.Mobi, the sponsored top level extension aimed at mobile devices, has opened up a reserved list of 650 city names which are now ready for applications. According to the press releases this is being done as a ‘free’ release and cheekily mentions London.mobi as an example despite the Mayors office not really knowing alot about it.
The application process is in short to raise awareness of .Mobi by creating a working website and comitting to ongoing promotion :
- A description (250 words) of the proposed content / services / applications to be offered via the .mobi website corresponding to the city name.
- A description of the applicant’s marketing and promotion plans. These plans must include:
A public launch event to local press for the city name web-site.
A Press Release to issue in liaison with mTLD promoting the city name web-site. - Local marketing efforts for the city name web-site at a minimum cost of €2,000 per annum.
- Examples of the applicant’s use of the string corresponding to the Offered Name in any other Top Level Domain.
Assuming that the City of London IT bods can write 250 coherent words the next few hoops could be interesting to fulfil. A new website often has budgets well in excess of €2,000 and a few press releases / public launches, however the two stumbling blocks could be the exclusive contract terms and section 3 of the above.
Does the City of London actively use a Top Level Domain containing the London string? The current website is London.Gov.UK , the logical ccTLD - hopefully the above is a typo and ccTLD’s are valid as well. You have to feel sorry for the mobile users over in another London (canada), or the other Londons around the world, who it seems have already lost any potential case for the name in the eyes of .Mobi.
As for the city names .mobi contract document there are some interesting clauses namely ;
- The new owner will create a website inside of 60 days.
- The new owner will aim to ’strengthen user loyalty and goodwill towards the .mobi’ domain.
- There is currently unspecified ‘renewal award terms’ , ‘website development schedule’ and ‘promotion schedule’ that must be agreed and met for any name to be used, and we assume continue to be used.
The application guide mentions a non-refundable fee of €150 will be paid per application, which assuming one application per name would be very close to a tasty €100,000 cash injection into the .Mobi coffers.
One further thing that stands out is the explaination of what .mobi is at the top of the application guide - "It is the first - and only - top level domain dedicated to delivering the Internet to mobile devices". There we were thinking .mobi was all about ‘lite’ versions of the web, when really it is helping us all make VOIP calls, telnet sessions, mobile friendly email and instant messenging.
It is quite worrying to see people running a top level domain not to know the difference between The Internet and The World Wide Web 