The first step in building a website is registering a domain name. Whether you register your name with a registrar or your web host (who will register your domain name through a registrar for you) is merely a matter of convenience and preference. When a name is registered you are purchasing the right to the use of that name for the agreed amount of years at registration, usually 1-10 years. No one else may use that name with your specified extension (.com, .net) until you either let the name expire or you sell it to someone else.
Nokia, one of the .mobi founders, announced the launch of a business website for mobile browser viewing - NokiaForBusiness.mobi. Features of the website include:
Device and region specific for Nokia Eseries phones, but can also be viewed on any mobile phone browser
Optimized for mobile browser viewing (note: PC browser is not optimal)
Phone accessories made especially for your phone model
Product Highlights showcase range of phones tailored for business
Business Catalog features information on mobileware, such as email and file synchronization and provides a wide range of software options to customize your device
It’s a positive development for the .mobi name space that a major corporation is marketing a .mobi website and encouraging the use of this extension.
New York Times on Seussical-Sounding Web Site Names
The evolution of domain names from ones that more or less specified what you were going to find at a web site - Sears.com, Staples.com, McDonalds.com and Microsoft.com are examples given - to those that are there to catch your attention, often with no rhyme or reason other than it’s a somewhat nonsensical name is the focus of a recent New York Times article.
The article notes “These days, startups take the lazy way out: they choose goofy-sounding nonsense words. They think they’re being clever by being unclever.
“These are all actual Web sites that have hit the Web in the last year or so: Doostang. Wufoo. Bliin. Thoof. Bebo. Meebo. Meemo. Kudit. Raketu. Etelos. Iyogi. Oyogi. Qoop. Fark. Kijiji. Zixxo. Zoogmo.”
The NYT claims the registrants hope these names will stick in our minds, but says “they’re wrong. Actually, all those twentysomething entrepreneurs are ensuring that we won’t remember them. Those names all blend together into a Dr. Seuss 2.0 jumble.”
The article concludes, “But here’s a little wakeup call: People will learn to love your site’s wacky name only if they fall in love with the site itself. Google and Yahoo became household nutty names only because everyone loved their services. They did not succeed because they had silly names.
