content live on a daily basis. Check our the showcase page to see examples and case studies. 

Also, have you checked out the mobile site builder which recently went live with Network Solutions' BuildMyMobi.com?  Registrars everywhere are embracing the mobile hosting and content creation opportunity in a big way for the coming year.  Hopefully, your company will not miss out.

More after the jump...

Another day, another cool site ...

zagat.mobi launched today. One of the mobile content categories I've been hoping to see a lot more of -- restaurants  -- is finally here. Even cooler is that they're testing the mobile marketing waters with Visa Signature aboard for an exclusive two-month mobile advertising flight. This will be an interesting case to watch for mobile advertising acceptance since the Zagat information is already well-tailored to a mobile context. And to bring together a couple of trends we've discussed over the past few months, here's a photo of the site on an iPhone:
   

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

Still not convinced that 2007 is "The Year of the Mobile Web"?

Any top-level domain is only as good as the sites that use it.

.mobi is no different. We're a very young domain registry, and we've made amazing progress with the domain uptake. But, like many registries, a large part of our mission is to stimulate the growth of content.

But what adds to dotMobi's responsibility in particular, I think, is an awareness that .mobi sites are, in a way, uniquely representative of a whole new medium: the mobile web.

That's certainly we take that responsibility very seriously. Our developer community, tools, publications and resources are all designed to help grow the mobile web. Over on http://dev.mobi, we service many thousands of signed-up mobile developers and their needs every day, even those that are not (yet! :-) ) running their sites on .mobi domains.

As a result I feel fairly confident that our domain uptake, the numbers of live sites - not to mention the success of the dev.mobi community itself - are valuable barometers for the sector as a whole.

So I thought I'd share some interesting statistics with you.

Just one of the things that we measure here at dotMobi is how .mobi sites are being picked up by search engines. That (at least in relative terms) shows us how fast content is going live, and how actively search providers' crawlers are indexing it.

You can tracking page index size on Google quite easily. The trick is the "site:" syntax, and the fact that the approximate number of matching pages is shown in the top right hand corner of the results. Enter "site:.mobi" into Google and you will see what I mean.

This is presented as a count of pages, not sites or domains. We've been recording this figure regularly for a selection of top-level domains since December. Although I have no way of knowing how accurate they are as absolute figures, they seem to be a fair measure of relative growth.

(Of course they fall sometimes too: presumably the removal of dead or poor sites from the index. But taking a ratcheted monthly peak accounts for that. The highest .mobi result count in July was just over 3 million pages.)

Anyway, normalise to December, plot the percentage growth for each top-level domain, and out comes...

Whoah! Well, I guess we were starting from a fairly low base... our top-level domain was only a few months old then. But nevertheless, the growth curve is astonishing. We have more than ten times as many pages being indexed today than we did back at the start of the year.

As proof of our confidence in this year's growth of the mobile web, and the .mobi domain in particular, this is fabulous.

Of course these figures aren't about us. They're all thanks to the hundreds of thousands of domain holders and site owners out there who are demonstrably living the mobile dream.

These individuals and organisations are already out there, realising the medium's opportunities, overcoming its challenges, and prototyping the future. Basically bootstrapping what is clearly now the web's inevitable evolution.

And, as you can see, they're doing it right now. Are you?

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).