dotMobi or Not Mobi

Today sees the launch of the .mobi domains. The purpose is to offer content specifically for low bandwidth mobile devices. Any owners of a .mobi domain have to ensure their site meets the dotmobi switch on! guidelines.

Essentially the site must be designed in a way that makes it acessible to mobile devices - i.e. low bandwidth requirements and scales to a small size/resolution screen. If your site fails to meet the requirements it can be suspended!

Is this a good thing?
Well I am not excited to see yet another TLD (top level domain) as we have so many already and it means I will probably end up buying a mobi edition of a few of my domains. However, as a heavy mobile web user, I’m happy that this may encourage companies to make mobile editions of their sites. The BBC and Google are excellent examples of mobile compatible sites. I see Dustin Diaz is keeping up with the times with is new Mobile Device theme that he has added to his site.

The problem with having a seperate site for mobile devices is that some companies may not implement this well. Some will have a seperately managed site for mobile devices with key missing features like the mobile edition of journeyplanner which only lets you search for the best tube route - no good if you want to travel by bus. Others may not update their mobile site as often as the main site or may get forgotten after the initial buzz is over so the mobile user is left with a undermaintained out of date mobile site. The worst thing is in an attempt to make life easier for the user some sites detect if you are browsing with a mobile device and automatically direct the page to the mobile version. This is great if the mobile version has all the features you want. However, if it is like the sites I described with missing features or out of date then it makes it impossible for the mobile user to view the main site even if it isn’t optimised for the mobile web.

Also I dont recommend letting the existence of the mobi domain encourage you to stop optimising your websites for speed. You can’t just assume now you have a mobi version of your site you can bloat your main site with unoptimised images hi-res video and make it simply broadband only. Obviously taking advantage broadband speeds to offer better content is good but just being wasteful is not. Consider those using a mobile device as a modem for their laptop or those still on dial up or the many that have a P2P app running the background sapping most of their bandwidth. Their not going want to see your mobi site because your main site requires a superfast connection, they will simply go elsewhere.

dotMobi or Not Mobi? The jury is still out

Dave Long