The Sun has boosted its mobile phone offering to readers today, becoming the first national newspaper to launch a « .mobi » domain name with content tailored to mobile users.
The new site – THESUN.mobi – contains a simplified version of the Sun’s webpage, allowing readers to access it over mobile phones or portable devices.
Many Sun readers are not office-bound and so less able to access Sun Online, the paper’s website, from desktop computers.
The website allows readers to access the top 10 stories in news, sport, showbiz and Sun woman, as well as Mystic Meg horoscopes and Page 3 girls.
They can also download Page 3 girls and videos, ringtones and virals. Downloading videos and wallpaper costs between 25p and £3. Page 3 wallpapers cost £1 and Page 3 videos between £2 and £3.
Text alert services include news, sports, showbiz, football, Mystic Meg, lottery results and racing tips, with each alert priced at 25p. A text from dating service The Love Match costs 50p and racing tips cost £1 per text.
« There are more than eight million consumers of mobile news and information services in the UK in any given month, and the Sun is keen to get a head start in extending its brand into the mobile space and reaching new audiences, » said Andrew Bagguley, head of mobile strategy at the Sun’s owner, News Group Newspapers.
« Thesun.mobi gives readers access to the paper wherever they happen to be – on a bus, at the beach, at a football game – the Sun is always there, in their pockets, on their mobile, » said David Ryder, the chief marketing officer of dotMobi, the company that controls the rights to the .mobi domain name.
Source dotMobiz