ICANN approves .mobi

[namewaiter]

they will all just help to make .com stand apart and above that much more

 

[dotDan]

If cellphones automatically appended .mobi, then we'd have business.

IE, someone types 'example.com' in a cellphone, they go to 'example.com'. They type 'example' and they go to 'example.mobi'. It would be great until squatters caught on.

 

[MediaHound]

cough short codes cough

 

[tjrie]

The sunrise for 'industry' just ended last week and the sunrise for 'trademark holders' just began yesterday. However, someone has nabbed some of the most desireable non-industry and non-trademark domains eg: restaurants.mobi and movies.mobi. You can view the parked www.restaurants.mobi right now, it's parked at eurodns.com.

 

[Spydey]

so exactly what time will open registration begin? does it depend on a specific time zone? just curious..

 

[Beachie]

The World Wide Web did not exist 15 years ago.

Technically it did - CERN (specifically Tim Berners-Lee) developed the first browser (called "WorldWideWeb") in 1990:
http://www.w3.org/History/1994/WWW/Journals/CACM/screensnap2_24c.gif
Although Mosaic wasn't released until 93.

.mobi sites will probably be optimized for mobile phone UI.

You think they'd have chosen a shorter extension so I don't have to hit the 4 key three times to get that extra 'i'. Oh, the irony..

Anyhoo, wouldn't it be easier to simply serve optimized mobile sites on a different port, so you can type ebay.com into your home PC or your mobile and see a functional site? They've been doing that for years with WAP.

 

[Dale Hubbard]

Yeah. They could have negotiated the .mm extension from the Myanmar junta, and called it "mobile media" or something. Two keypresses.

 

[LizzeyDripping]

So people here think this one's a non-starter? I have to say it looks like a bit of a cul de sac to me as well.

Fascinating reading from the US contingent though - it had never occurred to me that people refer to their mobile as a "cell" or whatever and that "mobile" or "call me on the mobi" isn't common use everywhere - insular little Brit that I am! One more thing to mention to my clients when I tell them I don't think it is worth lashing out the big bucks on .mobi sunrise registrations, then.

BUT - anyone got any reasons why they think .mobi is a GOOD idea? Always nice to get a balanced view....

 

[Dale Hubbard]

IMHO, '.mobi' will not fly except for the main players grabbing their TMs. It certainly is a cul-de-sac -- like .museum etc. We already have "mobile", "cell" and "handy" (UK, USA Germany) plus whatever terms of endearment are coined in other countries. This extension; again IMHO, is a waste of time. '.mw' for mobile web is only 2 presses on a mobile. 'mobi' is NINE. (Non-predictive also.)

 

[Bill Roy]

It seems the 'powers that be' have lost touch with the real world, everybody says make it short so they (seemingly) pig-headily go for a 4 character suffix. Oh yes we must remember these are the industry 'experts'!