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Register.com Sees Big Mobi Potential
By Anastasia Tubanos, theWHIR.com
June 29, 2006 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Since the dawn of the dot-com, the scope of top-level domains has expanded to accommodate a variety of markets, including countries, companies and governments.
And with four mobile phones purchased for every one personal computer, there's a world of users whose main access point to the Internet is a mobile device. This is where .mobi comes in, a TLD that, for the first time is defined by its audience, not the type of company or nation providing the content. In May 2006, the Mobile Top Level Domain registry (pc.mtld.mobi) backed by a number of investors including Ericsson, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Vodafone, launched .mobi, the first TLD dedicated to delivering the Internet to mobile devices. Although certain .coms and other top-level domains can be accessed through mobile devices, .mobi is designed to guide mobile users to specially formatted made-for-mobile Internet content and services.
Domain registrar and Internet service provider Register.com (register.com) says .mobi is the next big step for the Internet and is eager to unveil it to its customers, largely consisting of small to medium sized businesses.
Joel Laffer, product manager at Register.com says.mobi is a great way for local retailers to be found online because Web sites will be built on templates formatted specifically for mobile devices, which makes it easy for the device carrier to read and digest the information.
"Folks that are selling things like baskets, local restaurants, florists, anyone selling something in their geographic region wants to be found," says Laffer. "Imagine someone that's in a car trying to find a place to eat. They're going to be able to go to these company Web sites and see not only when a restaurant is open or its phone number, but also the menu, directions, and possibly even entertainment that might be featured that night. What's great is that .mobi isn't just for the big players like Amazon.com or eBay. Local small business will be able to keep up with this emerging technology as well."
Monica Hodges, general manager of retail for Register.com says the general sentiment throughout the industry is that over time it'll be absolutely crucial for businesses to have .mobi accounts. But she says small business owners should purchase their domains as close to as possible to the launch date if they ever hope to have a mobile presence.
"What's kind of interesting about .mobi is that the folks who own the devices and the company behind .mobi have a heavy interest behind this particular TLD because they want people to use mobile devices more," says Hodges. "So it's going to be really important for the small business owner who wants to be found on a mobile device to not only have a .com, .net, .biz or whatever else that's searched for and found on a PC. It's going to be more important to have the .mobi in addition because you may not get as high a ranking on your phone with a .com as you will with a .mobi."
Register.com plans on offering .mobi to its customers closely following the official public launch on August 28 and says it will maintain its popular hand-holding service to current and new customers.
"Our challenge as an industry is to help the small business owner who just doesn't understand how all this works, that two years from now this might be really important," says Hodges. "The pizza parlor owner is just starting to dabble with mobile devices, their kids are already using it for everything. They have a sense of what the value can and should be, but just like the Internet a couple of years ago, they just don't know how to get there. So, our challenge is to help them take advantage of it right from the beginning, right from when .mobi domains first become available to the general public, to level the playing field for those guys. Our customers know they want to be found on Google. What they don't know is that they want to get found on a mobile device. We need to tell them."
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