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Mobile Top Level Domain Ltd. expects to have registered at least one million names with its ".mobi" or dotmobi mobile-specific Internet domain by the end of 2007, Chief Executive Neil Edwards said in an interview.
MTLD was formed with investment from search engines, phone manufacturers and mobile operators to support the development of Web sites designed to be accessed via mobile devices. The Dublin-based joint venture will register both companies and individuals for the dotmobi Internet domain.
MTLD was formed with investment from search engines, phone manufacturers and mobile operators to support the development of Web sites designed to be accessed via mobile devices. The Dublin-based joint venture will register both companies and individuals for the dotmobi Internet domain.
Source: YahooIn an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Edwards said he expects individuals registering domain names to have "a dramatic impact on the usage of mobile Internet."
"If I do my job properly, there should be one million names by the end of next year," he said, referring to both individuals and corporate sites.
Companies with trademark-validated names will be able to register sites with dotmobi from May 22 for 90 days to avoid "cyber-squatters" opportunistically registering well-known names. Generic domain names will be available on a first-come, first-served basis from September.
Edwards said he expects at least 200,000 individual users to register domain names over the next year, estimating that the figure could be as high as 400,000. He said PhoneBlog, a service that allows people to compile Internet journals - or "blogs" - via mobile phones, has two million users who will be offered dotmobi addresses.
Although most mobile phones allow Internet access, formatting problems, slow download speeds and the high costs of accessing Internet sites via mobile phones mean usage remains low.
This is a significant issue for mobile operators, which paid out vast sums to secure third-generation, or 3G, licenses. One of the key justifications for buying 3G licenses was that consumers would jump at the chance to surf the Web via mobile phones, generating traffic for operators and opening up new revenue streams such as mobile payments and mobile blogging.
Edwards said that with four times as many mobile phones in the world as computers, the prospects for moving Internet traffic onto mobile phones are strong, but have been inhibited by bad experiences.
"Accessing the GSM Association dotcom Web site in Dublin costs between EUR5 and EUR8 to download using a mobile phone. Using the dotmobi version, it cost 20 cents. This is not rocket science," Edwards said. The GSM Association has invested in mTLD.
He said tailoring Web sites to mobile phones by reducing the size and functionality of the normal dotcom sites will not only improve customer experience, but could also provide businesses with advertising and marketing opportunities using location technology.
For example, a coffee shop chain could ask a user accessing a dotmobi site where they're located to direct them to the nearest store.
The dotmobi Web sites are also expected to prove more efficient for mobile operators as users won't clog up the network downloading large pages with irrelevant Internet content.
Some analysts have criticized mTLD for defining a set of rules that Web developers will be forced to follow, a move which is unprecedented and doesn't apply to dotcom and other domain names.
Edwards dismissed such concerns. "What made the Web grow? The HTML language was simple and it worked across all PCs. The same thing will happen with dotmobi," he said arguing that a common set of "best practices" is necessary to drive usage.
Edwards also denied that current applications which automatically format a Web site to fit a mobile phone screen make dotmobi sites unnecessary.
"Mobile content cannot be rendered effectively," he said. He believes existing technologies don't provide an adequate user experience and the user still pays to download a whole dotcom site, rather than a lighter dotmobi page.
Edwards said that after dotmobi sites go live, mTLD won't launch a consumer marketing campaign. It will be up to the Web site owners to advertise their dotmobi sites, as is the case with dotcom sites.
Shareholders in mTLD include telecoms equipment makers LM Ericsson Telephone Co. AB (ERICY), Nokia Corp. (NOK), and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (005930.SE); mobile operators Vodafone Group PLC (VOD), Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. (0013.HK), T-Mobile International AG (TMO.YY), and Telecom Italia SpA (TI); software maker Microsoft Corp. (MSFT); and search engine Google Inc. (GOOG).
