dotMobi

Well, **is** the iPad a mobile device ... ?

Right after Apple's big iPad announcement on January 27, the thoughtful MobileTech blog asked, "Is the iPad a mobile device like any other mobile phone in terms of browsing?" ... meaning, of course, is there still a need for mobile-optimized sites? 

Well, yes. (Did you expect me to say otherwise?)

No matter how sophisticated the device -- iPad or otherwise -- .mobi and mobile-optimized sites are about the mobile context, not about the device calling for the content. For those of you on an iPhone or an Android device or a Blackberry, you know that the best apps present information in a way that makes sense for how you use the input mechanisms (e.g., touchscreen vs. mouse & keyboard) and is relevant for you on the go (e.g., Target's mobile gift card and not Target's share price or corporate governance). That won't (and shouldn't) change if I'm on an iPod Touch, an iPhone or an iPad ... or my low-end Sony Ericsson or old, but still Internet ready, Motorola Razr. Or if I have a device-specific app on my phone or if I'm looking at a mobile-optimized site.

Specific to the iPad, though, I think its reason for being is for Apple to own the digital book space the way it owns the digital music space. I doubt it's meant to be thought of as a mobile device, well not anymore so than a physical book is a mobile device. Sure you can bring it with you, but can you make a phone call or take a photo on it?

One of the more interesting thoughts I saw about the iPad was to position it as a micro-computer for senior citizens who might need email or a way to see photos of the grandkids, but not a whole lot more. In short, the exact opposite of an intentionally mobile device. 

What I think will be most interesting is to watch the evolution of the iPhone once we see how the iPad is received in the marketplace. I'm also very excited to see how it changes the idea of publishing. For many years, we've heard about interactive books. Now there's a platform that will likely have a large enough audience to make that idea a reality. Or with magazines, now they can affordably publish one-off articles rather than being bound (literally) to publishing heavy monthly volumes.

Of course, this is all speculation. We'll see in 2Q10 how the iPad is received once it's in users' hands.

Welcome to 2010!

It's a new year with new challenges but also some surprises ... like subwayfreshbuzz.mobi, the mobile site of Subway sandwiches (USA). Here's a photo from their PC Web site promoting it:

  

The site has a restaurant locator with map as well as a menu ... and, after all, what else do you need from Subway?

By the way, Trey Harvin -- dotMobi's CEO -- wrote an interesting piece on the importance of content in the mobile ecosystem that was just published by Tech News World. I hope you'll find it interesting as well.

NV.mobi Keeps On Going Strong

Our friends at the Nevada Commission on Tourism just sent us a cool group of photos, showing the promotion they're doing for http://nv.mobi in the Embarcadero BART station in San Francisco. (An earlier report of these photos as being in Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport were erroneous.)

You can see the full photostream on flickr.

A couple of interesting sites

1. icann.mobi -- If you're heading down to ICANN's meeting in Sydney, Australia, next week, you'll want to bookmark icann.mobi. The site has the complete meeting schedule for the event as well as information on how to get around Sydney and where you can have dinner and drinks. All phone numbers are click-to-call links, so it's easy to make reservations or call a taxi.

2. lacandy.mobi -- Even if you've never watched Laguna Beach or The Hills, you've likely heard the name Lauren Conrad (a/k/a/ "LC"). On 16 June, she's releasing a book called L.A. Candy and -- as part of the launch -- she's also launching a .mobi site: lacandy.mobi. You can find out plenty -- maybe more than you wanted -- about L.A. Candy at the site. And if you haven't yet "met" Lauren, you can catch up with what you've missed at the site.  

13th Annual Webby Awards: more .mobi than ever.

This week, the winners of the 13th annual Webby Awards were announced. In the mobile division -- of which dotMobi was the founding sponsor way back at the dawn of the mobile Web revolution -- there were several .mobi winners:

The Best Use of GPS or Location Technology award went to Adidas Marathon Run Tracker at http://marathon.marvellous.mobi. The Mobile Entertainment award went to Discovery Mobile at http://discovery.mlogic.mobi. The Mobile Sports award winner and People's Voice award winner went to ESPN Mobile at http://espn.mobi.

Also nominated for Integrated Mobile Experience was Virgin Atlantic's Love from Above campaign (now retired but formerly at lovefromabove.mobi) and for Listings & Updates was previous award winner ZAGAT.mobi (which you can easily find at http://zagat.mobi). 

Several other .mobi sites were named as honorees, including:

• http://arrivedok.mobi (ArrivedOK, the personal arrival tracker) 
  
• http://muslim.mobi (daily prayer times for the global Muslim community with city locator)
• http://dolcegabbana.mobi (D&G Fashion Channel)
• http://radiodisney.mobi (Radio Disney)
• http://tinkfairies.mobi (Disney Interactive Media Group)
• http://udrapartments.mobi (UDR’s mobile apartment search)
• http://blackberry.mobi (Blackberry)

An application we've previously mentioned from mobiSiteGalore.mobi, which allows mobile users to build a mobile-ready site directly from their phones, was also cited as one of the Webby Awards' honorees.

In all, this represents a very strong showing from .mobi users as well as representing a broad swath of uses of the .mobi domain -- and is definitely a big step forward from the minimal number of mobile categories (and sites) that we saw only three years ago.

If you're interested, you can see the full list of mobile nominees and winners at the Webby Awards Web site.

dotMobi's WordPress Mobile Pack Now Live

This past week, dotMobi released a new, free product: the WordPress Mobile Pack -- a plug-in for WordPress users to automatically generate a mobile version of their WordPress site.

We've had requests for this for a long time and we're very happy that we're finally able to make it available. 

Approximately 2% of all Web sites are run on WordPress. There have been more than 4.5 million downloads of the software in the last six months alone. As you can see, the need for a WordPress mobile solution is a big one.

What does the WordPress Mobile Pack contain?:

•  Mobile switcher to detect mobile visitors and provide an appropriate experience
•  Base mobile theme for quick-and-easy XHTML-Mobile Profile compliance
•  Extended mobile themes so you can unleash your mobile creativity
•  Integration with the award-wining DeviceAtlas(TM) for world-class mobile adaptation
•  Mobile administration panel for when posts can't wait
•  Mobile ad widget to make you some money
•  Barcode widget to help users bookmark your blog

If you run a WordPress site, you'll likely find this pack worthwhile. Critics think so, too.

Full information on the WordPress Mobile Pack is on mobiForge.com.

Mobile Banking Benchmarks Now Available

If you've been following our news on the mobile benchmarks we've developed with our friends at Gomez, you'll be interested in seeing our mobile banking benchmarks that American Banker just ran.

The banking industry has proven to be especially fast in picking up on mobility in general, and on .mobi specifically. These benchmarks will definitely prove to be interesting as they're released on a monthly basis.

Trends we're seeing for the mobile Internet industry

As the dotMobi team prepares to set off on a suite of industry events over the next six weeks -- from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, to ICANN in Mexico and CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas -- we've been discussing trends we're seeing for the mobile Internet industry in the year ahead.

While our developer and domain initiatives have stimulated mobile content deployment with more than one million registered .mobi names, we expect smaller businesses to lead the growth of the mobile Web as development costs decrease and more consumers become aware of the possibilities of their mobile phones.

Thanks to sophisticated -- yet simple to use -- development tools and the growth of mobile Web-friendly phones, we think smaller businesses will look to mobile as an effective, affordable channel for marketing their goods and services.

New, low-cost tools and services designed for the small-to-medium business (SMB) market will mean more SMBs will promote their products and services to the rapidly emerging "mobile Internet consumer."

We're so sure about SMBs taking advantage of the mobile Web that we've just put together a new, free eBook for SMBs on using mobile for marketing, called -- pretty straightforwardly, I say -- "Marketing Your Small Business on the Mobile Web."

Banking: The Surprise Mobile Vertical

Over the past two years of the .mobi domain, many of the first "verticals" that went mobile have not been a surprise because of the nature of their industries: travel (priceline.mobi), hotels (hilton.mobi), transportation (amtrak.mobi, sas.mobi, thalys.mobi) and dining (zagat.mobi).

However, the one industry that caught me unawares in terms of popularity has been banking and finance. Bank of America (bofa.mobi) is the probably the most active in promoting its .mobi site, but there are dozens of others around the world from lacaixa.mobi to deutsche-bank.mobi to usaa.mobi. It proves out a point that we discovered in the study we conducted with AKQA earlier this year: people are most interested in utility in their mobile sites. They're not against entertainment like games and ringtones, but rather that they see a mobile phone primarily as an way to help simplify the day-to-day administration of their lives.

The reason I'm mentioning this because of a press release dotMobi issued yesterday saying that California-based ClairMail has added DeviceAtlas to their service offerings.

ClairMail is a business-to-business company that builds mobile versions of existing banking sites, giving banks “transactional” mobile sites that tie into their back-end systems. Their customers include Alerus Financial, City Bank (Texas), 1st National Bank of Scotia, and Cascade Bank (Washington State). Now with the addition of DeviceAtlas to their platform, they can offer “device aware” mobile sites to their customers. And with that, we're sure to see the banking market continue to flourish as a prime space for mobile users.

Are there verticals you've seen going .mobi that have been a surprise to you? Let us know in the comments section.

New, free mobiThinking eBook is now available ...

There are some terrific mobile web sites out there, but there are just as many "not so good" ones. Looking at why the good ones are good and why some don't succeed is the subject of a new eBook from the team behind dotMobi's mobiThinking site. 

"The Best & Worst of the Mobile Web" takes you through the key principles behind mobile web success as defined by a distinguished panel of "mobi-gurus" (including contributions from the Yankee Group, Gartner, Yahoo! and top marketing agencies and service providers).

Download your free copy of "The Best & Worst of the Mobile Web" eBook and find out how to look more critically at your own mobile web presence and that of your favorite brands.