A consortium of nine heavyweights in mobile
technology has asked the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN) to create .mobi, a new top-level domain exclusively
for mobile devices.
The potential effects of the proposal on domain
names are profound. (1) It immediately spikes values as well as
registrations of location-enabled and numeric .com and country code
domain names (ccTLDs). (2) New investment opportunities will arise
when the new names become available for the public to register.
Below is an outline of the impact of the announcement on the domain-name
marketplace.
The decision to introduce a separate domain name
for mobile devices is prompted by the need to simplify Website access,
navigation, and security. The proposal obviously goes beyond existing
WAP-enabled Website technology. There are three major areas of enhancement
to the current Internet structure with regard to domain names:
-
Location Sensitivity. A Website accessed
on mobile devices will automatically display location-pertinent
information. For example, if you visit gas.mobi Website, you
will automatically see a list of addresses of the gas stations
closest to your location.
-
Ease of Input. It will be simpler to
input a numeric domain name in a browser box or search engine.
-
Speed and Security. Backend Internet
operations and infrastructure will be revamped to speed up domain-name
resolution and enhance security.
I will analyze the first two areas of enhancement
in terms of how they will affect the domain-name marketplace.
- Impact
of Location Sensitivity.
This feature will increase the demand for
generic location-enabled .com domain names such as banks, GasStations,
hotels, and restaurants. The value of such names will immediately
increase.
Moreover, to protect your brand identity, it
is a strategic imperative to own the ccTLDs of your brand name
in addition to owning the .com extension. This unexpected event
makes it urgent for companies to secure the ccTLDs in their major
international markets. The impact on ccTLDs will be significant,
as countries have just realized the wisdom of relaxing constraints
on registration requirements, as recent evidence with .se for
Swedish and .fr for French top-level domain names suggests.
2. Impact of Ease of Use
(a) This
feature will prompt an increase in the registration and values
of numeric .com and ccTLDs, for two reasons:
(i) It is much easier to enter numbers than characters on a phone, as
each number button represents 3-4 characters. For example, AOL.mobi
would be 256.mobi. But 256 can also represent bol or col, as well.
Thus, to protect brand names and avoid confusion, the demand for
256 .com and ccTLDs will increase, driving their value up. Moreover,
the owner of 256.com will also want to own 256.co.uk and other major
ccTLD markets, thus, elevating the value of such ccTLDs.
(ii) It is also highly likely that we’ll see the emergence of a standardized
numeric representation for some of the high-demand location-enabled
domain names, similar to 411 and 611 numbers. We might have 222,
for instance, to represent ATM locations.
(b) There
will be a rush for the generic and numeric .mobi domains when
they become available for the public to register. Since strong
trademarks will not automatically be transferable to their numeric
equivalence, there will be high demand for numeric .mobi names
as well.
Because the new demand for numeric .com and ccTLD
registration will be based on popular keywords, service providers
will be forced to tweak their services to allow for converting character-based
keyword input to its numeric equivalence, then checking its availability.
DomainMart will provide a list of such service providers.
ICANN is expected to vote on the proposal within
a few months.
Participants in the joint venture are Microsoft
Corp., Nokia Corp., Vodafone Group, Orange PCS, Hutchison 3G Ltd.,
the GSM Association, Hewlett-Packard Co., Samsung Electronics Co.
Ltd., and Sun Microsystems Inc.
This is a very pleasant unexpected gift that will
have a positive impact on domain-name value and registration-volume,
as well as on marketplace services. |
