Numeric Domains

5.63 billion mobile connections by 2013 - "Staggering"

The mobile web continues its unabated growth and more and more companies are jumping on the band wagon and reporting who, what, where, when, how and why we all should sit up and take notice.

The latest of these is Ovum . Nothing really new here...shift in global balance of power, more players - increased competition, prepaid connections on the upswing yada, yada, yada.

All grist for the mill for those of us watching this from the numeric domains sidelines.

WSJ's Numbers Guy Zeros in on Numeric Domains

Nice to see more traditional mainstream media beginning to report increasingly on the growing phenomenon that are numeric domains. In a December 5, 2008 piece, among other observations, Carl Bialik skimmed the surface on recent top numeric domain sales (as oft reported here and at DN Journal).

"Industry watchers say Web users should get used to visiting sites whose names are numeric...The increase in Web navigation from cellphones adds to the trend, because on a numeric keypad, it's easier to type out a two-digit domain than a long word".

Hmmph... whoda thunk?

And it's not just the online WSJ's Bialik that's publicly singing the virtues of these numeric gems. Sedo's COO, Jeremiah Johnston adds "Every region of the world, no matter the culture, has some kind of tie to numerology".

Even the sluggos over at prestigious Wharton, specifically one perfesser Eric T. Bradlow , weighs in with his Harvard backed PhD to opine... "I do think you will see a movement toward numerically named Web sites. They have this perception of technology and newness."

We couldn't agree more. Nudoms are invited to contact Mr. Bialik at his blog.

Emerging Markets Beating a Path on Mobile Browsers

Perhaps the most telling statement that the mobile web is coming of age is suggested in this snippet  about emerging markets from the December 5, 2008 Wall Street Journal.

"... Many people have turned instead to accessing the Internet with their mobile phone in the past year as falling costs, increased bandwidths and improvements in browser technology have made it quicker to surf from a cellphone. For many, browsing on a handheld device is a cheaper alternative to buying a PC or paying for home Internet service."

Many consumers want to use phones that cost around $100 to do tasks such as accessing email and social-networking sites. Consumers worldwide can easily access some of the most popular social networking sites using numeric domains. Simply enter the numeric domain equivalents of these sites into any mobile browser to access the respective mobile versions:

• Facebook - Enter 32232665.com
  

• MySpace - Enter 6977223.com
  

• Twitter - Enter 8948837.com
  

• Linked (In) - Enter 546533.com
  

Worldwide Mobile Subscribers Approaches 4 Billion

Wireless Week reports that there will be nearly 4 billion subscribers (+/- 61% of the worlds population) by the end of 2008.

Although the numbers do need to be taken with a grain of salt, it goes on to say:

"The year-on-year growth of cellular subscribers since 2000 has averaged 24%. In 2000, mobile penetration stood at only 12%; this year, it surpassed the 50% mark. It is estimated to reach about 61% by the end of 2008.

Although the data shows impressive growth, the ITU warned that the figures need to be carefully interpreted. In theory, a 61% penetration rate suggests that at least every second person could be using a mobile phone. However, this isn’t the case. In fact, the statistics reflect the number of subscriptions, not people. Double-counting takes place when people have multiple subscriptions. Also, operators’ methods for counting active prepaid subscribers vary and often inflate the actual number of people that use mobile phones."

Develolping Your Business for the Next Four Billion

Entrepreneurs are constantly challenged to maintain and grow their businesses. It's no longer enough to idle along with the status quo if you plan on being around next month, next quarter or next year, especially if your business depends on the wireless ecosystem.

The World Resources Institute, along with their colleagues at the Global Challenge Network  and Harvard's John F. Kennedy school of government, have published an insightful report detailing the global social and economic impact of the Base of the Economic Pyramid, better known as BOP.

The above graph is explained as follows:

Four billion people form the base of the economic pyramid (BOP) -- those with annual incomes below $3,000 (in local purchasing power).

The BOP makes up 72 percent of the 5,575 million people recorded by available national household surveys worldwide and an overwhelming majority of the population in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean -- home to nearly all the BOP.

This large segment of humanity faces significant unmet needs and lives in relative poverty: in current U.S. dollars their incomes are less than $3.35 a day in Brazil, $2.11 in China, $1.89 in Ghana, and $1.56 in India.

Yet together they have substantial purchasing power: the BOP constitutes a $5 trillion global consumer market.

Even though the report is not about wireless technology per se, it does help us to understand the indisputable fact that the worlds developing countries will drive major portions of the economic and social landscapes. This fact is certainly uppermost in the minds of many a Fortune 500 companies' CEO's.

Sun Microsystems' CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, shared his views on the importance of BOP in this Next Billion video segment (scroll to the bottom of the correct page).

As BOP users gain access to mobile devices and become more comfortable using them as tools to enhance their social and economic activities, I see a tremendous opportunity  for the inclusion and use of numeric domains as a way to more easily access the wireless internet.

Google sees surge in Web use on hot mobile phones

"We have very much hit a watershed moment in terms of mobile Internet usage," Matt Waddell, a product manager for Google Mobile, said in an interview. "We are seeing that mobile Internet use is in fact accelerating...."We are actually seeing a 20 percent increase in the number of searches by people,"Reuters reports that the numbers continue to grow steadily.

Now if we could just get the Googleratti to use and promote access to their mobile Web site using 466453.com (14 dial pad inputs) instead of mobile.google.com (36 dial pad inputs), we'd be away to the races.

Breaking Into the "Trillions"

Mobile worth $1 trillion this year

The worldwide mobile industry will be worth $1 trillion by the end of the year. Yep, that’s $1 trillion.

Portio Research’s report ‘Slicing Up The Mobile Services Revenue Pie’ also says the number of mobile subscribers will grow from 3.1 billion at the end of 2007 to an estimated 5 billion by 2012. It predicts non-voice Value Added Services (VAS) could be worth a quarter of a trillion dollars by 2012.

The report also delivers intriguing geographical statistics. For example, the US market, which accounted for only 6.7 per cent of worldwide data services revenues in 2004, could contribute 27.8 per cent by 2012. Conversely Asia Pacific will contribute 38.6 per cent, down from 50.9 per cent in the same time frame. This is a reflection of the difference in levels of ARPU between these two geographical regions.

Article

Every Little Bit Helps

Developing nations will be a major consumer of goods and services via the wireless Internet. Here's one example.

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh's six cell phone carriers added 2.05 million new subscribers in January, taking the total number of user to 36.4 million in the one of the world's fastest growing mobile market, official data showed.                                                                         

The number of mobile phone users in the impoverished country of over 140 million people rose nearly 58 percent in 2007 to 34.4 million as rivals cut prices to compete, said the Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission.

Several market surveys forecast the number of mobile phone users will be around 50 million at the end of 2009.

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More Fuel to the Fire - UK Mobile Internet Use Taking Off

The Guardian Unlimited  cites that more than 17 million people accessed the internet on a mobile phone in December.

In time, broadband mobile will be individuals' primary way of accessing the internet - and it will have a greater impact than even mobile voice has had."

All the signs are there. As mobile Internet access continues to increase steadily around the world, consumers will demand a "beyond expectations" experience. That starts with a simple, easy way to access the wireless Web.

Major players that are dictating the the  rules that define how we access the wireless Web need to pay much more attention to this aspect of the customer experience. You can have the greatest products and services, but if customers can't get to them, there's little chance of sustained success.

Convoluted sub-domains, (m.mycompany.com, wap.my services.com, mobile.my wallpaper.com) and the  wowitsa.mobi, (who dat ? ed.) will just not cut it. They're too long, take too much effort to input and are just plain NOT user friendly.

 

Mobile video ‘gets interesting’

RCR Wireless News: Mark Donovan, senior analyst at M:Metrics Inc. reports that "mobile video is penetrating the market at a rate of 4%, indicating 9.2 million people watched some type of mobile video in the United States in November 2007. And that number represents a 60% increase over January 2007".

Video has long been “hampered with really poor quality,” but the adoption and buildout of 3G networks has improved quality tremendously".

Approximately 4 million wireless subscribers are watching programmed video on their mobile device, 3 million consumers are watching on-demand video and at least 1.7 million subscribers are watching broadcast services, Donovan said.

Still, real growth is in the offing. “Most people in the United States still haven’t seen or experienced someone watching video on their phone,” Donovan said. “To the extent that advertising can become a subsidizing mechanism here, we’ll see this market grow.”

According to M:Metrics’ data, the top 10 mobile video and TV genres (ranked highest to lowest) are movie trailers, music videos, sports action or news, comedy, weather, entertainment or celebrity news, news, full-length television or film, TV highlights and animation or cartoons.

This can bode well for numeric domains. As more people take advantage of these types of services, more easy to use domains will be required to facilitate easy access.

Mobile Marketing Revenue to Hit $24 Billion in 2013

“The clear difference in this market over the past twelve months has been the embrace of mobile marketing as an integral part of cross-media brand campaigns,” says ABI Research director Michael Wolf. “Mobile is no longer off-limits in the minds of advertisers, but is instead seen as a very personal way to reach consumers who can be incentivized through information services and compelling content, as well as through more directly relevant and targeted messaging.”

It's great to see the shift going on here as more ad dollars are allocated to mobile. This increased activity by mainstream advertisers further legitimizes mobile as a key part of the marketing mix.

Now is the time to redouble efforts to encourage content providers and advertisers incorporate numeric domains into their plans.

Here's the full story.