Pew Predicts 2020 Will Be The “Year Of Mobile” – Hold On To Your .Mobi Gems

Posted on December 16th, 2008 by admin in Domain News | 1 Comment »

It seems you may have to hold on to your .MOBI gems for a while longer folks, as popular research firm Pew Internet & American Life Project predicts the “Year Of Mobile” will be as far as 2020.

Many predicted that 2009 would be the year when wireless devices took over the mantle of primary means of connecting to the internet – which would be a good thing for the .MOBI extension – but Pew Internet & American Life Projects disagrees, predicting 2020 as the breakthrough year.

The “Future of the Internet III” study, which surveyed some 600 Web experts about the role of technology in the year 2020, suggested that the combination of portability and affordability will turn the cell phone into the primary internet connectivity means 12 years from now.

Figures from market database Wireless Intelligence cited in the Pew report indicate that there will be about 4 billion cell phones worldwide by the end of 2008, 15% of which are Internet-enabled. This percentage is predicted to rise aided by universal standards that will allow cell phone users to maintain consistent service across different parts of the globe.

Susan Crawford, founder of OneWebDay and an Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board member says within the report:

“By 2020, we’ll have standard network connections around the world. Billions of people will have joined the Internet who don’t speak English. They won’t think of these things as ‘phones’ either – these devices will be simply lenses on the online world,”

Most Web experts agree that future mobile phones will function more as computers than as phones.

“By 2020 I don’t think it will be so easy to distinguish between a mobile phone and a laptop,” said Steve Jones, co-founder of the Association of Internet Researchers and associate dean at the University of Illinois-Chicago. “These will blend into a general ‘mobile computing’ category of device (for which we probably don’t yet have a name).”

Although some experts expressed worries about open networks, bandwidth and screen size, among other aspects of cell phones, most agreed that the rising trend of mobile computers use has already begun with smartphones like the iPhone and the BlackBerry, but is still mostly limited to business users or other affluent consumers – a trend that will encompass mainstream users as a result of the factors mentioned above.

The Pew report brings good tidings for some of you that have been doubting their investments in the .MOBI extension as more mobile users will undoubtedly mean more investments in mobile websites – which can only mean more demand for .MOBI domain names, even though your investment may be a little more long term then you may have hoped for.

To read the full Pew report go here.