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dotMobi, the company behind the first and only Internet address designed specifically for mobile phones, today announced more than 500,000 .mobi domains have been registered in 104 countries since the domain's commercial launch in October 2006.

The continual growth of .mobi registrations illustrates that content developers are focused on delivering quality sites and applications to mobile phones for consumers to use. Millions of pages of content are now live on .mobi sites and many of the world's leading brands have gone ".mobi" over past few months.

Travel brands have quickly adopted .mobi sites to extend their brands for travelers while they are "on the go." Existing sites range from the 2007 Webby Award-nominated Travelosa.mobi to SAS (Scandinavian Airlines), the first airline to enable .mobi access to flight information, check in and schedules. Soon, travelers will see Amtrak.mobi plus the full range of lodging properties from the Hilton Hotels Corporation available as .mobi sites.

A number of high-end auto brands - BMW.mobi, Ferrari.mobi and Rolls-Royce.mobi - are pioneering the way for the automobile industry on the mobile web. But "mobile" travel and automobile brands are only the start.

News and entertainment heavy hitters such as ESPN.mobi, Maxim.mobi, FoxNews.mobi, BusinessWeek.mobi and CNNMoney.mobi have gone mobile. And music celebrities like China's Wei Wei with weiwei.mobi, India's Vayu with vayu.mobi and Tila Tequila with misstila.mobi have embraced the mobile internet.

A number of mobile operators including TIM, the mobile arm of Telecom Italia, and Bulgaria's Vivatel are making .mobi an essential part of their communications strategy.

Others are finding unique applications for .mobi sites such as social networking with yolo.mobi and cerkle.mobi, hobbyists sites like bigfishtackle.mobi and p-o-k-e-r.mobi and fitness sites like pumpone.mobi. Some additional hot sites for people on the go are cabbies.mobi to locate a taxi in the US, UK and Canada and screenings.mobi to find film times and locations in those same countries. Also, VoteScotland.mobi means that people can vote in elections via their phones instead of going to the polling station.

"The results demonstrate the strong role dotMobi is playing in driving the creation of mobile Internet content on the Internet," said Neil Edwards, CEO of dotMobi. "Most importantly, the mobile industry's consumer focus around creating .mobi sites is bearing strong results in a short period of time. Consumers finally have easy-to-use and affordable made-for-mobile content."

He added, "Our new cross-platform mobile Web developer certification program is already graduating certified developers with hundreds of additional developers already signed to take certification testing."

About dotMobi

Headquartered in Dublin, dotMobi - a wholly owned subsidiary of Afilias Limited - is a worldwide leader in enabling the development & discovery of quality mobile content through innovative services, in turn helping businesses and individuals reach the world's billions of mobile phone users. dotMobi spurs mobile industry innovation by giving content providers the tools they need to ensure the Web will work on mobile phones with speed, accuracy and relevant content. (Learn More)

Related topics: DNS, Registry Services, Mobile, Top-Level Domains