Apple iPhone could hurt the .mobi extension
Could .mobi have a shorter lifespan than expected? First, look at this video advertisement by Apple for the iPhone:
The real web is shown on the phone through a brilliant UI. With a massive adoption of iPhones in the market, followed by countless imitators incorporating similar Internet browsing techniques, will there be a need for a mobile version of the Internet? I have to say that I am always happy to find a mobile version of the Internet when I am browsing on my 700p, but functionality is always very limited. On top of that, the amount of websites that offer mobile versions are very few. The ones that do, in my experience, do not use the .mobi extension. Rather, they use m.domain.com or domain.com/mobile.
.mobi has been a very hot extension lately. This year we have seen several big sales in the extension such as:
- Sportsbook.mobi – $129,000
- RealEstate.mobi – $85,000
- Stocks.mobi – $70,000
- Casinos.mobi – $52,000
- Girls.mobi – $49,000
- Singles.mobi – $41,000
These domains were sold at a time where the industry wasn’t aware of Apple’s way of mobile browsing. I have a feeling that it will be very difficult to sustain such a premium for .mobi once the market flocks again to Steve Job’s vision.
***Update***
An interesting .mobi discussion at DNforum sparked from this posting
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Rafael Sosa's Weblog 
I honestly don’t think it will hurt the mobi extension. It does look pretty cool scrolling around the web on the phone but you notice that you must zoom in and out and constantly go back and forth to read an article or to view a web page. That is pretty time consuming to do that.
Another thing is that when you see the picture of the whole web page on the phone you can’t actually read the page at first. You must zoom in to see it. I have used devices like this in terms of the zoom and side scroll feature. It does get annoying.
That’s my 2 cents
That’s a good point Mike. The size of the screen has its limitations, as users will only go so far. The phone needs to fit in the pocket, and that could be the impairment to a full web on the phone. Yet, we cannot underestimate the innovation that’s going on. Bill Gates recently spoke of the desire to have a foldable screen. These technologies are being developed right now.
I’ll get my hands on an iPhone and report back on how feasible it is to browse the “real” web on it.
For once and for all:
DotMobi tells you also that you’re enter a mobile website with only “on the way” content. THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT ISSUE!!!
iPhone is good for .mobi