.mobi (also known informally as dotMobi) is a top-level domain approved by ICANN on 11 July 2005 and managed by the mTLD global registry dedicated to delivering the Internet to mobile devices via the Mobile Web.
It is financially backed and sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Ericsson, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Telefonica Moviles, Telecom Italia Mobile, Orascom Telecom, GSM Association, Hutchison Whampoa, Syniverse Technologies, and Visa, with an executive from each company having a seat on mTLD's board of directors
DotMobi domain names were made available for public registration on September 26, 2006.
Although introduced quite recently, .mobi has already made headlines with several domain sales in the hundred-thousand-dollar range, including Flowers.mobi, Sportsbook.mobi, and Fun.mobi, possibly indicating the confidence developers have in this young extension.
It has also had its share of criticism due to allegedly breaking the principles of device independence.
Providing content tailored to particular devices can be done by other means than a specific TLD, such as using hostnames within an existing domain, content negotiation through the HTTP protocol, cascading style sheets or other forms of adaptation.
Additionally, some have pointed out that "mobi" is an unfortunate choice for mobile phone text entry interfaces, requiring nine or ten keystrokes in many common setups, compared to seven for "com", or what could have only been three if "wap" was used.
However, there is a possibility that mobile phone manufacturers may in the future default their mobile internet browsers to .mobi or that predictive-text input features will reduce this to one keystroke, either of which would effectively eliminate this issue.
dotMobi engaged with the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) to help formulate the MWI Best Practices for mobile content.
The practices outlined a number of ways to achieve good user experiences on mobile Web-enabled devices, and recognized several methods of implementing these practices.
mTLD has released a free testing tool called Ready.mobi to analyze the mobile readiness of websites.
It does a free page analysis and gives a .mobi Ready score from 1 to 5.
This report tests the mobile-readiness of the site using dotMobi's recommended best practices.
Free authoring tools can also be utilized to create mobi-compatible sites.
Site.mobi, offered by mTLD and powered by mobiSiteGalore, is a free browser-based mobile website builder tool that guarantees a fully .mobi-compliant mobile website. mTLD also offers free training and ebooks about .mobi at mobiForge.com and a free emulator to view mobile webpages on a PC.
On February 12, 2008, dotMobi launched a low cost device database to help web developers build sites able to dynamically adapt presentation of a web site for the specific device that is being used by the user.
Called DeviceAtlas, it can be accessed via a web GUI (for browsing and editing device attribute) or via an API (written in .NET, PHP, and Perl) to perform device detection and return device attributes such as screen dimension for subsequent content adaptation.
The web GUI is free while an annual fee is charged for the API (dotMobi claims that they are charging for the API on a break even basis).
Data for the DeviceAtlas database comes from several sources including handset manufacturers, operator handset testing teams, content trans-coding companies, mobile testing companies, public domain databases, and the public via the web GUI.
Data from multiple sources are merged together but the source is always maintained.
Conflicts in data from multiple sources are highlighted such that owners of the data are able to spot potential errors and provide corrections.
The DeviceAtlas community approach was designed to provide all web site owners with access to low cost device data while at the same time provide a quality assurance platform for those that provide mobile phone design and test data.
DeviceAtlas attributes were based upon the output of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative Device Descriptions Working Group.
There are technical solutions that also provide similar benefits as .mobi: compressing/downsampling proxy servers and microbrowsers, like Opera Mobile, which can tailor any website to small display (using Small Screen Rendering technique).
However, these browsers must still download an entire page (with graphics and other related files) which, if not optimized for mobile phones, can be time-consuming and expensive to download.
To improve the latter issue, the two adaptation techniques can be used together.
This is the idea behind proxy-based microbrowsers like Opera Mini that download the optimized and compressed version of web pages through dedicated proxy servers.
However, web pages viewed on a mobile via a proxy-based microbrowser are rarely specifically designed for a mobile phone, so it is left up to the proxy server and browser to decide what to compress, what to display, and how to display it, which, unlike the .mobi version of the site, may not necessarily be how the web page owner intends for the mobile audience.
There are also specialized content adaptation solutions, that typically operate on a server, where they employ specialized adaptation techniques to provide optimized representations of Web sites to mobile devices regardless of what browser they use.
However, .mobi eliminates the intermediary step of having to adapt content for mobile phone as the sites are specifically designed for viewing on a mobile phone.
The W3C is also developing new authoring languages, such as DIAL (the Device Independent Authoring Language), which aid authors in creating Web sites that can be used on the huge variety of mobile devices available today.
Some adaptation solutions already support the use of DIAL and similar languages in creating sites that can be used with .mobi domain names. Other open source initiatives include WURFL which addresses the problem with a large database of browser identification strings.
The .mobi organization does not itself mandate any particular technology, but does require that .mobi sites produce user experiences consistent with their guidelines and specifically optimized for mobile phones.
Register and transfer .mobi domain names for less. Get low prices, free services, discounted deals with every .mobi domain name purchase.
.mobi, mobi domain name, buy .mobi, .mobi registration, .mobi register, mobi domain name registration, buy .mobi domain name, transfer .mobi domain name
|
