.Mobi is alive and well according to the registry's Director of New Markets Pinky Brand. Responding to our Lowdown post July 2 about a "Death of .Mobi" seminar scheduled for the 

Pinky Brand
.Mobi Director, New Markets

Search Engines Strategies conference next month in San Jose, Brand rallied to .mobi's defense in an email we received today.  Here are some of Pinky's counter punches:

• Since the general availability of .mobi in September 2006, more than 1,000,000 .mobi domains have been registered, and are actively used and promoted by thousands of top brands around the world. See a small sampling of those at http://mtld.mobi/node/997. 

• A few weeks back, http://zagat.mobi took the Best Listings & Updates site of the year in the Webby Awards' People's Voice Awards.

• This past week, two top tech magazines launched .mobi sites at http://zdnetuk.mobi and http://siliconuk.mobi. 

• Disney has just launched http://camprock.mobi  to go with its hit Jonas Brothers film. 

• The leading Spanish language channel has just launched http://univision.mobi. 

• Leading country stars Tim McGraw and Lonestar can be found on the mobile web at http://mcgraw2go.mobi  and http://lonestarnow.mobi, respectively.

• Papers around the world from the New York Post at http://nypost.mobi  to the Sun at http://thesun.mobi  use the .mobi domain to indicate that their content is designed for easy access on mobile phones.

"In short, I'd have to say - contrary to your posting that mentions the agenda at Search Engine Strategies 2008 - .mobi has been largely embraced, mostly by international brands looking to help their customers find mobile content that works," Brand said. "And by the way the iPhone is not a .mobi killer. It actually enhances our value proposition even more. You may recall by reading http://dotmobi.typepad.com/dotmobi/2007/01/what_does_the_i.html that we’ve been pro-iPhone since it was announced."

Brand added, "Any serious global brand or entrepreneur who wants their mobile content to find it’s way to the world and wants their content to display properly on the 5,000 plus handset varieties that are out there at any given time is sticking their head in the sand if they think the iPhone is the only thing that matters. At best the iPhone makes up barely 2% of the handset market. So you see reports of our death are unbelievably exaggerated, and we look forward to hopefully serving on that panel in San Jose next month."
(Posted July 7, 2008)