These days, it’s common to hear people describe the mobile web as the biggest thing since the desktop web. They’re wrong. It’s much, much bigger than that.

For starters, there are far more mobile devices than PCs 2.8 billion handsets were in circulation by mid-2006. In Europe alone, there are four times more handsets than PCs. In some countries, there are more handsets than people.

Mobile lets you reach people all across the world, many of whom may never own a PC. It’s not just a western phenomenon, it’s global. Beyond the numbers, the vast potential of the mobile web is also due to the way people think about and use their mobile devices:

• Mobile device are always on

• Mobile devices are always at hand

• Mobile devices are always personal

It can enable access to information, anytime and anywhere there is cell phone coverage. By freeing information from the restrictions of a desk or search for a nearby WiFi hotspot, people can quickly retrieve and exchange information.

It provides vast connectivity. One-third of humankind currently has access to the Internet through a mobile device. This number is twice as many as the number of Internet-connected personal computers (PCs). By 2010, it’s expected that half of the planet’s population will have access to the Internet through a mobile device.

Mobile enables services to take advantage of mobile device capabilities such as clicking on a phone number to call it or add it to the device address book.

Mobile can provide location-sensitive content. Location technologies can enable location-sensitive information be provided to a user. This can reduce the steps required for the user to reach useful content, and so makes it accessible with the least amount of effort.

In a fast-growing mobile society, businesses, organizations and individuals need to reach and interact with their customers while mobile.

A .mobi address allows them to bypass the constraints of geography, mobile service providers and handsets to reach their audience.

.mobi is the first and only top level domain dedicated to users who access the Internet through their mobile phones. With four mobile phones purchased for every one personal computer, there’s a world of people for whom the mobile phone is the main access point to the Internet. And those users can trust that a Web site is compatible with their mobile phone when that site’s address ends in .mobi.

.mobi domain names are backed by 13 of the world’s leading mobile and Internet players. The same companies who have delivered the promise of today’s information society: Ericsson, GSM Association, Google, Hutchison, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, Telefónica Móviles, TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile), T-Mobileand Vodafone.

A .mobi ensures a predictable, consistent experience on a mobile phone.