Reglikedomain industry desk

Names Must Be Short to Succeed — .Mobi Domain

Firms that can’t get hands on short .mobi domains are unlikely to use the extension.

At least once a month I get an e-mail or advertisement from a firm I patronize informing me that they now have a mobile web site. This bodes well for the mobile web. Unfortunately, very few of these firms are using .mobi.

For example, there’s American Airlines (NYSE: AMR), which is using its standard AA.com address and redirecting it to a mobile site. It owns AmericanAirlines.mobi, but that takes a long time to type on a mobile phone (Blackberry or not), so it opted for the shorter, six keystroke domain aa.com.

The prior week there was a notice on my American Express (NYSE: AXP) bill for American Express’ fresh mobile site, AmexMobile.com. Amex.mobi is owned by another firm, and AmericanExpress.mobi is really long, which is probably why the firm settled on a somewhat shorter .com domain name.

When it comes to .mobi, short URLs are even more notable than with .com. If big firms can’t get their hands on these it will hurt .mobi in the long run.

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