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As reported on MEX, .MOBI has been around for almost six months as the new suffix for mobile/WAP sites. The Register reported then that the new domain names would start selling in early to mid 2006. We're curious to see how fast this will take off given the fact that Tim Berners Lee ( so called creator of the world wide web) published a paper last year against the addition of the .mobi TLD raising issues of fairness, device independance and loss of web functionality.
Setting aside the ongoing debate about the necessity for a dedicated mobile domain suffix, why has the industry chosen a lengthy and difficult-to-enter character string like M-O-B-I. There are so many other letter combinations which would be easier to enter using multitap on a nine button keypad. MOBI will require 6-pause-6-6-6-2-2-4-4-4. That’s nine keystrokes to enter the suffix alone. Hardly the best way to improve content discovery on mobile devices… W-A-P would have been a much more usable choice. Three key presses, evenly distributed around the keypad: 9-2-7. Of course, it remains to be seen how many mobile content rproviders and registrars will choose to promote .mobi URLs for their services - after all, there are plenty of other content discovery mechanisms which sidestep the need for users to enter URLs - but think of the accumulated time which will be wasted on entering this suffix simply because the industry chose a letter combination which suited the marketeers rather than the users… Simplicity saves time and time saved has a proportional impact on the user experience. Via MEX - The PMM Mobile User Experience |
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