Highlight of the Week #1

Your First Mobile Website - Should it be a .mobi or a mobile subdomain?

In reference to my article "Mobile Search Site Creation and Optimization - Part 1" Vance Hedderal, Director of Public Relations at .mobi explains why he thinks the .mobi extension should be used instead of a mobile subdomain (i.e. yoursite.mobi vs. mobile.yoursite.com)

Quote from Vance Hedderal:

I was surprised to read the section in Rachel Pasqua’s presentation summation that says, "iCrossing decided to proceed with the subdomain concept rather than a separate domain such as a .mobi. In this case their mobile site is located at mobile.icrossing.com; a sensible concept that retained the branding of the top level domain name without having to rebrand a new one."

I was surprised because, up until then, the ideas in her section seemed well thought out.

It's rare to see companies that hinge their brand on a domain. Even the greatest Internet success stories like Amazon, Google and Yahoo aren't tied to a domain. They realize a domain is a channel; to them, a .fr, or .co.uk or .jp matters as much as a .com. That's what .mobi brings to branding: a distinct, easy-to-remember formula for finding the mobile content of a brand and a distinct channel, much the same as a country code offers.

The subdomain strategy that iCrossing is employing is what has brought mobile users addresses like http://wap.oa.yahoo.com and http://proxy.espn.go.com/wireless/espn/. With .mobi, users can easily guess -- say -- “cnnmoney.mobi” or “google.mobi” and know that they'll get content that works on their phones.

Now, think about brands that did tie themselves to a domain. Here's one: pets.com.

We've talked more about this in our own blog's misconception series. Our contributor, Ronan Cremin, remarked, "Third level domains such as wap.domain.com and mobile.domain.com do not work well for the purpose identifying mobile content, nor do special URLs such as domain.com/mobile and domain.com/xhtml because there are no enforceable standards for doing this (DNS is inherently distributed -- registrants can do whatever they want with third-level domains). A top-level domain, on the other hand, can do this, and help the user to identify (and trust) mobile friendly sites."

It bears noting that iCrossing does own the icrossing.mobi domain. That said, Rachel was clear that .mobi was not their first choice for promoting their site. The other presenters also noted that although they did not have high expectations for the .mobi extension they felt it was still a good idea to purchase the domain to avoid the possibility of future losses should it gain traction.

Go For .Mobi
I recommend that clients utilize the .mobi extension when creating their new mobile websites because it is inherently logical; having a single top level domain (TLD) that is dedicated to mobile is a sensible manner to simplify mobile surfing. That .mobi is not a popular top level domain says very little since the mobile web is still in the first stages of formation. I expect the next 2 years will be the real test and I for one believe that .mobi has a real chance of catching on as long as the .mobi PR machine can get big media and other early adopters to utilize it.

by Ross Dunn, CEO/Founder
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Highlight of the Week #2

The Social Activities of Adults and Youth Profiled

Recently Forrester Research posted a "North American Consumer Technology Adoption Study" profiling social technologies used by a large spectrum of 10,000 online users.

The following are some screenshots from the Forrester presentation that I found particularly interesting. Why? Because they highlight the areas that may be best to direct my client's social marketing campaigns or even areas where other forms of advertising may be worthwhile.

A. ADULTS: Where are adults most active in the realm of social technology?

B. YOUTH: Where are youth most active in the realm of social technology?

The above screenshots are Copyright © 2007, Forrester Research, Inc.

by Ross Dunn, CEO/Founder
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The Major Player

Google's 600 Million Dollar Data Center

If you thought Google had enough data centers by now, then you thought wrong. Search giant Google, recently noted as the world’s most visited website, has announced today that it plans on spending $600 USD million on a new data center, about 50 miles from Tulsa in Pryor, Oklahoma.

Plans have the facility opening in just over a year, summer 2008, and ultimately will staff 200 new employees. Located on an 800 acre plot of land Google purchased at Mid America Industrial Park an existing warehouse will be converted along with the construction of a new building to support their future growth.

The exact economic incentives received by Google from the state have not been determined, but they will certainly be significant.

by Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO

Adwords Hackers Have Stopped - For Now

An AdWords Exploit has been put to rest recently by Google after scammers running “smarttrack.org” attempted to capture users banking details and other private information.

At Inside Adwords, the official AdWords Blog, a post was noted late last month regarding the problem.

“On Tuesday, April 24th, Google identified and canceled AdWords accounts displaying ads that re-directed users to malicious sites. These sites attempted to install malware onto users’ computers. This is an issue we’ve taken very seriously and will continue to monitor. We are also evaluating our systems to ensure that the appropriate measures are in place to block future attempts.”

The post goes on to note that Google actively works to detect and remove sites involved in malware, from both their paid and organic listings.

At PC World, Matthew Broersma describes what occurred in some more detail. In essence the attack worked by creating seemingly legitimate ads; when a user searched for the paid phrase, an ad would appear for a variety of well known brands, including such names as the BBB.

When the user clicked on the ad created by the hacker, they were redirected through a URL located at “smarttrack.org” before being directed to the legitimate source, with nothing appearing out of the ordinary. During the redirect however, the “site used a modified MDAC exploit to attempt to install a backdoor and a post-logger on to the user's system.”

by Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO

MSN Launches Desktop Search

It is interesting that a few years after Google released Google Desktop, Microsoft has come forward to release their own version of Desktop search.

As part of the MSN Search Toolbar Suite introduced earlier this year, the final version of MSN Desktop was released just this past Monday.

Yahoo and AOL also have their versions of Desktop search in the works; interesting considering an effective desktop search feature should be something that is automatically integrated into an operating system. The new Windows Vista already has Windows Desktop Search integrated out of the box, but for those looking to try it on your pre-Vista version of Windows you can find the download, along with more details on Microsoft’s site.

by Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO

Net Reality

On the Rise: Online TV Viewing

An interview by Motorola said, “The ability to ‘take control’ of their viewing was the motivation for many European broadband users to watch TV online using their computers.”  The article was posted by the BBC News.

The internet television service, Joost, which has launched commercially, boasts more than 150 content channels – from cartoon to music videos and films.  My immediate response to 150 channels online is that there is so much choice, or to coin a line from Bruce Springsteen’s song, “57 Channels and Nothin’ On”.

That said, although this article pertained to European preferences, I believe we all want to watch what we want, how and when we want.

by Anita Sperrer, Office Administrator

And on a side note:  Canucks, please win the game tonight!

Save Internet Radio Update

Here is an update on the effort to save Internet Radio; the news is good and bad. If you are interested follow this link to an update on the latest events and a great interview with a major player in this fight - Tim Westergreen of Pandora Radio.
- Ross Dunn