Posted by ricferraro 4 years 2 weeks ago
The battle between m.dot and dot.mobi is heating up. I have had close contact with the dot.mobi consortium recently and witnessed their efforts to push their domain as the 'gold standard'.
I am noticing 2 things: there seems to be a decoupling of usage between Europe and the US, with the big guns (Yahoo, Facebook etc.) adopting the m. domain and the European operators (Orange etc.) opting instead for dot.mobi.
Also, dot.mobi is struggling to communicate its added value, namely that it has defined (and offers as a framework) a set of development standards to improve the user experience of web on mobile.
At the same time as a gold rush is taking place to acquire the popular dot.mobi sites (witness the many online auctions), the key issue of enhancing the user experience of web on mobile is taking a back seat. Pity, as dot.mobi would have gone a long way in widening the appeal and useability of mobile web.
Posted by jsybalsky 3 years ago
Okay forgive me for being new to this. I live in the US and just purchased some .mobi domain names for some of my websites I thought would benefit from being mobile friendly. I thought .mobi was for mobile. So I am lost with m.domain.com. Is the , a sub domain? Or this something that is being registered as a domain name?
Thank you advance for helping me understand.
Posted by ruadhan 3 years ago
Mobile Champion
Hi,
A .mobi domain is indeed for mobile - you aren't mistaken in this. However, it is also possible to publish a mobile site without a dotmobi domain. This is where m.domain.com or domain.com/m, or wap.domain.com, or domain.com/mobile or domain.com/wap etc. comes in. One of the problems with this is how do you know which of the URLs I just mentioned to try on your mobile device. Maybe one of them will work, or maybe none. When you are out and about with a mobile device you don't want to be trying to guess the URL of the mobile content that you require - there are time and monetary costs associated with this kind of guesswork. This lack of a common universal scheme for accessing a mobile site is one of the issues that having a dotmobi domain solves - you know exactly where to go for your mobile content with a dotmobi domain.
dotMobi also helps in that when you visit a dotMobi site, not only do you know that the mobile context has been considered (since it is on a .mobi domain), but you also know that the site is going to work on your mobile device. dotMobi domains must follow 3 mandatory rules which ensure that your site is accessible on most mobile devices. There are also a number of best practices that we recommend to provide your visitors with a better user experience.
To test how your site is doing, you can use our test tool at http://ready.mobi - it tests the mandatory rules, as well as the best practices.
Ruadhan
Ruadhan O'DonoghuedotMobi
Posted by Sarah Keefe at Bango (not verified) 3 years ago
Agree that we are starting to see a US/Europe divide with the US opting for the m.brandname.com convention and Europe going for brandname.mobi. Given the option of entering m.thesun.co.uk or thesun.mobi into their phone browser, you can see why .mobi makes practical sense.
The survey yesterday from dotMobi and AKQA Mobile showing a strong consumer demand for services on the mobile web raises an important question - if over 50% of respondents don't realize mobile-ready websites exist (according to the survey), is promoting a .mobi going to confuse them even more?
The question is with limited space on TV or print ads, would you promote both your .com address and your .mobi alongside other details such as a phone number for people to call? In an ideal world, your .com site would detect mobile users and present the mobile optimized website. But we don't live in an ideal world so brands must grapple with what makes most sense for the consumer. AKQA has done a great job in bringing mobile into the mainstream marketing plans of its clients and recommend their clients promote the .mobi. News International sites - The Times and The Sun - also promote the .mobi address.
Sarah Keefe, VP Marketing at Bango