Russell Beattie

Woot! I'm a day late, but the guys at dotMP (Saipan Datacom) out in Hawaii have opened up .mp domain registration to the general public! Woohoo! You can Get your domain here. I've already gotten mine: Russ.mp*. How cool is that?

I know both Anthony Eden and Gib Bintliff personally, and I'm a big believer in what they're trying to do with the new service. It's not just a domain, it's an entire online mobile presence centered around the mobile phone and a short domain name. Anthony has put a ton of work into creating a weblog/moblog accessible from the web and mobile devices. It has that "full lifecycle" I've bitched about for a year now. Regular weblogs like Blogger, TypePad and even the new MSN Spaces will allow you to post via your email, but what happens if you want to modify that post from your mobile as well? You're out of luck. What Anthony and the guys at dotMP have done is made sure that the mobile phone is a true peer to the regular web browser. Anything you can do from the web, you can do from the phone. Perfect!

Not only that, but the default site has features like presence. This is very cool, if not revolutionary. Think of it like this: I'm not sure of Anthony's phone number, but I know his mobile address: Aeden.mp. I can quickly either tap that in (not many people will ever enter a URL into a mobile phone, I agree, but "mp" at least gives them a fighting chance) or go to my book marks, bring up his page and either leave him a message or if he's published his latest contact details, click on the "call me" link which will call him. This is very cool. It's virtualizing contact info, but in a global and open form, as opposed to using a centralized address book. In other words, if you know someone's dotMP address, you can contact them. It brings that sense of presence that all bloggers have to the mobile phone, which is very cool.

There's also lots of other cool innovations as well - like being able to reserve domain names via your mobile as well. This is great for viralness: when someone sees a dotMP page on a mobile phone for the first time, they're going to want one too, and they'll be abe to instantly reserve their name while mobile. Cool stuff.

Great job guys! Let the dotMP domain squatting and speculation begin!

-Russ

* Note: I didn't realize you can't do domain forwarding from the consumer dot MP sites. Gib and Anthony hooked me up with the domain so I could check it out and I didn't realize I was using the Pro version!