Sevenfold growth in mobile-friendly Web addresses proves revolution for “on the go” content is at hand

CTIA, LAS VEGAS - April 1, 2009 - dotMobi, the company behind .mobi - the only Internet address created specifically for locating content that works on all mobile phones - today announced highlights of a new study on mobile Web trends that shows mobile Web content creation continues to explode.

Based on a review of the largest top-level Internet domains, dotMobi has seen a sevenfold growth in the number of mobile Web sites in the past year, proving that a revolution in mobile content availability is at hand.

When dotMobi first performed this study a year ago, 150,000 mobile Web sites were available. These sites are discovered by mobile-friendly Internet address designations like “.mobi” or “mobile.” or “/wap,” where mobile-friendly content is likely to reside.

dotMobi now counts approximately 1.1 million mobile site addresses in the world, based on a scan of the largest Top Level Domains (TLDs) in use. The TLDs that were scanned include such domains as .mobi, .com, .net, .uk and .de. The 1.1 million number means that approximately 0.8 percent of all domains are likely to have mobile-friendly content.

As a comparison, the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) in 1998 counted a total of 1.46 million public, PC-based Web sites across all TLDs. Today, VeriSign estimates there are approximately 77.4 million live “.com” and “.net” Web sites. Given the strong growth of the mobile Web in the past year and the rapidly evolving sophistication of mobile technologies, a similar - or even faster - long-term deployment of mobile content is likely compared to that of the PC-based Web a decade ago.

.mobi preferred as a mobile-friendly entry point for sites that use a single naming convention
Of the 1.1 million global “entry points” used by content creators, the .mobi domain is the preferred entry point for sites that use a single naming convention - that’s to say, sites that use only one domain. (Some sites use multiple naming options for the same site.)

The “.mobi” domain is used on 23 percent of these addresses.

“Site owners and consumers need a single naming convention to resolve the market confusion in finding mobile content that works on all phones, not just high-end smartphones or iPhones,” said Amy Mischler, dotMobi’s Vice President of Mobile Marketing Evangelism. “The .mobi domain is the only ICANN-approved domain name for identifying mobile content, and the marketplace is responding by choosing .mobi as the preferred way for identifying mobile content.”

Other mobile content identifiers

The “/wap” identifier, which is used primarily by “legacy” sites from the initial WAP era earlier this decade, represents 22 percent of all mobile-friendly Internet addresses. Given that WAP is entering its sunset phase as a technology, this 22% figure is likely to shrink in the coming year.

Other mobile content identifiers include: “/m” (13 percent), “wap.” (10 percent), “mobile.” (5 percent), “m.” (5 percent) and “/pda” (3 percent). Less frequently used are “pda.”, “/forum”, “/mobile” and “/wireless”.

Also popular is the use of device detection to automatically present mobile content, as dotMobi’s award-winning DeviceAtlas(tm) product allows site owners to do. Device-aware sites currently represent 14 percent of all mobile-friendly sites.

“While the growth of mobile Web content on a global basis is not a surprise, the speed at which it’s growing is very happy news,” said Trey Harvin, CEO, dotMobi. “And the growing use of the only ICANN-approved convention to identify that content - the .mobi domain - proves that content owners are anxious to make sure their customers know that their mobile sites will work on any phone, on any network, anywhere in the world.”