Companies that can’t get hands on short .mobi domains are unlikely to use the extension.
At least once a month I get an e-mail or advertisement from a company I patronize informing me that they now have a mobile web site. This bodes well for the mobile web. Unfortunately, very few of these companies are using .mobi.
For example, there’s American Airlines (NYSE: AMR), which is using its standard AA.com address and redirecting it to a mobile site. It owns AmericanAirlines.mobi, but that takes a long time to type on a mobile phone (Blackberry or not), so it opted for the shorter, six keystroke domain aa.com.
Last week there was a notice on my American Express (NYSE: AXP) bill for American Express’ new mobile site, AmexMobile.com. Amex.mobi is owned by another company, and AmericanExpress.mobi is really long, which is probably why the company settled on a somewhat shorter .com domain name.
When it comes to .mobi, short URLs are even more important than with .com. If big companies can’t get their hands on these it will hurt .mobi in the long run.
I think you are a little confused and are only considering baby boomers as users when you say people won’t type in longer names. The facts are 1) you only have to type it once and then you can bookmark it 2) millenials and tweens are the future of mobile and these age groups have no problem sending an average of 7 texts per day each with an average of 10 words per text. If they don’t have a problem texting then they won’t have a problem entering a 10-12 character 2 word domain name.
I disagree, actually. It is significantly easier to type in a two or three word .mobi than similar names in .com if you have to add m. in front of it or /mobile or /wap after it.
@ Holly – with these other domains, such as AA.com, you don’t have to type in m. or /mobile or whatever, it automatically forwards you to the mobile site when it detects your phone.
As I’ve said before…I’m loaded with .mobi and praying for success of the extension.Many of mine are short.
Me, too, I’ve invested in some .mobi names. It’s painful to read so frequently how doomed the .mobi domains are. I hope those predictions are incorrect.
I am a well-known ecommerce recruiter, and my clients are (literally) among the most powerful decision makers in the north american online retailing space.
As the owner of SalesJobs.mobi, MarketingJobs.mobi, and ExecutiveSearch.mobi, I have a vested interest in the success of the .mobi TLD.
However, almost NONE of my bigname clients intend to use it because in several cases, domain speculators bought their .mobi brand names and want an armload of money to part with them. More importantly, the technology exists to cookie a user’s browser and serve up the proper interface — without the user having to specify the TLD.
Mobile is the wave of the future, but I’m not convinced that .mobi will be much of a factor.
Well, I’m not an extortionist, I’m just looking for a reasonable return on my investment. It’s too bad that some domainers charge outrageous prices for domains names.
Although it is possible to switch a user coming from a mobile device automatically to a mobi-designed page, hybrids are never a good solution. Equally URLs requiring symbols such as / are more difficult to type on a mobile device than longer names. Therefore a dedicated mobi extension IS the answer. However content compliance policy should be enforced (with leeway for those that can demonstrate that they are working on it) and high traffic premium domains should be released also. If they were in the market and had appropriate content, it would greatly enhance usefulness and acceptance of the mobi domain. I see no benefit in the registrar hoarding them.
Every CEO with a brain and/or a golden salary with platinum handshake in its contract should protect its brand name(s) and take care of the company profile. For companies like GE, HP and AA there is the problem of the min 3 chars for a mobi domain. Amex missing out on Amex.mobi is an example of a nobrainer. Try VISA.mobi. Customers like short names to remember. Amexmobile.mobi… The CEO should be sacked and get a job in Germany as a second hand car exporter!