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.mobi domain names coming
Mobile makers, Internet authorities come together for making Web for mobile more real. Await
dancewithshadows.mobi!
BY OUR TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
12 July, 2005: Surfing websites on the Net through your mobile phone was, till now, more theory than practice. That may be about to change.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved the use of .mobi domain names, for websites made for viewing on a mobile phone screen. ICANN has made an arrangement with the Ireland-based mTLD Top Level Domain company to register the .mobi domain from next year. If all goes well, you can expect several websites mushrooming on the web by this time next year, when the .mobi domain name goes live.
mTLD is a coming togeher of the GSM Association, Nokia, Ericsson, Hutchison 3, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Syniverse Technologies, TIM, Telefonica Moviles, T-Mobile and Vodafone.
mTLD will dictate the standards websites will have to comply with, before registering the names with the suffix .mobi. The standards will include the ability of the .mobi website to figure out the handset and technology used to access the website, so that the webpage can be displayed appropriately on the mobile phone screen.
Earlier attempts to get mobile users to get on the Net have been by and large unsuccessful, since very websites were specifically designed for accessing through mobile phones. Despite the huge hype, the booming mobile phone user market stayed largely out of reach of Internet marketers and business, due to lack of a perfect bridge. .mobi domains may help close the gap.
Even the scarce use of mobile internet has been limited to users in Japan and Korea, where mobile and Internet penetration matches the technological edge.
mTLD Top Level Domain company has been given the contract by ICANN to handle the registration of .mobi names for the net 10 years. Initially, owners of existing registered brand names will be allowed to regiser their names with .mobi domain names for a 90-day period. For those of you having .com/.net/.org/.biz extensions, this is the time to get the same name registered with a .mobi extension, if you are keen on tapping the mobile users in a big way.
Said Rick Frant, member of the mTLD board: "the .mobi move is about trying to attract more of those 1.8 billion mobile users to try the internet. If they know that a particular internet service was designed from the ground up to work with your mobile phone they would use it."
Of course, all-pervading wireless mobile internet will take longer than the just the .mobi domain names, but this is sure the first step. Let's hop the fate of WAP won't befall .mobi!
Last month, ICANN had agreed to the use of .xxx domain names for websites with pornographic content. The idea behind the .xxx name was to help better parental control, so that sites with such domain names could be filtered out at the user side for inappropriate content. However, joining the .xxx territory was voluntary. The move towards .xxx was brought about by the awareness that there was huge demand for sex on the internet, and that .xxx would be a good way to channel it.
BY OUR TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
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