Feature

.mobi Premium Domains up for Grabs

Networks & Network Services
October 27th will see the first batch of premium .mobi domain names put to auction. 'celebs', 'fun', 'laugh', and 'party' will be some of the potential site names put under the hammer.
DotMobi, the official registry for the .mobi domain, will auction the first 10 premium names at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East conference in Florida on October 27th

The full list of available domain names includes 'celebs', 'cheaptickets', 'flowers', 'fun', 'gossip', 'hot', 'laugh', 'party', 'stockquotes' and 'wow'.

Dotmobi has set aside a list of commonly used words and phrases for equitable allocation, as opposed to the usual first-come-first-served approach. The names will be auctioned in batches until 2008, both through auction and request for tender processes.

A survey by Hostway showed that most people have a mobile phone capable of accessing the internet, but 73% of them don't take advantage. Three quarters of those questioned found their phones to be slow at uploading content, and most sites exceeded the screen size and were therefore difficult to navigate.

90% of those asked would use the internet on their handsets if pages were ensured to load faster and the user would not incur costly fees from their network.

This is where the .mobi Top Level Domain (TLD) comes in. It makes mobile devices as useful as a PC for browsing sites yet much more portable. Since there are four times as many mobiles as there are PCs in the world, the goal of .mobi is to act as a universal gateway for accessing the Internet at any time and from any place.

As a helpful guide for .mobi registrants, a series of Switch On! Guides has been launched, based on the work of leading mobile companies and the W3C Mobile Web Initiative.
By following the Switch On! Guides, developers can create sites that work independently of carriers and can provide content specially designed to meets the needs of traveling phone users.
Neil Edwards, CEO of dotMobi, said: "Given the strong demand for .mobi domain names, bidding at this initial auction will most likely be exciting. We anticipate that the winning bidders of these premium name sites will develop relevant and useful content for mobile Internet consumers."

Ericsson, Google, the GSM Association, Hutchison, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefónica Móviles, TIM and Vodafone are all .mobi sponsors.