dotMobi releases new WordPress Mobile Pack. Makes you wonder, why do we need the .mobi TLD?
dotMobi, the registry behind the .mobi top level domain name, released the WordPress Mobile Pack this past week. It’s a plugin for Wordpress users that renders your blog well on mobile screens. There are a number of plugins that do this already (Domain Name Wire uses one), but dotMobi’s has more features. Like similar plugins, this tool will identify that a visitor is on a mobile phone or device and render the web page appropriately.
Doesn’t this beg the question, “if we have tools like this, why do we need .mobi anyway”? Well, yes. All you need is domain.com.
When I first heard about .mobi several years ago I thought it was the one new TLD that made sense. What I didn’t know is that technology would mean that creating both a mobile and standard browsing experience using different domain names didn’t make sense. And I think this plugin admits this.
The plugin will let you forward to a different, mobile friendly URL such as domain.mobi or mobile.domain.com if you want. But that isn’t the point of .mobi. I have domainnamewire.mobi, but it forwards to domainnamewire.com and renders a mobile page using a plugin. There’s really no point to having the .mobi version.
Great Leader says
“What I didn’t know is that technology would mean that creating both a mobile and standard browsing experience using different domain names didn’t make sense.”
What you allege to be the case was equally true two years ago when mobi was introduced, so to follow your logic, you could have done some research then and saved yourself the cost of registering a mobi.
You then say:” And I think this plugin admits this.”
I don’t think the plugin admits anything, except that Wordpress is popular and mobile is increasingly popular.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Great Leader – I figured it out before registering my .mobi, but did it to try it out. It has become more apparent to me since then.
jason says
>this tool will identify that a visitor is on a mobile phone or device and render the web page appropriately.
HTTP headers doing exactly what they’re suppose to do. Any benefits of having a .mobi elude me…
Nameswing Network says
I purchased a few .mobi that I thought were good fits for the extension. GoodBet.mobi, BetHub.mobi, etc…realizing now that it doesn’t make sense like you say.
However, I’m wondering why dotmobi would introduce tools to eliminate the need to register the TLD.
Great Leader says
The only benefits of having a .mobi are that users can assume there is mobile ready content at that address, and your mobile ready content will be given preferential treatment by search engines.
If you thought mobi domains came with inbuilt device detection, well, you didn’t read the product label.
Andrew Allemann says
Great Leader – I don’t think anyone thought that. But the point is you should be able to go to a .com and be served the mobile version of a web site because the web site set it up that way. There’s no need to go to .mobi.
Great Leader says
There is equally no need to go to the .com – content can be served on any domain. So we can equally say there is no need for .com.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Great Leader – right, except we’re all programed to go there. We aren’t programmed to go to any other domain.
Gerry says
God, I hope they tech heads hurry up with technology that is voice prompt.
Then all that will be needed is voice recognition and language spoken which will render all domains useless and un-needed.
Hurry, sell your stash of domains now.
Jesus, someone just shoot me.
The reason for mobi is so you and people like Owen have something to blog about.
g
Chris says
Have you considered the ‘context’ of a mobile site visitor? Visitors to a mobile site are looking for different functionality than on a regular website. A bank for example – I’m not going to apply for a home loan on my phone, but I may want to use GPS positioning to locate the nearest ATM machine. You could always auto detect the mobile browser and send visitors directly to your mobile content, but now you’ve made it impossible for the visitors who wanted your original site on their phone to locate it. It’s really a matter of letting the visitor decide the context of their visit and providing them with a simple way to locate made for mobile / or your original content when they’re on the go. .mobi is basically a simple naming convention that allows visitors to navigate directly to made for mobile content.
dotMobi has been putting out mobile web tools for years. True you don’t need a .mobi for the wordpress plugin, but I don’t think this tool shows there is no use for a mobile web extension, it simply shows that the mobile web is going to continue to grow. My suggestion is to give mobile visitors every opportunity to find you.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Chris – yes, the mobile web continues to grow. And it’s not like this is the last straw for .mobi, I’m merely pointing out that this plugin reinforces the idea that you don’t need a .mobi domain.
In many ways dotMobi the company has done a great job promoting the mobile web. They also did a good job selling .mobi domains to investors. But I don’t think they have a long term business model for .mobi.
Gerry says
@DMW “…we’re all programed to go there. We aren’t programmed to go to any other domain.”
Such nonsense.
American ineptness at it core. Were the Dutch programmed and the Germans programmed in the womb to go to .nl and .de?
“…we’re all programed” is pure poppycock.
Using the word programmed as if it has some “intelligent life” or higher meaning? Or using the word programmed to indicate you have never done it any differently.
Honestly, do you really think the mindset of domainers are going to dictate to the rest of the world what can and can not be used?
It saying we are programmed a certain way and interact with the internet in a certain manner going to now stop or delay the role out of IDN?
Is this to say that you would never ever visit or use another TLD because you are not programmed that way?
Does a few bloggers who boldly proclaim that they regged a dot mobi only to point to their dot com make it so unuseable and distasteful for all?
Are you at all able to measure the traffic you are getting from your redirect?
Is it only domainers and only developers who have a mobile phone?
When will domainers grow up and realize that they DO NOT CONTROL the internet, they DO NOT CONTROL electronic commerce, and they DO NOT DICTATE to consumers how to use the internet.
Domainers THINK this because THAT IS HOW THEY ARE PROGRAMMED BY THE DOMAIN GODS.
Well DOMAIN GODS BE DAMNED. Internet commerce does not care how, what, who as long as the customer arrives, has a pleasant time, and plunks down money.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Gerry – I was speaking as a web user, not a domainer. Web users are programmed to go to .com mostly and ccTLDs.
Nic says
Marketing laws dictate that first in a market owns it (or should own) and every one else has some serious catch up because the consumers who were in there first become “programed”, eg .com.
Ironically, this is in a sense why I respect the .mobi guys. They are the first TLD to treat an extension like any other consumer product, ie it’s as much about marketing and branding and selling the value proposition (and cutting through the consumer’s “programed” head), and all that good stuff, as anything else.
Rob Sequin says
I have been a big fan of .mobi but the iphone killed .mobi and that’s the end of the story.
The web is moving to the iphone model not to the .mobi model.
Andy says
The problem with .mobi is that it’s a marketing solution to a purely technical problem.
As has been discussed, better solutions for serving mobile devices exist, and these will gradually get built in to existing websites as iterations roll over the next few years.
Furthermore, .mobi and other approaches (m.foo.bar, foo.bar/m, whatever) for creating distinct namespaces for mobile devices just leaves us with an even bigger problem – how to share URIs between devices? One of the underlying principles of the web.
At the end of the day we all expect stuff to just work, and that is what everybody should be aiming for.
Pedro says
Never did need it; never will need it.
Best solution = m.mydomain.com where redirect is detected via page headers.
Gerry says
@ Gerry – I was speaking as a web user, not a domainer. Web users are programmed to go to .com mostly and ccTLDs.
Andrew, I love your column and your in depth style and digging.
But, honestly, this is just another one in the perhaps hundreds of such threads that have proclaimed long before the release of .mobi that it was not needed.
How many nails are domainers going to put into the .mobi coffin?
And see, now you include ccTLD’s as being “okay”. Because those users have been deprogrammed, is that why suddenly ccTLD’s are okay in this conversation?
I still can not believe that if domain.com, domain.net, domain.org, domain.info, and domain.us is parked but domain.mobi is an actual site…domainers still want to claim that they have won!
I say if 100% of my .mobi counterparts are parked – I win.
And, yes, that also applies to any gTLD. If all are parked then that is all the more reason to develop.
Andrew Allemann says
Gerry, I value your opinion. None of us knows where this will be in 5 years…even 3.
As for ccTLDs, I don’t think they were deprogrammed. They’ve been used in countries other than the U.S. from the beginning, which is why people still use them. But when companies try to go outside one country, they run into a problem.
Gerry says
@ Pedor -“Never did need it; never will need it.
Best solution = m.mydomain.com where redirect is detected via page header”
Care to take a guess how many “mobile” sites use the m. as their mobile solution?
You would be surprised that a grand total of only 5% of all mobile sites use m. as their designation for mobile.
So, what next?
You see – the entire world can not agree on how to reach, designate, or promote a mobile site.
That is like saying the iPhone was the final nail in the coffin. I say if you want to focus on a device that commands a mere 14-17% of the 4.5 billion mobile phone subscribers I say why do you want ignore the nearly 85% of the market?
Thinking small.
What do those same developers do when gPhone is released? Make an app solely for the gPhone?
Nope. Not me. I make it to work on every single smart phone, PC, and laptop.
Andrew Allemann says
“You see – the entire world can not agree on how to reach, designate, or promote a mobile site. ”
Exactly. .Mobi needs (needed?) to make it so that I was pretty darn sure that if I typed in a .mobi, it would go to the mobile web site I was looking for. But it didn’t. I’d be curious what the odds are of hitting a mobile site using .mobi vs. m. versus wap. versus /m. I don’t know the answer, but none of them have a high likelihood. Which is why device recognition is the best way to do it for now.
ChineseDomain says
I really like this tools very much! For a long tome, I want to setup up mobile site, difficult for me. At now, it is easy!
I just use it to set up LiuGan.mobi for a try. It works very well!
For .mobi, the most important thing is that it AIM TO make sure people visit the site is for Mobile. Though it has a long way to go, but it is the trends that .mobi websites builds for Mobile Web.
mTLD work hard to help the Internet to build mobile web, it can help the individual or company to build mobile web more quickly. It can increase the experience on Mobile Web. Sure it can help the .mobi extension, since .mobi MAKE SURE it is a Mobile Web.
Many says the iPhone kills the .mobi. I say, NO! Even for iPhone, most of the individual or company set up an iPhone version for iPhone rather than leave iPhone to visit PC Web. Why? It is a different requirement for iPhone/PC. For the iPhone version, it can help other brand smartphone to have good experience on Mobile Web. Also, iPhone love the Mobile Web.
jblack says
Well done Allen, very well presented. Yet again.
Ah, the mobi zealots, sad actually. Objectively, if there truly was a market need for a .mobi tld (we at least know there is hyperventilating hype to there is) then gTLDs fans should proudly roll out the .desk tld, because God forbid one should sit down at a desktop computer and get that pesky micro, phone sized display on their monitor.
Gerry says
I wonder what people will come up with for the reason there is no need for dot mobi 5 years from now.
I mean, hell, its only going on 3 years and we had to hear this same song over and over. Lord, I remember talk on one of the forum in early 2004 about the “no need” for dot mobi.
Sounds like the record is stuck on,
we don’t need, we don’t need, we don’t nee…
Kevin Ohashi says
Gerry,
Get over yourself. You’re clearly smoking too much of the .mobi pipe. It’s a technical problem and .mobi isn’t a technical fix. It’s been said over and over because it’s true. The fact you can’t accept it doesn’t make everyone else wrong, just makes you look like a wack job. If mobi is so great, why not invest in it and stop trying to evangelize a worthless extension? If I was sure something would be profitable in the future and was supremely confident, I wouldn’t be arguing to let everyone else know, I would be investing. Or does your whole model rest on your (and your cohorts) ability to convert people to the mobi doctrine? In that case it’s just another house of cards pretty much like every new gTLD introduced since CNO.
Johnny D says
Yes but if you own a single one worded generic .mobi are you all saying you should sell it and not renew it.
Are you saying that the king of domains is wrong in buying what he did in .mobi, he has more money than all of you so are you sure that he is wrong.
Are you all saying that .mobi does not have the tech to make this work in different way than the way you are looking at it now.
Can someone explain why .mobi traffic is increasing?
None of you can because none of you have the answers.
Andrew Allemann says
“Are you saying that the king of domains is wrong in buying what he did in .mobi, he has more money than all of you so are you sure that he is wrong.”
I’m sure he’s been wrong many times and he’ll say so. He was wrong in some businesses before domains (he filed bankruptcy once) and I’m sure he’s been wrong with some things for domains. As he pointed out recently, the money he spent on .mobi domains was really nothing to him. It was a roll of the dice. The fact that he made more money on other domains doesn’t mean much. I’d highly recommend not just going with the flow or listening to what one person says. If you believe in your .mobi domain names, by all means run with it and make them successful.
Johnny D says
Ok that is fair to say.
Rich Gubby says
Hi all,
Some great points there but I think a few people have missed a trick.
The best solution is not m.domain.com and it is certainly not domain.mobi. It’s domain.com or whatever you decide your domain is and cater for all visitors no matter what platform they are on.
I’ve tested out a few mobile wordpress plugins and they range from forwarding you onto another domain with no options, to giving you the choice of forwarding certain handsets to a set of URLs that you can specify.
How are you supposed to promote one domain with those solutions?
I’m not going to create a flyer to my site and put my domain as domain.com (oh, and iphone.domain.com, symbian.domain.com, whatever.domain.com) – it just doesn’t make sense.
So to get back to the topic of this post – wordpress mobile plugins – I’ve created one that doesn’t redirect you off but just works with your domain.
It’s got loads of features and allows you to give your visitors a really good user experience completely tailored for mobile.
The homepage URL is here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wapple-architect/ and it’d be great if anyone wanted to try it out and let me know what you think!
If you’re in any doubt as to how it makes blogs look, here’s a link to the screenshots: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wapple-architect/screenshots/
And before the .mobi police get on my case and proclaim “it scores lowly on ready.mobi” – I know it will score fairly low and I am happy with that.
The plugin I’ve created is more advanced than the ready.mobi test can handle so it’s not surprising it fails – if anything, it should prompt the ready.mobi brigade to update their test.
Like I said, if anyone fancies having a try out of my plugin, let me know and I’ll be only too willing to help out!