The Significance Of The New .mobi Domain Suffix

by David Ajao
2005-09-16 00:00:00 | Viewed 7019 times

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved the new .mobi domain suffix for websites that are built specifically for mobile phones and devices.

This write-up seeks to look at the significance of this, to the mobile Internet.

Hitherto, an average phone user could not distinguish which addresses lead to cut-down version websites, that could be displayed perfectly on the tiny screen of a mobile phone. Thus, such websites received very low patronage and the concept of WAP pages never caught on so well.

According to one of those touting the .mobi domain, the GSM Association, there are 1.8 billion mobile users in the world but only 12 to 14 percent have ever used the Web from their phones.

WAP is abbreviation for Wireless Application Protocol, and has been around for some time now. It basically is a protocol that allows very information to be displayed on mobile phone screens, and is usually very short and to the point. Popular applications include: Traffic Reports, Horoscope, Match Making, News Headlines, Flight schedules and more.

Today, WAP has evolved into WAP version 2 (WAP 2.0) and allows the display of more text, tiny images and colour. Pages that use this protocol are usually coded in XHTML.

Very popular websites currently have WAP versions of their websites, specifically for mobiles. For example, typing http://google.com would automatically re-direct the user to either http://wap.google.com or http://google.com/xhtml depending on what version of WAP the mobile phone has.

Other websites have addresses like http://wap.mobileafrica.net, http://wap.esato.com, http://mobile.yahoo.com that lead directly to cut-down version of their main websites.

The new introduction of the .mobi domain suffix, eliminates the 'confusion' that has hitherto existed, as web addresses ending with .mobi are essentially for mobiles and this would increase the popularity of WAP sites amongst average mobile phone users.

Indeed, this is a right step in the right direction.

David Ajao writes from Accra, Ghana.

Lastest Comments

.mobi solves problems ..mostly
2007-02-16 14:06:02
"I have to agree in part, to all of these posts. As with everything in life, there are always Pros and Cons. .mobi offers 2 primary benefits from my point of view: 1. When a user is told to go to site.mobi , he KNOWS for a fact that he will be able to browse this site on his mobile phone. 2. Google spiders (and others) can index site.mobi with 100% assurance that the content it is indexing will display correctly on a mobile phone. Previously both humans and spiders were not able to know these 2 things with surety. Making .mobi available solves them. As for the problems raised, they are all valid, but not new to us. site.net has always hated the owners of site.com , and visa-versa. Now .mobi is added to the mix! :) Another consideration: IS all content on the .mobi domains going to be monitored to ensure it is "mobile friendly"? So says ICANN. I hope this is enforced, because if it is not, the above benefits fall to pieces. To concluded, Mobile web is growing at a steady and rapid rate. It has to potential to reach more people than PC web, and is fast heading in the right direction. The key is education! Show your family, friends and everyone you can how to use mobile web, and as the market grows, so we all benefit. All the best John Gore South Africa"
John Gore from South Africa

Expectations
2006-12-08 23:10:37
"Average users have little knowledge and/or awareness regarding the function and existence of a mobile version of Web sites. Traditionally developers have thus far used platform/browser detection to redirect users to the mobile friendly of their site, and where that address ultimately lies is not clear. wap.example.com, mobile.example.com, example.com/mobile. Even more importantly is user expectation. What if I don't know if example.com has a mobile version of their web site? Am I going to risk chewing up half my month's allotment of bandwidth to load the main page if they don't have a mobile version? The .mobi domain eliminates ambiguity and comes with a level of expectation that you will find a mobile web site at example.mobi. Domains were given preference in regards to trademarks so the 'who gets example.com point it moot given the fact that domain allotment has always been first come first serve, with the exception of the first TLDs. Can't get your .mobi domain to match, use mobi.example.com. I expect to find a mobile version of yahoo.com, I don't know what to expect when I type mymediumsite.com . DIWG argues that web fragmentation is a potential result and I would beg to differ. .mobi sites can redirect PC clients to standard html sites. In terms of the developer…only an unskilled developer would develop two different sites. Keep content, logic and presentation separate and your work will be no more than needed to develop wap.example.com. This is about user expectation and consistency...and I think raising that bar is a step forward in making WAP a success. "
Peter Mancuso from Toronto, Canada

Relevance of .mobi domains
2006-08-28 22:35:17
"Mr Adegboye, you seem to be implying that the new .mobi domains would bring more problems than solutions (if any solutions at all). Well, your line of argument is based on theory. A theory which is true. The reality however is that, not every website would have a WAP version, or even need one.
I know that it is sensible to have a wap version of any content-rich website, but how many other webmasters know?
Today, there are far less WAP sites than there are websites. So, since you are lucky to be amongst the enlightened, I'd simply advise that you grab any .mobi of your choice now that there is still time to do so.

NB: I've seen a notice that domainstandard.com is for sale"
David Ajao from Accra - Ghana

Confusion Cometh; Surely
2006-08-28 02:36:16
"Fine answer there about webmasters pointing the .mobi domains to the mobile CSS versions of their sites. Now comes where the confusion starts: One person gets domainstandard.mobi, and visitors to the other domainstandard.bla sites have to try to memorise and remember domainstandard-ng.mobi for domainstandard.net; domainstandard-uk.mobi for domainstandard.org; domainstandard-me.mobi for domainstandard.name, etc etc. Even you would have a had time keeping up with those ;-) Apparently, that ICANN rule is a skewed one in favour of the big guys like Yahoo, Google, Amazon etc. To all intents and for all practical purposes, it will create more problems than the .mobi brainwave is suppossed to solve. What was wrong with just mobile.yahoo.com or wap.yahoo.com - in which everyone retains their web identity without having to clash with another domain owner?"
Yomi Adegboye from Lagos, Nigeria

Relevance of .mobi domain name
2006-08-27 16:42:24
"Mr Adegboye, I beg to differ.
Nokia.mobi, yahoo.mobi etc is a lot easier for ME to remember.
As for who should register domainstandard.mobi, ICANN's rule is simple. First come, first serve. I guess the other folks would simply have to register modified forms.

A webmaster might not necessarily design something entirely new, just for mobiles. A seperate CSS file could be adequate. So, what stops this webmaster from pointing a .mobi to the mobile CSS version of the website?"
David Ajao from Accra - Ghana

Its Begging The Question
2006-08-27 07:14:23
"I have to disagree with you, Dave. The .mobi suffix will only result in a lot of confusion. It does not and cannot solve the problem of mobile web accessibility. A few issues: 1. Now people have to remember two different domain names for websites - the regular one and the .mobi one, just the way people had to memorise wap.mydomain.com alongside www.mydomain.com. So, what problem has it solved? 2. My business site is www.domainstandard.net. Someone else owns www.domainstandard.com. Yet another person owns www.domainstandard.org. Which one of us gets to register the .mobi version? And what will the losing party use? 3. .mobi will lead to waste and duplication of efforts. The way forward really is for webmasters to stick to design standards and design with mobiles in mind. CSS and other platforms now allow you to code the same website to be accessible on PC and mobiles and format itself to each medium. With .mobi, you edit the main site and also have to edit the mobile site. Unproductive, if you ask me. There is only one web and technology is pointing in the direction of making that one web accessible to whatever device you use. "
Yomi Adegboye from Lagos, Nigeria

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