Domains of the day: a new domain could mean the dawn of a new mobile age
HERE'S A NEW TECH acronym: mTLD. It stands for mobile Top Level Domain. And that means a new domain suffix, like .com, specifically for mobile use. Heavy hitters like Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Sun Microsystems, T-Mobile International and Vodafone have banded together to set up a registry company (www.mtldinfo. com) to manage the new mTLD, providing the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) grants approval this summer. That industry-wide support bodes well for adoption of the venture. If all goes well, then an mTLD could signal wireless Internet's coming of age and jump-start an area that has been bogged down by differing standards and consumer confusion. A new domain solely for mobile optimized sites could spur the introduction of new, faster mobile services and applications. That sounds like a hotbed of opportunity for technology entrepreneurs. This goes well beyond looking up the occasional sports scores or checking a flight on a cell phone. "The creation of [an mTLD] would allow consumers to access the Internet in different mobility scenarios," says Pertti Korhonen, senior vice president and CTO of Nokia. Interested entrepreneurs can follow the application progress and read up on the proposal on ICANN's Web site at www.icann.org. |
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