Mashable article

[youmo]

OK, this is sad.
There is a decent article on mashable.com today, regarding how to develop a mobile website-
http://mashable.com/2009/11/26/mobile-web-design/

You would think/hope there would be plenty of mention of dotmobi and related services, especially instant mobilizer. Alas no instant mobilizer, just all their competitors! Dotmobi gets a mention as the developer of the WordPress Mobile Pack, but its pretty minor. And infact they have the wrong URL, so it links to a mobi registrar, dotmobi.com.

Here is a run through a long list of resources, including-
MoFuse
Mippin
mobiSiteGalore
WPtouch
WordPress Mobile Edition
WordPress Mobile Pack
WPtap
WordPress Mobile by Mobify
Mobile Plugin for Drupal
OSMOBI
Mobify
iPhoney
iWebKit
jQTouch
iPhone Compatible CSS Layouts
and others

And if you read the comments, you see that people are crying out for info on how to develop for the mobile web.
Sad. Why is this?

[freeflow]

They will find out about dotmobi and related products soon enough IMO. “All roads lead to Rome (http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/all+roads+lead+to+rome.html), but there is one road that is a highway (.mobi).” It’s good to see that people are starting to wake up and are thinking more about how to develop mobile websites. In the past the discussions used to be about whether mobile sites are necessary or not.

[seanboy]

.Mobi isn't mentioned because its a domain, and NOT a technical standard. What you use as a domain extension has absolutely nothing to do with the actual development of the site. The fact is that you can create a mobile website on Wordpress, with built-in user-agent detection, and not have to write a line of code, regardless of the domain you use.

[freeflow]

.Mobi isn't mentioned because its a domain, and NOT a technical standard. What you use as a domain extension has absolutely nothing to do with the actual development of the site. The fact is that you can create a mobile website on Wordpress, with built-in user-agent detection, and not have to write a line of code, regardless of the domain you use.

That’s correct for all other domains, but dotmobi offers a standard, information on how to develop mobile websites and tools.

[seanboy]

That’s correct for all other domains, but dotmobi offers a standard, information on how to develop mobile websites and tools.

Information on how to develop mobile websites and tools is not a standard, its just information of how to develop mobile websites and tools. By your logic, that blog post by Mashable is also a standard.

Now this (http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/) is a standard.

[freeflow]

Information on how to develop mobile websites and tools is not a standard, its just information of how to develop mobile websites and tools. By your logic, that blog post by Mashable is also a standard.

Yes that’s correct as well, but just like all the other resources mentioned in the blog post dotmobi shouldn’t be missing on that list IMO.

[Scandiman]

You would think/hope there would be plenty of mention of dotmobi and related services, especially instant mobilizer.

Agreed that Instant Mobilizer would be an appropriate addition to this resource list. But .mobi would not since this is about development and not branding.

[youmo]

.Mobi isn't mentioned because its a domain, and NOT a technical standard. What you use as a domain extension has absolutely nothing to do with the actual development of the site. The fact is that you can create a mobile website on Wordpress, with built-in user-agent detection, and not have to write a line of code, regardless of the domain you use.

I said that I thought "dotmobi and related services, especially instant mobilizer" should have gotten a mention. I wasn't referring to .mobi the domain.

I have heard Dotmobi describe their ambitions to be at the centre of the mobile world, so then when there is a blog post (on a high traffic site like mashable) specifically outlining the main resources available to develop a mobile website, and, instant mobilizer, mobiThinking, mobiForge, mobiReady, DeviceAtlas, etc are not mentioned at all, then there is a problem. Nobody knows about these excellent resources.

There has been plenty of discussions on this forum about the lack of marketing or awareness of dotmobi/.mobi, and it is clearly true, and doesn't seem to be changing.

I would guess that many of the names on the mashable list of companies are smaller and have less money, resources, backing, and yet they outperform dotmobi in terms of marketing.

[gogo]

There has been plenty of discussions on this forum about the lack of marketing or awareness of dotmobi/.mobi, and it is clearly true, and doesn't seem to be changing.

I would guess that many of the names on the mashable list of companies are smaller and have less money, resources, backing, and yet they outperform dotmobi in terms of marketing.

On another blog about IDNs mobi was mentioned and there was a reply from Vance Hedderel:

http://mobility.mobi/showthread.php?t=44922

Yes, one could do that. Or one could do m.mydomain.com or mydomain.com/mobile … but none of them give sites owners a zone file entry to ensure better SEO results since .mobi is the only ICANN-recognized and -approved mobile naming convention.
Also, industry convention ensures .mobi sites are automatically white-listed by all network level transcoders, so you can be 100% sure that your site will render as you intended on every mobile device.
Those are just two reasons why a .mobi domain is as relevant and as irreplaceable as IDNs. There are many other reasons that you can read about at http://mtld.mobi/resource/top-5-reasons-why-you-need-a-mobi-name.


Does anyone believe the part about the transcoding now that mobi offers no guarantee that .mobi sites have mobile content? In fact ready.mobi now tells you to insert code into your .mobi site to stop anyone transcoding it.

[Scandiman]

Does anyone believe the part about the transcoding now that mobi offers no guarantee that .mobi sites have mobile content? In fact ready.mobi now tells you to insert code into your .mobi site to stop anyone transcoding it.

Even with no guarantee of compliance it is hard to imagine the whitelist inclusion will go away since there is a need for some form of whitelisting and .mobi is no more or less reliable of a way to indicate a mobile site than other common naming forms like mdot that are often whitelisted as well. I hadn't seen the code your referring to at ready.mobi, we could easily be dealing with transcoders that uses no whitelist at all so some code to help avoid this is indeed useful.

[gogo]

Even with no guarantee of compliance it is hard to imagine the whitelist inclusion will go away since there is a need for some form of whitelisting and .mobi is no more or less reliable of a way to indicate a mobile site than other common naming forms like mdot that are often whitelisted as well. I hadn't seen the code your referring to at ready.mobi, we could easily be dealing with transcoders that uses no whitelist at all so some code to help avoid this is indeed useful.

The only explicit statement I've seen before was that Vodafone was whitelisting .mobi sites. It seemed - people hoped or assumed - that others might whitelist .mobi. If someone can find an earlier statement on this I will be delighted to see it.

Now there's a blanket statement from Dotmobi that

Also, industry convention ensures .mobi sites are automatically white-listed by all network level transcoders, so you can be 100% sure that your site will render as you intended on every mobile device.
I really want to believe that... but to do that I need to see a list of who it is that "automatically whitelists" .mobi... surely it is in everyone's interest to tell us this as it bolsters confidence in .mobi and offers a unique benefit and advantage.

The key word in that statement is "convention" - not an agreement or standard, just a habit that can change overnight with no need to inform anyone. Not so secure to build on then imo.

[Scandiman]

The only explicit statement I've seen before was that Vodafone was whitelisting .mobi sites. It seemed - people hoped or assumed - that others might whitelist .mobi. If someone can find an earlier statement on this I will be delighted to see it.

No time to find it but I recall a list of naming conventions that were being whitelisted by (I believe) vodafone, .mobi being among them with stuff like mdot, /mobile, etc. none of which provide a guarantee to the site user that the given site is compatible with their device, but it is a better chance then nothing at all which is where redirects may run into trouble without having that special code involved.


Now there's a blanket statement from Dotmobi that
I really want to believe that... but to do that I need to see a list of who it is that "automatically whitelists" .mobi... surely it is in everyone's interest to tell us this as it bolsters confidence in .mobi and offers a unique benefit and advantage.

The key word in that statement is "convention" - not an agreement or standard, just a habit that can change overnight with no need to inform anyone. Not so secure to build on then imo.

I agree it is a bit overreaching for Vance to say you can be 100% sure about being whitelisted unless there is a formal agreement by all mobile carriers that he can point to that ensures this. Marketing people are prone to spin and truth stretching, this is probably an example of that.