Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

.Mobi Could Spur Wireless Web

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the little-tiny-slash-comments dept.

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Microsoft, Google, Vodafone, Nokia and several other companies are backing .mobi, a new top-level domain aimed at making it easier to browse the Web on mobile devices, such as cellphones and PDAs, the Wall Street Journal reports. On Monday, Mobile Top Level Domain opened registration. 'In a matter of hours, thousands of websites were signed up, including Yahoo.mobi and Hotjobs.mobi. For now, registration for dot-mobi Web sites is open only to members of wireless industry trade associations, which include wireless carriers, handset manufacturers and media companies, including Yahoo Inc., that want to make money from providing content to the wireless Web.' Registrants have to follow certain rules to get the domain, including that sites cannot 'cause pop-ups or other windows to appear.'"

3 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Nonsense and bullshit by Tom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whoever came up with this should be shot. Seriously. Either use the DNS the way it is designed, or open it up and let everyone make stuff up.

    yahoo.mobi? Idiots who fell for a salesguy with even less brains, and neither of them understand what a hierarchy is supposed to be for.

    mobi.yahoo.com - now, was that so difficult? Google gets it - it's "maps.google.com" and not "google.maps". And that's exactly the way the DNS hierarchy is supposed to work - go from the most general towards the more specific. TLD: Generic type, domain name: Owner/Company, subdomain: Purpose.

    Ah well, I guess it's too late anyways. Idiots have been running ICANN for years, it was only a matter of time until they fuck up completely. I'm sure this'll go through. :(((

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  2. Re:Odd length by hackstraw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given the generally awful text input systems on mobile devices, why create a TLD that is four characters long? It's still easier to type .com!

    All this new TLD stuff is stupid. The only decent proposal that they won't adopt is .XXX.

    Why do we need yet another TLD that needs to be registered and maintained when we can today go to mobi.slashdot.org and get a slightly different page? Why can't we just use CSS's @media handheld?

    This is a poor solution to a nonexistent problem.

  3. Moolah by brjndr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Are you kidding? It's a conspiracy!! That 4th character is more data the mobile carriers can charge for using! If it were up to them the TLD would be .mobilenowonderwechargesomuchforunlimitedrateplans whydidntwethinkofthisearlier.