dotMobi

Premium Name Compliance - Update

It has been a while since we last wrote about our Premium Name Compliance Program, and some folks have been wondering about those domains that had a development deadline of 10 January  2009 ...

Overall, we are very pleased with the results; the needle has definitely moved in the right direction since we embarked on this Compliance Program. We have been impressed by the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of many domain holders. It has been a complex process wading through domain transfers, dealing with language difficulties and various scenarios but the level of cooperation that we have seen has been encouraging and much appreciated.

This is the first time that any Registry has attempted to enforce content in such a way, and it has been a learning lesson for all. We are now taking additional measures against the small percentage of registrants who have not complied with the Auction Agreement. Our registrars have also been busy updating their .mobi Registration End User Agreements to further enable dotMobi to take back a domain where necessary.

Meanwhile, work is well underway on the "Batch 2" names that have a development deadline of 20 May 2009, and we are about to commence our checks on the "Batch 3" names (those names that were part of the dotMobi / Sedo auction which took place in November 2008.) The message here is: don't delay. Do what you can at this stage to avoid any last minute panic.

There are plenty of tools and resources available to build out sites efficiently and effectively, all of which are listed on our Premium Name Compliance page. Another quick way to comply is to use our new Instant Mobilizer, which will automatically pull content from a desktop Web site URL and convert it to a mobile-compliant site that works on any mobile phone, on any network. As always, we are here to help and any queries may be directed to compliance@dotmobi.mobi.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our Premium Name registrants for their efforts.

Thumbs Up to the Nevada Commision on Tourism

Way back when, one of the first showcase sites dotMobi had to show people was for Las Vegas.

Now, Nevada is showing it still cares about .mobi. The Nevada Commission on Tourism owns and operates sites at http://nvroads.mobi and http://nvski.mobi. Not only did the Commission use dotMobi best practices when creating the sites, they've actually spent time and money promoting the sites.

Along with strongly featuring .mobi on their PC Web site (including education -- and a video -- on .mobi sites) and geo-targeted banner advertising on http://weather.mobi, the Commission has produced 3"x5" cards that are distributed at ski and sport shops. Here's a sample of the cards:

 
But my favorite thing? The Commission has put up NVski.mobi billboards on major highways ...

... Cool, huh?

Trends we're seeing for the mobile Internet industry

As the dotMobi team prepares to set off on a suite of industry events over the next six weeks -- from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, to ICANN in Mexico and CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas -- we've been discussing trends we're seeing for the mobile Internet industry in the year ahead.

While our developer and domain initiatives have stimulated mobile content deployment with more than one million registered .mobi names, we expect smaller businesses to lead the growth of the mobile Web as development costs decrease and more consumers become aware of the possibilities of their mobile phones.

Thanks to sophisticated -- yet simple to use -- development tools and the growth of mobile Web-friendly phones, we think smaller businesses will look to mobile as an effective, affordable channel for marketing their goods and services.

New, low-cost tools and services designed for the small-to-medium business (SMB) market will mean more SMBs will promote their products and services to the rapidly emerging "mobile Internet consumer."

We're so sure about SMBs taking advantage of the mobile Web that we've just put together a new, free eBook for SMBs on using mobile for marketing, called -- pretty straightforwardly, I say -- "Marketing Your Small Business on the Mobile Web."