What is .Mobi?
Is it a whale? Is it a mini car?

No! .Mobi (pronounced, Dot Mobi) is the all new revolutionary tool being used by mobile phone users to access a mobile version of a brand.

Do you wish you could check your mail on Yahoo! without having to go to an internet café or all the way to the office or do you wish you could scan a concert ticket for entrance to a concert without having to carry an actual ticket around with you? Wish granted! .Mobi has accomplished this task and is rapidly becoming the most inexpensive, versatile and popular way of advertising one’s brand.

Imagine being able to access an entire website with your cellphone.
Stop imagining, it’s being done as we speak!
So far Google, Microsoft, the entire Vodafone Group and Nokia have all jumped onto the .Mobi bandwagon.

Believe it or not, but South Africa is actually a forerunner in developing .Mobi sites and are currently trying to extend their services aside from being able to access a website but also being able to make internet purchases via ones cellphone!

If you want stats, let us ponder this. It was estimated that in 2006 that 986 million cellphones were sold meaning that the market is expanding exponentially. This number is being compared to the 900 million internet users as well as 1 billion television sets.
We will let you do the math.

Mobi sites are the answer to the internet via a PDA/cellphone. The DotMobi domain was launched late last year and is the answer to the frustrations that users, who have been trying to access the internet on these devices, have had over the past few years.

A DotMobi site is customised to make for easy viewing on a cellphone. The content is primarily text-based with limited use of images and animation, and the layout/navigation is simple.

Riaan Groenewald, Multimedia Solutions Operations Director, says that since the launch of the DotMobi domain in October last year, over 600 000 domains have already been registered.

According to the 3 cellphone networks in South Africa there are over 36 million registered subscribers. With the ongoing issues about the internet becoming a mass market medium due to accessibility, Mobi sites are the answer.

We, as marketers, need to create awareness of the advantages of this channel and continuously highlight the importance of lowering costs so that it does indeed become accessible to all.