As North
America approaches one of its busiest travel weekends, several new .mobi
sites are providing travelers with the information they need while on the
road.
Mobile Web sites that use a .mobi Internet address are guaranteed to
work on practically all mobile phones, no matter who the mobile operator
is. Because of this, several innovative travel services are using a .mobi
address to lead the charge in building the mobile travel industry:
- For hotels while on the road, Marriott.mobi provides an ideal starting
point for finding Marriott properties or checking existing
reservations. Hilton.mobi also helps travelers around the world find
accommodations.
- For getting to a destination, Amtrak.mobi is mobile commerce site that
provides on-the-go U.S. travelers with a complete range of services,
including train status and reservation changes in both English and
Spanish.
- To check the weather before reaching a destination, travelers visit
weather.mobi, from The Weather Channel Interactive. Along with weather
and weather-related news, the site provides maps, pollen counts and
information on delays for airports.
- Travelocity.mobi provides full a full set of services for travelers,
mirroring the many services its PC-based site provides. Travelers can
get information on flights, vacation packages, hotels, cars and
cruises, and can book travel via their mobile phones.
- For destination information, hellometro.mobi helps travelers find
information on more than 600 cities around the world while ZAGAT.mobi
makes ZAGAT Survey's renowned content available on the mobile phone,
helping travelers make informed decisions about restaurants, hotels and
worldwide.
"ZAGAT Survey has always taken a 'platform agnostic' approach to
helping consumers make smart decisions on where to eat, drink, stay or
play. We make our content available to them however and wherever they need
it," said Nina Zagat, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of ZAGAT Survey. "ZAGAT.mobi
is the latest way we are achieving this goal."
The Marriot.mobi, Hilton.mobi and Amtrak.mobi sites were developed by
New York-based Usablenet (http://www.usablenet.com). Jason Taylor,
Usablenet's VP of Mobile Products, said, "These three companies use
Usablenet mobile, an intelligent proxy that outputs to the .mobi standards,
which lead the industry for good mobile site design. In addition, the .mobi
address -- as in Marriott.mobi -- is a sign for users to know that a site
will work on their mobile phones."
Neil Edwards, CEO of dotMobi, said, "Mobile sites are a perfect fit for
the travel industry to reach people while they're on the road. It's also an
excellent match for travelers who are dependent on their mobile device to
give them the information they need when they need it. And unlike a
site.com/mobile or m.site.com name, the standards behind the .mobi domain
guarantee that a site will work on a mobile phone."
dotMobi
dotMobi (the informal name of mTLD Top Level Domain, Ltd.), a
consortium based in Dublin, Ireland with offices in Washington, DC and
Beijing, is leading the growth of Internet use from mobile phones with the
.mobi domain name. Unique among domain name providers, dotMobi ensures that
services and sites developed around .mobi are optimized for use by mobile
devices. On-the- go consumers can have confidence that an Internet site or
service will work on their mobile phones when using a .mobi address.
dotMobi is backed by leading mobile operators, network & device
manufacturers, and internet content providers, including Ericsson, GSM
Association, Hutchison (3), Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung
Electronics, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefonica Moviles, TIM, Visa and
Vodafone. dotMobi is also a sponsor of W3C's Mobile Web Initiative.
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