Airline chooses .com over .mobi.
The world’s largest airline has launched its mobile web site and opted to use .com instead of .mobi.
The new mobile web site for American Airlines (NYSE: AMR) lets customers check in for flights via their mobile phones, buy upgrades, change flight times, buy upgrades and check frequent flyer balances.
The company likely stuck to .com for a couple reasons:
1. People know it. I think most people would still be confused if they were advertised a site with a .mobi ending. Here’s a test: ask 3 friends who use the internet but aren’t in the domain industry what ‘.mobi’ is.
2. The company has a killer .com domain: AA.com. Why make someone type AmericanAirlines.mobi when you can simply type aa.com? Every keystroke on a cell phone is a pain.
In a further blow to .mobi, the company currently doesn’t forward its AmericanAirlines.mobi domain to AA.com. Ouch.
Above: American Airlines chooses .com over .mobi for mobile site.
Great !
No one needs .mobi
Not worth investing a single dollar there.
The extension will fade away when the .mobi bubble bursts.
Expect it to happen in a year or two, maybe even sooner…
No surprises here. The technology to convert websites to mobile is a done deal, in my opinion, rendering 99% of my .mobi domains useless.
I still think that there are some .mobi domains that have opportunity if branded correctly.
For example, StyleTip.mobi could be a “members only” (registered)site, that gives users a choice of stores to “connect” to. The stores set up local wifi or Bluetooth to enable them to send style tips or coupons while shopping in their store.
The users decide who gets access to their mobile device, and the site shares targeted demographics back to the stores.
Meanwhile, other shoppers are noticing the shoppers with the mobile coupons and it is viral marketing at it’s best.
Of course each individual store could set this concept up on it’s own, but imagine the power of a unified network.
In this case, the domain’s “.mobi” brands it as an exclusive mobile service. In other words, we may need to get very creative with our .mobi portfolio….
What’s .mobi? 🙂
I suspect they may have gone with .mobi had they been able to get AA.mobi. AA.com (quite a superb domain) would be much preferable to AmericanAirlines.anything. So not really a blow to .mobi. Just a logical decision dictated by having a great dotcom.
@ M. Menius – I think mtld should call up American Airlines and offer them AA.mobi for free, if they promote it.
@ Andrew – That is reasonable. Would not surprise me to see mtld go with that on pure publicity benefit.
@ Andrew – My guess is that even for free, they wouldn’t want it !
I’d bet my house that even if mtld paid AA to promote AA.mobi, that would still be a huge NO.
I can hear them : Dot what ???
Oh no! .mobi is doooooomed!!!
American Airlines chose AA.com over AmericanAirlines.mobi. What are they thinking man? Seb is spot on! No one needs .mobi! It’s as worthless as all the other extensions other than .com…like .tv, .net, .org, .co.uk, .in, .info, .de. The trend is just to use .com for everything! Look at non-profit organizations…They either use org.DOMAINHERE.com or just simply DOMAINHERE.com because everyone will know when they see the .com on the end that it is a non-profit organization and not another commercial site! Just like how back in the day old skool domainers used to say, stay away from ccTLD’s because at the end of the day, companies in the UK can simply use uk.DOMAINHERE.com or just DOMAINHERE.com and people will know when they see the .com on the end that the website they are visiting is made for people in the UK! If they use .co.uk, they are STUPID because they will be losing traffic the the .com (DUH), so that rules that extension out! Similar with .de and .in, because they have no use in the USA! (LMAO) And .tv is worthless too because we can just use tv.DOMAINHERE.com or just simply DOMAINHERE.com or even DOMAINHERETV.com! We only need one race of domain name with NO ethnic cleansing of other extensions…FACT! and I quote a member from DNF, “keep our industry strong and pure”. It’s ALL good and peaceful baby…YEAH! So with .mobi it’s just use mobile.DOMAINHERE.com, m.DOMAINHERE.com or just DOMAINHERE.com because when people see the .com on the end they know that site is designed for people on the go! Just like they know it’s a UK site, just like they know it’s a non-profit, just like they know it’s a German, etc. .mobi domains are worthless pieces of junk….FACT! Seb is 100% right…he has a great open minded brain, just like many other domainer kings who know it all!!! If people are on the go they don’t even want sites designed for their MOBILE (CELLULARARY PHONE) they want PC sites God Damn It! That’s why we have the iPhone!!! AA.com should have just left their site “strong & pure” PC site, WHAT are they thinking??? Mobile sites are NOT the future! The future is the iPhone! BUT hold on a sec let’s think about this question…Are mobile sites THE SAME as PC sites? hmm…nope! (They are made more MOBILE users). Are .co.uk sites the same as .com sites? hmm…nope! (They are made for UK users). Are .org sites the same as .com sites? hmm…nope! (They are mostly used by non-profit organizations who have a more open mind then the majority of the .com croud). But hey….I DON’T LIKE LIKE .MOBI, SEB DOESN’T LIKE .MOBI, FRANK DOESN’T LIKE .MOBI, SO YOU KNOW WHAT….IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN! It’s going down the drain like .NAME! We know this FOR 100% SURE, that’s why we go around saying spreading our ‘love’ for .mobi! We have seen the future and it’s all doom and gloom! We know it all! MAN…I AM SO CLEVER I MIGHT HAVE TO GO LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND TELL MYSELF I’M GREAT!
Wake up mobi corp! you have to give up some of those 2 letter addresses so the big guys can actually use you. Hp ring a bell? Hard to believe mobi corp didn’t think of this a year ago. What better way to promote the cause. Give up a few addresses that rep global corps. No brainer. You couldn’t pay for that kind of advertising, Cmon guys what’s up!!! I just hope the others don’t follow aa.
AA.mobi sounds cool! Someone give dotMobi a call!
I feel sorry for you James as it seems you have put a lot of your savings on .mobi names, thinking it would be the new eldorado.
Technically, it just takes two ligns of code to detect and redirect a cellphone visitor to a lighter version of an actual PC site.
But that’s no really needed as mobile browsers like Safari have shown the way and in terms of data transfer, mobile networks are getting faster and faster…
‘One’ company, who incidently has one of the best domain names to begin with, puts a browser detect on their current site, and the .mobi haters call it a ‘new mobile site’ and an ‘automatic death sentence’ for an extension. Yes, ‘please’ shower us with more ‘definitive’ insights and foreseeable enlightenments. (..as if.)
Technically, it takes two lines of code to detect and redirect UK visitors to a UK version of and actual .com site!
But that’s not really needed because the domain extension .co.uk is one of the most successful domain extensions and in terms of feeling sorry for me….I am LMAO!
You act like you know who I am, what age I am, what I do for a living…when in fact you have no idea!
In occurs to me that the best thing about .mobi … is listening to what few supporters it has left … inexplicably (yet quite vociferously) try to defend an extension … which is indefensible
Best to bail out while you still can …
Ooops! Sorry; too late. 😉
@ Steve M – Just visited your link. Inexplicable, Steve, is your opinion:
“don’t even think about using .net, .org, .us, .biz, .info, .mobi, .ca, .cc, .eu, .co.uk., or any other URL extension for your Internet address–no matter which country/ies or region’s you operate in or from”
Of course, great “cash monster” .com’s are listed there like VibratingShoes.com for 25k or WeeklyStoreAd.com for 25k. Maybe you should re-evaluate you dotcom or die philosophy. “Bail out while you still can” might be your own next best move.
MM: Only exception I make is for businesses using the country code (and not .asia type faux gold) in the countries they’re currently; or may in the future; operate in.
Sedo just revealed in their latest newsletter that they paid $80k for Sedo.com a few years ago…even though they already had the extensions in all the countries they were then operating in.
Why would such an already widely known in the industry company pay so much for the .com version?
Because they knew they wouldn’t have the same US and international presence company without it…to say nothing of all the “assumptive type-in” traffic they would have lost to the Sedo.com owner.
As for the values of my own names, of the few I can tell you about due to NDAs, I just sold (you’ll see it in next week’s DN Journal sales report) one which most of the industry would have valued at something less than 1k…Healthify.com.
Went for $15,000 to a company thankful to have it at that price.
And to think…the company that bought it cared so little about any of the other many extensions which are (and remain–new reg buyers should hurry) available…that they didn’t even bother to pay $7+ each for them…
…and Rick recently sold iReport.com to CNN for $750,000. How much do you suppose CNN’d pay for iReport.net, org, biz, or any of the other extension; if they’d pay anything for them.
You just can’t make this stuff up…like English in business…the language of the Internet is Dotcom.
But please feel free to buy as many of the not.com extensions of my for sale portfolio that you can find…so I can thank you for all the additional PPC income you’ll drive to my .coms. 😉
“Sedo just revealed in their latest newsletter that they paid $80k for Sedo.com a few years ago…even though they already had the extensions in all the countries they were then operating in.”
What do you expect, Steve? Their business is to SELL .COM and all the other domain extenions! LOL
You seem to think that it’s only .com that gets all the traffic driven to it…when in fact on many cases it is the successful .com site that drives traffic to other extenions, such as .co.uk, .de, etc. Can you imagine how much traffic YouTube.co.uk and YouTube.de gets now that YouTube.com is so huge? 😉
So you could say that it is a MUST for .com owners to buy up as many other successful domain extensions as possible so that THEY don’t lose traffic!!!
BTW > Sedo.mobi is up and running. Looks like they’ll be running their future MOBILE site on that domain. Makes sense considering that they use Sedo.co.uk, Sedo.de, etc. to target the correct markets, the UK and Germany. In fact I’d say that the main reason they use Sedo.com is to target the USA but that’s another story. Now they’re using Sedo.mobi to target MOBILE users…unbelievable, isn’t it? 😉
James…funny guy, you. 🙂
Psssst! Don’t tell anyone, but you and MM have convinced me of the error of my ways…which is why I’m s-e-c-r-e-t-l-y snapping up…just as many LLLL.mobi’s as I can get my hands on…
…arg, maties…are ye with me? 😉
Just one thing, American Airlines retrieved americanairlines.mobi via National Arbitration Forum (American Airlines, Inc. v. Michael Nakhleh, http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/1063459.htm)
@ Domisfera – good find. But it still didn’t justify them using it when they could just use aa.com.
Hi — I saw this mentioned on http://www.SubliminalMessages.Com and wanted to contibute my measly $0.02.
Newsflash! AA is the not the first company to do this. Google has been able to make the distinction between a desktop and a cell phone for quite a while. Try it from a cell and you will see that it pulls up a leaner meaner Google Lite.
Remember when sites used to ask if you were using “56K or high bandwidth?” and you had to pick one? Apparently, one day, someone invented a sniffer that autodetected it for you.
Same thing going on here. If websites have the ability to distinguish between desktop and mobile, who da heck is ever need a .MOBI website?
In my opinion, anything not .COM will be a bust.
I think it would be great if American Airlines could acquire and utilize aa.mobi. However per mTLDs registry agreement with ICANN it is a dotMobi Reserved Name and thus is not currently available for general registration or acquisition by any organization, whether that be American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Alcoholics Anonymous, Airfare Assistant, etc.
There are a bunch of different mobile addressing nomenclatures out in the wild right now—and not one has emerged as a trusted standard (except .mobi) that anyone anywhere knows for certain will work on their mobile device on the network they are utilizing in their country. Dot com sites are simply not trustworthy to work on all devices, and then even if browser or device detection is used—not trustworthy to present information in a mobile context that invites repeat visits. If American Airlines chooses to market aa.com for their mobile audience that’s their decision. I think they would be wise to get all the traffic they can by utilizing their existing .mobi name assets and thinking of other ways to reach mobile consumers.
dotMobi continues to work extensively with major brands. In fact, competitors to American Airlines such as KLM (klm.mobi); Spanair (spanair.mobi); Virgin Atlantic (lovefromabove.mobi); Lufthansa (lufthansa.mobi) and Aer Lingus (aerlingus.mobi) have decided to utilize .mobi sites for specific passenger-friendly tasks and outright promotion.
@ Pinky – here’s the problem. You say:
“There are a bunch of different mobile addressing nomenclatures out in the wild right now—and not one has emerged as a trusted standard (except .mobi) that anyone anywhere knows for certain will work on their mobile device on the network they are utilizing in their country.”
Although it’s true that a .mobi will work on my phone, I don’t know “for certain” that when I type in a .mobi it will work. For example, if I type in CNN.mobi it doesn’t resolve, despite the fact that CNN owns it. So until I can have reasonable certainty that .mobis will resolve to what I think they will, I wouldn’t call it a standard.