.mobi lacks trust
The mobile web isn't coming, it is already here. I use the web on my cell phone every day to check headlines from the New York Times, use Google Maps to get directions, check e-mail, and post to Twitter.
With the explosion in mobile web applications comes a new problem of domain name conventions. To solve this problem, a new top level domain (TLD) has been created. You can now buy your domain all over again as a .mobi to supplement your .com. But what if they don't match?
This issue hit home with me tonight as I logged in to Bank of America and learned that they now offer mobile access to banking information. This presents the challenges of the mobile web in stark relief. Here you have data that you want to access on the go (your current checking account balance) paired with information that you don't want to leak out at all costs (your checking account number).
As a user, I want the convenience of mobile access to secure data to be ensured with absolute trust or else it isn't worth the risk. I clicked to "learn more" and was shocked by what I saw. Instead of directing me to visit a familiar bankofamerica domain, it instructed me to give secret account information to www.bofa.mobi.
I am a savvy web user who shops online without fear of credit card theft and complete most of my banking transactions online. Yet this domain name switcheroo made me uncomfortable.
bofa. Really?
This got me thinking about the other mobile sites I visit. To see The New York Times on my phone I visit m.nytimes.com. To find picture from my friends I go to m.flickr.com. The same m. approach is also used at YouTube, Yelp, and Twitter.
.mobi is sold as a domain designed exclusively for the mobile web but companies need to be careful with this new TLD. Bank of America undermined the trust I have in their web site by switching domains on me. Visiting bankofamerica.com feels the same as walking into a branch. This is hard-earned trust. bofa.com lacks gravitas, it sounds like a link I would see in my spam folder. Oddly enough, Bank of America appears to also own bankofamerica.mobi. Using m.bankofamerica.com might be more useful to them than throwing money away on .mobi domains.
With the iPhone coming many people seem to think that development of a version of the web exclusively designed for mobile devices is irrelevant. This doesn't seem right to me. First, most mobile users will continue to have devices that are phones first and internet devices second. As more and more "phone" users get web access, it becomes more important, not less, to think about how experiences can be designed for that context. Second, the iPhone itself encourages web development specifically for the iPhone. Apple's Safari web browser is being released for Windows under the pretext that web developers will want to make sure that their web applications work on the iPhone. The explosion of iPhone web apps since the announcement (and before the device is even available) speaks to the need for context in web interactions.
But for all of this to work we can't sacrifice the basics. Trust matters more than anything else. Let's learn from Bank of America's mistake and stick to the conventions. Your domain name is how your visitors know you. Don't confuse them with something else, just stick "m" on the front and go on about your business creating great mobile experiences.
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Who is this guy?
We will find out what comes ahead in the near future. The iPhone could be what changes the whole industry or leaves it the same and brings mobi in the picture.
Did you see new Opera Mini ( v.4.0 ) ? It goes full web. You can zoom out/zoom in, but in the essence it is full web.
iPhone will bring pretty much the same thing with Safari browser.
Not only that, widget becomes all the rage, and will do the trick to present web content on the mobile where browsing the web doesn't do ( for example, I don't need to go on the mobile web site of weather.com but sync new weather data with a widget installed on my phone ).
Even Nokia did re-arranged its N95 phone in the range of ultra mobile PC ( UMPC ) which will bring another full web capability.
So, to me, it seems the biggest losers , having in mind these recent changes in mobile space , are ''mobile web'' concepts and java development.