According to Vance Hedderel, Director, PR and Communications for .mobi, starting today Monday August 20th, 650 .mobi city names are being freed up and made available to city specific entities, their local governments or their designees for an initial period of two years with provisions for renewing the names. Until today, dotMobi has kept these names on reserve to ensure that they would be available for cities to develop relevant content for locals and for tourists.
“With thousands of .mobi sites now live and more than 600,000 domains registered, consumers now understand that sites built on the .mobi domain give them the freedom to take the internet with them, wherever they go,” said Neil Edwards, CEO of dotMobi.
“dotMobi gives consumers low-cost access to information they need, where and how they need it. Cities will be able to use their .mobi sites to provide important city-related information to local citizens. These sites will also be able to provide compelling local information for visitors and help increase local tourist dollars,” Edwards added.
The first city to trial the process was Helsinki, Finland. Helsinki’s investment promotion agency, Greater Helsinki Promotion, created http://Helsinki.mobi and is also responsible for its continued development and marketing.
A .mobi site can provide an ideal forum to share local news, business updates and civic information plus culture and events listings with an increasingly active resident population. It can also provide a gateway for visitors to access local services, shopping, attractions, transportation and other valuable resources.
To apply, qualified entities submit a short proposal that discusses how the planned domain use provides the mobile community with new features, services and local content. The proposal must also address marketing and promotion plans.
Cities commit to putting live content behind the name within 60 days of their being awarded their domain and agree that content will compliant with dotMobi standards, as based on a 5/5 score on the http://ready.mobi report, to ensure a good user experience. Expected marketing – such as launch events, public relations and local marketing efforts – are outlined in the application process documentation at http://mtld.mobi/domain/reserved.
dotMobi will evaluate all proposals, and successful applicants will enter into a contract with dotMobi. The application process opens August 20, 2007, and continues indefinitely.
The full list of available .mobi city name domains plus proposal process information is at http://mtld.mobi/files/dotMobiListOfAvailableCity%20NamesGovtAllocProcess%20-%2021%20June%202007.pdf.
About dotMobi
dotMobi (the informal name of mTLD Top Level Domain, Ltd.), a consortium based in Dublin, Ireland with offices in Washington, DC and Beijing, is leading the growth of Internet use from mobile phones with the .mobi domain name. Unique among domain name providers, dotMobi ensures that services and sites developed around .mobi are optimized for use by mobile devices. On-the-go consumers can have confidence that an Internet site or service will work on their mobile phones when using a .mobi address.dotMobi is backed by leading mobile operators, network & device manufacturers, and internet content providers, including Ericsson, GSM Association, Hutchison 3, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefonica Moviles, TIM, Visa and Vodafone. dotMobi is also a sponsor of W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative.
For more information on dotMobi domains and registration information, visit http://mtld.mobi.
Visit the dotMobi blog at http://blog.mobi.
For more information, please contact:
Vance Hedderel dotMobi +1-703-485-5563
vhedderel@mtld.mobi
Todd Witkemper A&R Edelman for dotMobi +1-650-533-2317
twitkemper@ar-edelman.com
For more information about Greater Helsinki Promotion, please contact: Johanna Korhonen, Director, Communications Greater Helsinki Promotion +358-400-995699
johanna.korhonen@inhelsinki.com
Source: DomainNews Interview with Vance Hedderel – August 17th, 2007
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