Short .mobi domains are “free”, if you develop them.
As Domain Name Wire reported in November, dotMobi has the green light to allocate one and two character .mobi domain names. The company explained the process for acquiring these domain names on its blog over the weekend.
First, you’ll need to complete a very short form to express your interest. This form requires basic contact information and a short description of what you want to do with the domain name (and how you’ll promote it).
If dotMobi likes what it sees, you’ll have the opportunity to make a formal proposal. There’s a $500 processing fee when you submit the proposal.
There’s no definitive timeline for allocating one and two character .mobi domain names. dotMobi can allocate one as soon as it receives a proposal it deems adequate.
Keep in mind that dotMobi cannot release any two character domain names that are identical to a country code domain. That includes tv.mobi, bj.mobi, bs.mobi, in.mobi, my.mobi, no.mobi, to.mobi, us.mobi, and a couple hundred others.
Hopefully dotMobi is reaching out to companies such as American Airlines (NYSE: AMR) to convince them to use AA.mobi.
Maybe dotMobi should have tried this earlier on. Mobi doesn’t seem to have gained much traction with popular useage. As an example, even though GoDaddy’s TDNAM aftermarket auctions are mobile accessible through TDNAM.mobi, this immediately forwards to TDNAMmobile.com. Ebay doesn’t use a dot mobi for it’s mobile accessible auctions. You have to enter m.ebay.com. So there’s no consistency in accessing mobile friendly pages. I have a feeling many of the corporations dotMobi might be hoping to attract will simply forward to a mobile page from their dot com.
They could’nt do this when I was top heavy with .mobi domains? Thanx for nothing.
Guys – they couldn’t do it earlier because they needed ICANN’s approval.
I’m really excited about this. I just submitted my proposal for one. Thanks for the headsup, Andrew.