Jun 09 2007
The Mobile Web – dot mobi directory for Australia
Weeks ago I started to look for other dot mobi sites for Australia. I’ve read that 500,000 dot mobi sites have been registered in 104 countries, but it seems finding those sites, and specifically sites for the Australian audience, is another challenge completely.
Spurred on by Gary’s recent post entitled Is Australia ready for the Mobile Web? which also led me to Nick’s post entitled The Mobile Web – Why should you care? (which quotes some really interesting statistics), I decided to renew my hunt for mobile websites.
Now strictly speaking, most websites can be accessed via web enabled mobile phones. However, it doesn’t necessarily make for an optimal user experience. I understand that the theory behind good website design, is to build a website that can adapt to being displayed on mobile phone. I don’t know the mechanics behind such design, but in this day and age of digital advertising and fancy applications I don’t know how practical it is to have a “one site fits all†approach.
And in any case, this doesn’t help existing websites, particularly for the SME market, who may not have the budget for a website makeover. Creating a specific purpose mobile web site may well be a cheaper option (or even free).
Of course, the flip side is how are your customers going to find your website if it’s on a subdomain (eg dlook.com.au/mobi or m.dlook.com.au) or separate domain entirely (eg dlook.mobi).
I cannot find one single access point for all the made for mobile websites in Australia. Why? I can only assume it’s because of conflicting interests. I would have thought that telcos would have an interest in doing so (i.e. keeping mobile web browsers on line longer), but it wouldn’t serve their interests to promote content provided by other telcos, when they like to keep you on their portals.
I thought about creating a directory of mobile websites. But seriously, where would be the money in that? Today’s web is all about “freeâ€, so you couldn’t charge for access, and without a lot of paid subscribers the directory wouldn’t be particularly comprehensive.
So for what it’s worth, I’ve created a resource guide, or mobile web directory of sorts. I’ve only included sites that are predominantly free to access and do not require subscriptions (see disclaimer at the bottom). Many of these sites were obtained from a Whirlpool forum posting, and of course countless hours of Googling.
This is just a starting point, which I hope to build on. Contributions would be gratefully received so if you have, or know of, a mobile website not on the list please add it in the comments.
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Local Business Search |
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dLook Business Directory |
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Yellow Pages Business Directory |
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Search |
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Google |
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Yahoo |
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Sensis |
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MSN search and Hotmail |
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Portal |
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Ninemsn |
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Sport |
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Fox |
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Sky |
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Skiing |
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Bigpond Sports |
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News |
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SMH |
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News |
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The Age |
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The Australian |
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ABC |
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Weather |
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Reference / Information |
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Valuations |
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My Career |
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.mobi directory (not much for Australia yet) |
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Technology / Geek / blog / overseas |
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Melbourne IT |
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Tech Talk Radio |
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Technorati |
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Bloglines |
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Slashdot |
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Mobile Phone Stuff |
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Opera |
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Antivirus for smartphones & PDAs |
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Webstop – web hosting, domains, design |
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Find Internet Cafes |
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Business Week |
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Mobile encyclopedia (Wikipedia) |
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Miscellaneous |
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Govt grants management |
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Hope Valley Uniting Church |
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Photoramas |
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Construction Calculations |
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Lifestyle / Entertainment |
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Entertainment – Dining, gigs, movies, weather |
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What’s on in Melbourne |
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Search Accommodation, dining, movies etc |
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Entertainment |
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Jokes |
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Ralph (includes pub guide) |
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Shopping |
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Trading Post |
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Cars Guide |
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BMW |
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Flowers All Hours |
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Realestate.com.au |
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Real Estate |
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Travel/Mapping/Transport |
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Qantas |
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Public Transport Info – Sydney |
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Last Minute – travel, accomodation |
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Whereis mapping |
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Google maps |
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Brisbane Public Transport |
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Mobile Phone Sites / Providers etc |
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3 |
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Vodafone |
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Ericsson |
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Nokia |
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Sony Ericsson |
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GSM info & coverage |
[disclaimer: Accessing these sites via your mobile phone will incur download charges from your phone provider. Some websites may require a paid subscription to access on some networks. Check with your mobile provider regarding costs.]
13 Responses to “The Mobile Web – dot mobi directory for Australia”
Hi, Read with interest your post.
I am located in country Victoria
I am in the process of building mobile sites.
I have just started building
http://ozy.mobi -Australia on your mobile.
Some of my other mobi sites,not just for Australia-
http://mystics.mobi – free daily horoscopes
http://canines.mobi – Latest doggie news on your mobile
http://poms.mobi – All about Pomeranian dogs on your mobile phone
http://shelties.mobi – Shetland Sheepdogs on your mobile phone
http://dees.mobi – my personal mobi webpage
http://muso.mobi – Latest music news and stories on your mobile
I am working on more mobi sites- including an art site, real estate site, and many more.
The problem that will hold back the mobile internet in Australia is the high cost of mobile internet usage.
Hi Denise
Wow that’s a lot of sites – they must keep you busy! Thanks for letting me know about them.
Hopefully, the cost of mobile browsing will come down. Some of the mobile providers seem to have pretty generous download limits in their plans now.
Thanks for dropping in.
I think the problem with mobile sites is focus, to many sites try to replicate their main site, ignoring the fact that mobile users do not have time (primarily because of money) to look through long pages, therefore sites which are focused on getting the info to the user as efficiently as possible even if it looks ugly will attract users. But its always worth remembering mobile users are on the move, they are looking for something not surfing (well some might be but not the majority) news, and information thats useful to the user now is more important they can after all go and look up the breeding habits of canines at leisure but the location of their 10 o’clock meeting might be quite vital.
I agree with Tim, you cannot replicate your website into a mobile site.
Users are definitely using mobile sites for a difference purpose and this has to be taken into consideration when designing a site. Users want instant access to limited information. They are using their mobile to ‘snack’ rather than for in-depth information which they will go to the web for.
As well as the content of the site the design is also important to stimulate a good user experience. It must be remembered that the mobile phone is a much smaller screen and as Tim mentions users do not want to scroll down pages of texts. Sites must also take into consideration image size and page weight to ensure that sites load quickly and easily.
Another essential element in building a good site is a handset detection tool which allows you to detect the handset make and model accessing the site and to render the pages and images accordingly.
With regards to data costs 3 have paved the way in offering very generous data allowances for a small monthly fee so people do not experience ‘bill shock’ when using mobile data services. As we have seen overseas, particularly in the UK the other carriers have also started to bring their mobile data rates down as well.
Denise – it is great to see people starting to build mobile sites specifically designed to target their particular interest groups!
Hi Tim and Anna
Many thanks for your input. I certainly agree.
Anna, with regards to your comment:
“Another essential element in building a good site is a handset detection tool which allows you to detect the handset make and model accessing the site and to render the pages and images accordingly.”
You make a very valid point. We’re in the process of doing that for dLook.mobi at the moment. It seems just having a .mobi doesn’t necessarily cut it!
3 do seem a lot more reasonable than one of the other carriers (who shall remain nameless). They offer about 10% of the download limit for the same price as “3”
Just reading your post Meg regarding .mobi application for mobile websites. A quick thank you for adding my site to your list, erwingroen.mobi.
I’m in the process of creating a AU directory with all aussie content but haven’t had time. It’s called AUdirectory.mobi. I did add some urls that i know will have a .mobi presence, but many are waiting until it takes off a bit more!
Hi Meg
A very useful site to test DOT MOBI sites is http://demos.bango.net/mobileChecker/Default.aspx
Thanks for that link Aussie4
Glad to see dLook.mobi got a 5/5 but surprised to see how many “made for mobile” sites actually failed – wow!
I would be very sceptical about using that site as the results are not a realistic and I would not recommend using that website to replace any testing of your site.
Hi Anna
I’m wondering if you know of a definitive testing site?
I’ve also tried http://ready.mobi/launch.jsp?locale=en_EN which gives a lot more detailed report.
[…] this month I wrote about my frustration in trying to find mobile websites for the Australian Audience. I highlighted around 60 sites that I had found that might be of interest. Spurred on my a couple […]
Hi,
Thansk this is a helpful list. I have a few more for you
Local Bus Search:
http://mobile.yellow.com.au
Lifestyle:
http://mobile.citysearch.com.au
Classifieds:
http://mobile.tradingpost.com.au
and these sites:
http://wap.whereis.com.au/ & http://wap.sensis.com.au
have been replaced by:
http://mobile.whereis.com & http://mobile.sensis.com.au
respectively.
we have a directory of mobile web sites (not aussie focused though) that you can set up as your homepage at http://www.usemime.com. we’ve collected quite a few more but we’ve just made a random number available as you can add your own..enjoy