dotMobi Breaks the 200,000 Mark

November 1, 2006; 03:17 AM

dotMobi, the official worldwide registry for the .mobi domain, announced it has reached two new significant milestones since its successful September public launch. The general demand for .mobi domain names continues to grow rapidly with more than 218,000 .mobi registrations by customers in 104 countries around the world. Additionally, at auction, the first set of dotMobi Premium Domain Names generated some of the highest market demand seen in 2006 for higher value domain names.

The first set of nine dotMobi Premium Domain Names were auctioned via Moniker.com during the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East domain conference on October 27, 2006, and achieved record results for a new TLD (top level domain). Selling for US$200,000 and US$100,000, flowers.mobi and fun.mobi respectively, are among the top 20 domain sales for 2006 - unprecedented for a newly introduced TLD (top level domain).

"I bought flowers.mobi because I believe in the near future people will use their mobile phone -- more than a computer -- to buy flowers quickly and efficiently wherever they might be," said Rick Schwartz, the new owner of flowers.mobi. "My company looks forward to launching the world's first mobile site for flowers and becoming a dominant force in this new space."

dotMobi's open standards for mobile content are gaining momentum among existing registrations with sites being added on a daily basis.

"It is obvious that dotMobi strikes a chord with content providers large and small who want to build a direct to consumer mobile channel," said Neil Edwards, CEO of dotMobi. "dotMobi provides the first open solution for Internet-based content on a mobile phone that the average person can afford and access. We are excited to see such a positive and strong market response to dotMobi this early in our business."

The dotMobi Premium Names list is a compilation of commonly used words and phrases which dotMobi has set aside for equitable allocation as an alternate to the traditional "first come, first serve" procedure. These names will be distributed in batches through 2008 using both auction and Request for Tender (RFT) processes.

The first set of .mobi domain names to be offered through the RFT process are news.mobi, ringtones.mobi, sports.mobi and weather.mobi. Additional information on the process is scheduled to be released on November 6.

The list of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) accredited registrars for dotMobi domain names can be found at: http://dotmobi.mobi/registrar.

For more information on .mobi domains and how to register .mobi domains, visit http://dotmobi.mobi. Visit the dotMobi blog at http://blog.mobi.

About dotMobi

dotMobi (the informal name of mTLD Top Level Domain, Ltd.), a joint venture company based in Dublin, Ireland with offices in Washington, DC, is leading the development of Internet usage from mobile phones by switching on the .mobi domain name. Unique among domain name providers, dotMobi ensures that services and sites developed around .mobi are optimized for use by mobile devices. On-the-go consumers can have confidence that the Internet site or service will work from their mobile device when using the .mobi address.

dotMobi is backed by leading mobile operators, network and device manufacturers, and Internet content providers, including Ericsson, GSM Association, Hutchison 3, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefonica Moviles, TIM and Vodafone. dotMobi is also a sponsor of W3C's Mobile Web Initiative.

Vance Hedderel, dotMobi (mobile Top Level Domain, Ltd.) +1-703-485-5563, [email protected] Tara Yingst / Danielle Siemon, A&R Edelman Public Relations +1-650-762-2942 / 2947, [email protected] / [email protected]