I am speechless. I read this press release from dotmobi called Mobilizer and felt sorry for everyone involved in the MAG (dotMobi Advisory Group) and companies like Zinadoo – who have supported dotmobi – but have now been pushed aside and even Winksite.
What am I raving on about?
Well. Should dotMobi be creating mobile sites? It is already screwing the world with over priced domain names. Now it is stabbing its own partners by offering a service that will compete with them?
I am disgusted – but after the mother of all un-professional conversations with the company recently not completely surprised.
But something else hit me too. With Mobilizer you don’t need coding knowledge or to hire a developer ….. so its stealing jobs from the developers that pay for the mobile site certification service..? I wonder what developer friendly W3C will say about that?
This is a joke. This is not what dotmobi is about – or if it is – it shouldn’t be. In favour of the developers and friends at mobile site creation companies – I will be stopping gomonews.mobi and will create a m.gomonews.com. From experience with gomonews.getmobile.com – that has offered the best ever SEO for mobile so far, anyway.
Memories of my first ever article on five reasons to hate dotMobi are flooding back to me – I thought those days were over.
I’m not surprised, honestly. As a small development shop, we’ve had to compete over the years with a number of cheap or free DIY services. dotMobi is just the newest one.
Hi Bena,
Regarding your “un-professional conversations” recently, I do apologise – what were they regarding?
Secondly, a simple one! Our domains are often times cheaper than .com – so I would hardly call them overpriced
Thirdly, we love anyone that’s helping web site owners to embrace the exciting medium of the mobile web. This includes many of the MAG members and our partners. Zinadoo rocks!
I spend most of my waking life serving the needs of mobile developers. They deserve to be the first class citizens of the ecosystem. http://mobiforge.com is the jewel in our crown and we’re very proud of it.
What we’ve just announced is a small part of a very complex, dynamic industry, and is focussed on the domain market. It’s not going to be for everyone, and it’s probably not going to fulfill everyone’s needs. It’s certainly not intended to compete with any of the companies you’ve described – or anyone else in fact.
What we’re doing here is offering a simple way for existing site owners to “try-before-they-buy”, if you like. Simply check a box when you’re purchasing a dotMobi domain and you can see how your existing site can cheaply and cheerfully work on mobile – and hopefully reach new customers.
It’s basically just an opt-in version of Mowser, nothing more. Hardened industry pundits should take heart that we’re playing the proxy game straight down the line too, according to the W3C transformation guidelines and Luca Passani’s reformatting manifesto. In fact, we barely even expect it to affect mobile developers, since it’s an opt-in service anyway.
Our expectation is that those customers who see benefit (and for a small business that might be as simple a proof as selling an extra pizza a month from their mobile site) will quickly want to stretch their legs, and build dedicated mobile services.
We consider this as providing “training wheels” for the mobile web, and a chance to spread the good word outside of our slightly introspective industry. In fact the quicker that customers move on to making their own mature mobile sites, the happier I’ll be!
I personally think that transcoding (which is all this is) is a temporary phenomenon anyway – yes, even the operators’ versions. Subscribers and site owners will soon get a feel for what’s possible and opt-out.
In the mid- to long-term, I have absolutely no doubt that all mobile content will have been built for purpose rather than facsimilied from existing web material.
(Think: what site owner or brand manager *won’t* want to have the final say in their users’ experience?)
And that’s where the ecosystem will really take off for all of us. We’re just trying to help get there.
I truly hope you’re not really as disgusted as you sound, Bena… we think we’re trying as hard as anyone to help get the mobile ecosystem as a whole to fulfill the potential of its openness – and to make the magic happen.
James
CTO, dotMobi
Seems a bit odd that a body that talks about standards… talks about using a .mobi domain name to avoid re-formating by the telcos, that wants to be the “godfather” of all things mobile on the web, now wants to get in on the development business.
I would imagine this will prompt a lot of folk to get an “m.” rather than a “.mobi”.
Then we get “Our domains are often times cheaper than .com”
WTF? Where is this? Even if it’s not one that .mobi has reserved for their own benefit, I’ve yet to see one for less than a .com
What’s next… Will they try launching a phone soon then? Start trying to throw patents on things?
Pity… .mobi was almost starting to make sense.
Michael Andersen
I repeat, I don’t think that dotmobi should be transcoding, creating mobi sites or even doing search. This is not good for the whole market. It might be good for dotmobi profit but little else. Several site creation firms have “thanked” me for picking up on this agree that this is not the job of dotmobi.
One of them even claimed that the MAG is a breeding ground only for ideas that dotmobi will steal – not my words but it was said.
It should be doing ready.mobi and other good initiatives.
Standard bodies can’t have business arms – I am in the same position and that is why visibility mobile is a partner for the metaTXT working group and not the owner or runner of it. It will be run by a University – I thought this was vital in today’s eco-system where we must support and not chop the legs off small new ventures.
OK, thanks for the further comments. Although I’m still not sure why this has hit such a raw nerve
I guess I should first point out that we are not a standards body per se: one of the things we try to do is assist and endorse the best practices produced by other groups and help to make them easier for people to use and deploy:
– ready.mobi was born out of helping people who wanted to check compliance to W3C’s MobileOK;
– DeviceAtlas was designed as one of the earliest implementation of W3C’s DDWG API;
– mobiForge/dev.mobi was born around the publication of our styleguide to help promote W3C Best Practices.
– mobiThinking was developed to help promote best practices in mobile marketing, design and SEO
Now add to that list Instant Mobilizer: a showcase transcoding implementation that adheres to the W3C Content Tranformation Guidelines and wmlprogramming’s Developer Manifesto.
Everyone has an opinion on how other companies should or shouldn’t try to meet their objectives.
One could claim ready.mobi ‘competes’ with other test tools, DeviceAtlas ‘competes’ with other device databases), mobiForge ‘competes’ with other developer communities. We’ve also been providing the site.mobi creation tool (with help from Akmin) for almost two years.
But these are all small pieces of a jigsaw (which is far larger and more complex than even the dreams of one humble company alone). Everything we do is net-altruistic, and is truly intended to help individuals, businesses, brands – and the industry itself – understand and experience the benefits of embracing the mobile web.
The mobile web ecosystem is battling it out in a rock pool. We aspire to help raise the ocean tide for everyone.
Finally, if your sources would like to explain their particular issues, it would be helpful to hear – and address – their concerns. Trust me, there’s no conspiracy here.
(Oh, and I’m not technically allowed to promote particular registrars, but GoDaddy sells .mobi names at $7.99 and .com names at $9.99. So I can stand by my pricing anecdote too
)
James
Hi Bena,
As you wrote, “…and even Winksite.”
I thought I would mention that Winksite is not feeling stabbed in the back at all.
Rather, Wew’re left feeling a bit dismayed. Let me explain.
@James Re: “It’s basically just an opt-in version of Mowser, nothing more.”
The dotMobi press release is titled, “dotMobi Drives Mass Market Adoption of the Mobile Web With Instant Mobilizer” and it goes on to mention, “dotMobi’s Instant Mobilizer is being released via registrars basis across Europe and North America beginning in November 2008 and expanding to other markets thereafter. Domain registrars and resellers who have questions about deploying Instant Mobilizer may contact dotMobi’s…”
It would be cool if dotMobi would spend time equal to the effort they spend supporting individual developers in helping small companies commercialize and gain exposure to distribution partners, resellers, registrars, etc. A program like this was started at one point, we applied as had others, but then we was told it was “postponed.”
An example of this would be a dotMobi program helping the Mowser guys to offer their service to resellers — rather then fail for lack of commercial reach, have dotMobi acquire Mowser, then see dotMobi bring the service to market (I assume you will make money on Mobilizer/Mowser via registrars and resellers.)
Translation: You’re helping people build good stuff, now help them sell it.
I faithfully remain a dotMobi supporter and take pride in our dotMobi certification and standards-compliant templates.
Cheers,
David Harper
Founder & CEO, Winksite
Love the Mobile Web®
typos aside, file my comments under – “Everyone has an opinion on how other companies should or shouldn’t try to meet their objectives.”
David – thanks for your comments. I think that we are saying the same thing but I was slightly more derogatory.
I remain tall in the fact that standards, “standards compilent bodies/ firms” are hanging themselves making profit. What would we think if the MMA launched a mobile ad network?
Bena I have to say I think its great for small business owners to have a .mobi and a mobilizer. Why Not it helps a’lot of people who can’t afford to build mobile sites they are quite pricy.Also I believe it will help those mobile developers in the long run sell more of there services.I know the .mobi team I don’t think there stabbing people in the back but giving .com and .mobi customers options what we don’t see to much in the mobile world today.I don’t think people should bash or pull away from their .mobi but adapt like we adapt to everything else and work with it and see how it can benefit and help us the developers.
Hmmm… I stand corrected… prices have indeed come down on .mobi domains (at some registrars)… my bad.
Michael
I’m taking back 90% of my “dismay”after seeing this wonderful little bit from James.
http://squigglysquares.com/
Jerald, I agree with your comments. It may be referred to by some who have bias’ as back stabbing etc., but to most its called competition. And in a free market thats a good thing. As is the case with all technology, let each one build their product and compete, and the best product will come out a winner, but the less successful ones will have enough business as well. The competition causes all players to strive to make their product better for the end user, and the winner in the end, is that end user.
Its also not very smart business practice to limit your self to one product, when you have the capabilities to offer another related product.
Every standards body known to man, is made of of several companies, all competitors of each other, yet they live harmoniously in our business world competing day to day, while agreeing on certain standards behind the closed doors. Dot Mobi is just an example of that in practice.
David – please don’t tell me you like this matchstick ethopian image? It must be a “male” thing…!!!
I personally don’t think mobile web developers have anything to worry about from Mobilizer, it’s main focus is to drive .mobi domain registrations by giving a cheap solution to those who want cheap solutions. It only works for .mobi domains and it caters to people who wouldn’t pay for professional services to begin with and it’s results are absolutely no comparison to a site properly designed for the mobile environment. If anything, Mobilizer will increase the customer base for professional mobile web developers with businesses wanting a “real” mobile website, not a ground up version of their PC site.
I have just setup mobilizer to convert my blog, I am pretty happy with the results for something I got free with my .mobi registration, personally I haven’t got the time or money to set up a proper mobile site, especially as it’s a blog so I would need some way to update both sites at once. For me Mobilizer works out to be useful, the results aren’t perfect or standards compliant but at least my site can be comfortably viewed on a mobile device.