.mobi vs .tel Top Level Domains

   In the past eighteen years I've purchased quite a number of domain names and I must admit that the excitement of the earlier years was relived when both the dotMobi (.mobi) and dot-Tel (.tel) top level domains (tlds) came into existence. It has been a pleasure creating websites that meet the unique and sometimes strenuous demands of both the dotMobi and dotTel.  I own a number of each and luckily I was able to get onto the first boat out of the harbor with some premium names.  Given a choice between the two, which one is preferred by professional domainer?  Which one is my favorite and why?

   .MOBI - The Mobi tld has been available to the general public since the 26th of September, 2006 with the original intention, as I see it, to make it easy to find information at a glance on the web for smartphones. There is a set protocol on how this "format" is to fit the phones and the dotMobi folks have gone to a lot of effort and expense in creating documentation that will accommodate each and every major type of Internet savvy phone available. You can check your website and have it graded as to how well it shows up on selected phones by going to their website located at http://mtld.mobi. This works for any page whether it is a mobi, com, net or any other extension irrespective of its type.

   As an example, I created TravelNurse.mobi to make it easier to find contact information to the agencies and registries we were using.  As part of the responsibility of owning the domain name, we added all of the other major companies we could find that played a part in the travel nurse industry for the benefit of other travel nurses and medical companies needing to have access to the same type of information. It has worked out well and the website has been well received by the general public and is indicated by its Alexa score.

   As a contrary to the above, you may find many negative discussions as to the real need of a new four-letter tld when you can set up any dotCOM to show up just fine on a smartphone.  The iPhone made most web pages readable just as they were with a number of exceptions of course.  The Opera browser has its mini version downloadable for free for most phones for the same reason.  A new tld is yet another yearly expense on a company's already stretched budget and the future indicates that there will be many more available just around the corner to choose from. So why choose to buy a number of dotMobi domain names?

   .TEL - Many of the same questions came up when TelNic offered their version of Internet information access with a smartphone with the dot-Tel extension.  This one is quite different and as it may be more limited with what you can do with it, it is what you can do that makes it unique and quite fascinating. I picked up a handful of dotTels the first minute they were offered to the general public March 24th of last year. Information on the dot-Tel resides on a server at TelNic offering very little formatting capability thus making it a great source for the search engines to make use of.  Google almost immediately placed all of my sites in prominent positions with regards to the keywords you would likely use in searching for information provided by my sites.

   My original intention was to use them as directories for databases I was interested in sharing.  One of these databases is created in a similar fashion as the dotMobi with TravelNurse.tel. Google picked it up quickly and cataloged every one of the pages.  Since my wife is a travel nurse we had a great way of testing the use of the site since she was working for several of the agencies referenced on the site and it offered a great comparison to the dotMobi sister site. Much like the dotMobi, each agency has its own page with contact information available at the click of a key on my phone. It is also set up well for Web 2.0 links, you know, the social sites. As an aside, TravelNurse.tel was picked by TelNic as their Site of the Week for 12 May 2009.

   One of the more fascinating items I find available is that I was able to download a free plug-in for my Blackberry (or iPhone) and pull up the information in my Address Book.  Whenever I changed the information on the website, the Address Book changed accordingly for that entry.  This is true centralization of information and accessible right there in your hand and everyone else's as well.

   Conclusion: Our screens have become smaller and we depend more on our phones for the information we "need" whether it is the local weather or the latest course offerings at the college we attend. Our phones have become an extension of how we guide our vehicles to the next destination depending on the amount of traffic and where the nearest pizza is that is open late at night when traveling through a town we are unfamiliar with. Which tld do I prefer? It depends on what I need from the Internet therefore, I prefer both.

   More information will be added to this article as ideas are explored comparing the two domain extensions.

   About the Author: Steve Merrill has been designing websites since 1992 with his most recent creations catering to the mobile world. His portfolio carries across many different categories including education where he's been a college web designer for more than twelve years.

   See also my article comparing .net and .org.  For additional information, you may wish to contact Steve at Merrill.tel.