Windows Phone Thoughts: .mobi TLD Launched

"Surfing the Web on a cellphone can be as difficult as surfing the ocean on a tiny board. Now, a company founded by Microsoft Corp., Google Inc., Vodafone Group PLC, Nokia Corp., and several other companies, aims to make it easier to browse the Internet on wireless devices such as cellphones or BlackBerries...Mobile Top Level Domain aims to change that in part by setting up a new domain name specifically for wireless Internet Web sites called dot-mobi. Just as dot-com is the domain name for many Web pages on the wired Internet, dot-mobi will become the suffix for Web pages that are formatted for cellphones and other wireless devices, the company says...Executives at Mobile Top Level Domain, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, believe that consumers would be more likely to tap into the Internet from their cellphones if doing so were easier and faster than it is today. Monday, the company opened registration for companies that want a dot-mobi domain name."



Darius talked about the imminent launch of the .mobi Top Level Domain (TLD) in early April; now that it's launched, the WSJ (free article) has some details on how they'll avoid various problems, including cybersquatting (a trademark registration window) and mobile device compatibility (no popups, useable sizes -- see the style guide). Interestingly, the registrar, an Irish firm named Mobile Top Level Domain, reserves the right to test (and potentially shut down) sites. I'm hopeful that this will be a big step forward for browsing on Pocket PCs, but we'll have to wait and see how the reception to the new TLD is.