Mobile browse market is starting to define itself

It’s interesting to see how the mobile browse space is finally starting to defnine itself.  Although still mostly an after-thought for most websites, many are now extending their reach to the mobile environment. The first big question - how do we differentiate our mobile site from our current website?

Adding an “m” subdomain to an existing one makes a lot of sense. Examples of this are “m.facebook.com” and “m.netvibes.com”. It’s simple, intuitive, and easy to remember.

Adding “mobile” to an existing domain does not make any sense to me - like cnnmobile.com. Why did CNN more then double their URL for mobile? That seems backwards to me. Given the size of a key pad and number of letters available on the average mobile device, why wouldn’t you look for the simplest way to make your site available via mobile?

There is also the mobile domain - .mobi which now has over 5 million indexed pages on google. There is a lot of discussion around the long term viability of this relatively new domain name. It took about 10 years for 1 million dotcom addresses to be registered - but well over 500,000 domain names have been registered dotmobi in the last 12 months. This is one to watch and track over the next 12 months. Google.mobi and fordca.mobi are two examples of big brands deciding to leverage the mobile specific domain over other alternatives. Why? For one thing, dotmobi is becoming a brand trust for consumers that says “this site will work great on my mobile device.” Following W3C approved design and development standards is part of the agreement when a dotmobi domain name is granted to you. It’s an interesting approach that is building momentum worldwide.

With over 3 billion mobile devices live around the world compared to around 700 million Internet connections, the mobile channel will (not if) become the dominant digital access point for consumers. Isn’t it time you incorporate a mobile browse strategy as part of your overall online brand outreach plan?