[Update: 5th August 2008. I don't actually think dotMobi would try to buy their way. My title was a little unfair. Perhaps it should have had the words naive or inexperience in there]
I wrote a post recently about how dotMobi is purposely confusing people into thinking that .mobi is right and .com is wrong when it comes to promoting your mobile-friendly Web site. But now they’re stepping up their game. Read on…
When hosting industry awards, one of the most important tasks is to ensure that they are open, inclusive, transparent, fair and above all, independent. By independent I mean free from influence by outside contributors such as sponsors and media partners.
So, why aren’t the Mobile Web Europe awards called the dotMobi Awards? I know why, because then it wouldn’t look independent. Instead, dotMobi has paid for sponsorship, promotion bags and they are on the judging panel and worse still, they mandate the use of their guidelines and their domain name as part of the entry criterion.
Do these look like independent awards to you?
Criteria for submission:
- Sites must be built on the .mobi domain; redirects to sites built on other naming conventions via a .mobi domain are not allowed.
- Sites must score at least 4 out of 5 on the free http://ready.mobi testing tool. ready.mobi evaluates mobile readiness using industry best practices and standards
- Site must meet dotMobi compliance requirements, which are outlined in the dotMobi Mobile Web Developer’s Guide, available at http://dev.mobi.
- Sites should follow best practices as outlined in the dotMobi Mobile Web Developer’s Guide, available at dev.mobi .
- Members of the judging panel and their company’s are unable to submit entries to the awards
I love point 5, because anything else would look corrupt LOL.
As if it’s not bad enough having the partner/sponsor’s own staff on the judging panel, it’s non other than Vance Hedderel, Director, PR and Communications, dotMobi
I wouldn’t have believed it without seeing it with my own eyes. Thanks to Alfie and Pat for highlighting this on Twitter.
As long as I’m Chair and the support of the Executive, The British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) will never support dotMobi until it gets it’s act together. BIMA members are made up of dotMobi’s audience – i.e. the agencies (not to mention the upcoming graduates and future students) that build the mobile-friendly Web sites.
Helen Keegan also thinks they should be renamed. Helen also points out that there are only 3 women speaking for the entire 3 day conference. What rock do these people live under?
What do you think?