The Mind Boggles: 400,000 .mobi Registrations

[Darius Wey]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://pc.mtld.mobi/mobilenet/release_030507.html' target='_blank'>http://pc.mtld.mobi/mobilenet/release_030507.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"dotMobi, the company behind the first and only Internet address designed specifically for mobile phones, today announced more than 400,000 .mobi domains have been registered in 104 countries since the domain's launch in October 2006. As a comparison, only 100,000 .com domain names were registered in the first ten years of that domain's existence. The growing number of .mobi registrations illustrates that content developers are focused on delivering quality sites and applications to mobile phones."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20060407-MobyMobi.jpg" /><br /><br />Has the internet turned upside-down? Why do 400,000 registrants believe that creating a separate mobile web is the way to go? Mobile-friendly templates can be easily applied to an existing gTLD (take <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/">yours truly</a>, for example), so visitors of a site - whether they be on a PC or mobile device - need only remember one web address, not two. 400,000 - the mind truly boggles.

[Vincent M Ferrari]

400,000 domains.
399,999 squatters.

[daS]

400,000 domains.
399,999 squatters.

I think you're pretty close to the mark there Vincent. I'm sure that many large companies simply registered their ".com" domain as a "mobi" as well as cheap "insurance" on the very slim chance that this gets any traction.

The real question is not the number of registrations, but the number of active sites. I would guess that's less than 0.1% of the total.

This is not news, it's just dotMobi PR spin. :roll:

[toaddodger]

I have a feeling most of those sales are either companies protecting their brand, or I guess squatters.

I bought up the 2 domains my company uses, and all I did was stick a redirect on them. That was just to make sure somebody else didn't buy them and put up anything derogatory.

[Jason Dunn]

Agreed, there are a lot of domain squatters out there, and people protecting their brand...and the net result of all that is .mobi will likely be effectively useless because the vast bulk of the .mobi domains will not be mobile friendly. The whole thing is a money-making scam led by people who don't really understand the mobile approach to the 'Net.

[kiwi]

ha ha!!! Great picture for this news item !!! lol!!

[ctmagnus]

Three words: Waste of bandwidth.

;)

[SteveHoward999]

Three words: Waste of bandwidth.

;)

So does this mean we'll see PocketPCThoughts.mobi? Will the home page be less than 850k - 1 Mb of the normal .com version and 200k of the .com/mobile version?

I mean - it makes sense, doesn't it, since this is a site aimed at mobile devices? :devilboy: