Mobile Industry announce Mobile Top Level Domain initiative

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

An interesting step towards largescale acceptance of 'Mobile Web'?

A definite boon for Smartphones and such Mobile Devices...

LONDON — March 10, 2004 — Leading companies from the mobile industry have signed a memorandum of understanding to apply for a mobile Top Level Domain (“mobile TLD”) from the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) during the current application round, which closes March 15. If the application is successful and the mobile TLD is granted by ICANN, the industry leaders have agreed to form a new joint venture to manage the mobile TLD. A mobile TLD would be a key step in bridging the world of mobility and the Internet to the benefit of customers and the entire mobile industry.  

A mobile TLD on the Internet creates the opportunity to streamline the deployment of new Internet sites optimized for mobile usage. This effort is driven by -the aim of simplifying the Internet experience for mobile subscribers and increasing the ease of use and speed of delivery of mobile Internet services.

The participating companies are Microsoft Corp., Nokia, Vodafone, 3, GSM Association, HP, Orange, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Sun Microsystems. These companies and others that will join over the coming months represent software developers, device manufacturers, network operators, infrastructure providers and content providers. The mobile TLD brings together mobile-industry-leading companies to catalyze business opportunities for companies servicing mobile customers with compelling new mobile services and applications.

Under the terms of the memorandum of understanding, the companies intend to form a registry company to manage the distribution of the new mobile TLD names. The mobile TLD would be designed to enable efficient application and network services and reliability for mobile customers and service providers.

The registry company will seek participation of additional, members to ensure broad customer and industry input.

“Microsoft is proud to partner with luminaries from across industries on creating a mobile Top Level Domain to the benefit of the entire value chain, and most important, mobile customers,” said Brian Arbogast, corporate vice president of the MSN Communications Platform at Microsoft. “We expect that by leveraging the technologies of the Internet, appropriately scaled for mobile scenarios, this initiative will provide the ease of use and efficiency that will significantly fuel mobile Internet usage.”

“The creation of a mobile Top Level Domain would allow consumers to access the Internet in very different mobility scenarios, whether the access is provided by mobile operator, Internet service provider or various gateway devices at home or enterprise,” said Pertti Korhonen, senior vice president and CTO of Nokia. “The wide industry participation highlights the shared objective of offering seamless global access and interoperability of mobile services and applications.”

Alan Harper, group strategy director at Vodafone, said, “Establishing a mobile TLD is an exciting development for the entire mobile industry. The aim of the initiative is to accelerate the rollout of Internet products and services specifically designed for mobile devices as well as to ensure far greater operating simplicity for mobile subscribers across the globe. This venture should build on the considerable trust that exists in the mobile community between subscribers and operators.”

[Guest kyrkesmith]

I wonder what it wil be. .mob?

[Guest www.msmobiles.com]

I wonder what it wil be. .mob?

it will be ".mobile".

[Guest morpheus2702]

Sorry, I read that press release three times and still didn't have a clue what it was on about.

From the previous replies, is it just about assigning a recgnisable URL for mobile sites? Jeez, doesn't the industry love jargon?

Whatever happened to addresses like (for example) wap.modaco.com or mmm.modaco.com? I thought the mmm one was quite nifty!

[Guest Will]

why mobile, not mob or cell? less typing on a small device!!

grr

Will

[Guest www.msmobiles.com]

why mobile, not mob or cell? less typing on a small device!!

grr

Will

because idea is that instead of typing:

mobile.modaco.com

or instead typing:

modaco.com/mobile

or instead typing:

modaco.mobile

... you will just type:

modaco

... in your mobile devices and the rest (i.e. ".mobile") will be added automatically.

[Guest kyrkesmith]

Well, that might end up really annoying if not implemented properly. What if you want to visit a non .mobile site that also has a .mobile version?

[Guest www.msmobiles.com]

Well, that might end up really annoying if not implemented properly. What if you want to visit a non .mobile site that also has a .mobile version?

then you type:

modaco.com

... with ".com" at the end.

[Guest kyrkesmith]

I'm still to be convinced. What about sub-domains? It's pedantic, I know, but if a system has any obvious problems, it shouldn't be launched. I really don't see a need for a whole new TLD - why not just standardise on a way of naming mobile sites?

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

The actual TLD (i.e. whether it will be .mobile or .mob or whatever) is yet to be decided, and will be chosen by ICANN.

To say that it WILL be .mobile is pure speculation.

P

[Guest www.msmobiles.com]

"]The actual TLD (i.e. whether it will be .mobile or .mob or whatever) is yet to be decided, and will be chosen by ICANN.

To say that it WILL be .mobile is pure speculation.

P

really?

so it looks like my friends from nokia-owned publication share my view that it is ".mobile": see here and click on the link named "proposed domain names".

So I was right! [-X Any apologies? [-(

[Guest chucky.egg]

So I was right!  [-X  Any apologies?   [-(

I'd forgotten what msmobiles was like!

If you read his "friends" links you'll see the phrases "proposed domain names" and "The proposals"

So "No" you're not right. Not yet at least, but who knows... statistically there has to be some accuracy in something you say at some point.

And "No", no apologies

I can't find a smiley for "kiss my ass"

[Guest morpheus2702]

Nicely put Chris.

When you visit his website and see absolute s*** like 'Nokia is Evil' and realise that he is speaking entirely seriously, you have to wonder what medication this guy is on - or should be on... :roll:

[Guest www.msmobiles.com]

Nicely put Chris.

When you visit his website and see absolute s*** like 'Nokia is Evil' and realise that he is speaking entirely seriously, you have to wonder what medication this guy is on - or should be on...  :roll:

if nokia is bullying cellular network operators in this way: "buy our network infrastructure for 3G/GPRS/EDGE/WAP/MMS/... or otherwise we will deliver you with big delays our latest mobile phones, but we will deliver them faster to your competition!" then what is it? good? besides: I know other things about nokia that normal people don't know....

speaking of ".mobile" -- it is as FIRST POSITION on the list of proposals - so it is very likely that ".mobile" will be accepted (at least ".mobile" but maybe more mobile domains...). so I WAS RIGHT in fact.

[Guest morpheus2702]

I know other things about nokia that normal people don't know....

Next you'll be telling us that with great power comes great responsibility. You aren't Spiderman FFS!

Come on then, share with us what us 'normal' people don't know! I'd love to hear this as much as some of your deeply offensive and racist remarks.

As much as I detest the term 'normal', I think in comparison to your skewed view of the world I think many of us are happy to be 'normal'.

Do you actually realise that you aren't viewed as any sage, any seer? To quote a line from Se7en: "You're no messiah - you're a f***ing T-shirt, you're a Movie of the Week - at best!"

[Guest kyrkesmith]

it will be ".mobile".

speaking of ".mobile" -- it is as FIRST POSITION on the list of proposals - so it is very likely that ".mobile" will be accepted......so I WAS RIGHT in fact.

Um, no.

[Guest SFMH3]

This whole idea is pants.

All it will do is create a TLD registrar that is able to cream off loads of cash from all the trade brands that need to have xyz.com / net / co.uk / info /biz / aero et al.

If people are really serious about making websites more Smartphone friendly, then you can easily detect the platform from the request headers and deliver content based on that. We can already type in "amazon" and automatically move to www.amazon.com - so a quick check on the platform takes you to a platform specific page. With a good reverse DNS server or app running alongside you can even work out where the user is coming from - so redirect to amazon.co.uk for example

So .mob - no, don't think so. Just my 2p worth!

[Guest chucky.egg]

[edit]

I didn't realise he was banned!

When's the party?

[/edit]

[Guest M@rkC]

Way to go Chris!! And, if he's banned, how come he still gets to post this drivel.....??

Anyroad up, here's my two-penneth FWIW....

With the exception of the .museum TLD (which is sponsored anyway), the majority of the other registered TLD's are all three and four characters. There are a number of other sponsored TLD's up for consideration by ICANN later this year (not publicly available just yet); why would they choose a long (like more than three or four characters) TLD to represent a mobile specific site given that mobile device users are charged for their data usage based on bytes sent/received?? OK, so the difference is only a couple of bytes per URL, but you gotta type the damn thing in too!!

IMHO, the TLD for mobile devices will be something succinct and instantly recognisable.....like .mob

I'll certainly visit http://modaco.mob and will steer well clear of http://msmobiles.mobile :)

That's it....I'm done!