Friday, May 28, 2004
Tim Berners-Lee: Just Say "NO" to .mobi Domains
Posted by Pat Logsdon in "NEWS" @ 04:00 PM
"Last March, several leading companies from the mobile industry -- including Microsoft, HP, and Nokia -- requested that a Top Level Domain (TLD) be created for web sites that are intended solely for handhelds and smartphones. Recently, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the technology behind the World Wide Web, came out in opposition to this plan. At the time it made the request to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the group of companies said they hoped a '.mobi' TLD will create business opportunities for companies servicing mobile customers. They also hoped it will spur the development of compelling new mobile services and applications.
However, the W3C Technical Advisory Group, of which Mr. Berners-Lee is a member, has released a statement that says, in part, 'There are major problems with these proposals. There are costs in general to creating any new top level domain. There are specific ways in which the '.mobi' breaks the Web architecture of links, and attacks the universality of the Web.' Rather than creating special versions of web site appropriate for different devices, the W3C Technical Advisory Group would prefer that all pages be able to handle any type of device. According to it, this can be done through the use of Style Sheets and a variety of new methods just coming into use for the client to be able to tell the server what its capabilities are. These will allow the server to only send content appropriate for the client."
What do you think? Are there merits to creating a .mobi TLD that outweigh the damage the W3C describes, or should everyone design pages that work on all devices?
However, the W3C Technical Advisory Group, of which Mr. Berners-Lee is a member, has released a statement that says, in part, 'There are major problems with these proposals. There are costs in general to creating any new top level domain. There are specific ways in which the '.mobi' breaks the Web architecture of links, and attacks the universality of the Web.' Rather than creating special versions of web site appropriate for different devices, the W3C Technical Advisory Group would prefer that all pages be able to handle any type of device. According to it, this can be done through the use of Style Sheets and a variety of new methods just coming into use for the client to be able to tell the server what its capabilities are. These will allow the server to only send content appropriate for the client."
What do you think? Are there merits to creating a .mobi TLD that outweigh the damage the W3C describes, or should everyone design pages that work on all devices?
