Comments on: .Tel Tops 100,000 Registrations

By: Robert Haastrup-Timmi

Robert Haastrup-Timmi — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:48:53 +0000

Hey Andrew! I sense you are slowly coming round to realizing the great potential of .Tel. I just read you latest post, riverting as ever!

I will make a comment there.

By: Andrew Allemann

Andrew Allemann — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:13:10 +0000

“Once people start saying “do you have a .tel?” you can begin to visualize a whole new eco system and businesses will want in! ”

One of my key points in my first article on getting to scale quickly is that .tel needs to strike deals with some of the big players out there in the tech world. Give them a .tel for free — heck, pay them to use it.

By: Duane

Duane — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:33:27 +0000

Good points are made by Steve S. In a pure user perspective .TEL can be interesting. In a Domainers world or better investing in the extension, I dont see any green lights at the moment.

The price is not exactly cheap.

$ 15 with a U. S. based provider.
29 Euro ( aprox. $ 38 ) at German Providers.

Even if Facebook and others jump in on .TEL? Well, just look who all was involved in the .mobi extension. All the big players jumped in on the .mobi and seen a bright future.

By: Steve S.

Steve S. — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 07:33:13 +0000

Here’s another small-picture perspective. An electrician who wires residential custom homes. He has a number of clients at any one time, as well as product suppliers not to mention that he may have family and maybe a friend. Contact information between family and friends may not vary that often but what about suppliers and especially clients? Clients may or may not be considered as the public. From my experience with .tel so far, you can create lists of groups of people that have access to only the info you select for that group. Ex.: Family can see all of your info. Suppliers can see only your work cell phone and work email. The same for your clients. The public has access to only your company web page and land line phone number to be able to talk to your secretary about doing a job for them. If you have finished with a client, rescind their client status in your .tel account and Presto…they are now the public!
Let’s do a reality check here. If I, the electrician give out my contact info to a client as “electrician.tel” most people really will not write the info down. When they want to contact me, they search “electrician.tel”, scroll to my contact number and contact me. If for some reason I have rescinded their client status, they are going to have to take the long and arduous route to try to get hold of me.
The electrician really doesn’t care about whether .tel succeeds or not. If .tel is a useful tool that makes his business better, he uses it. If not, he won’t. That’s what will decide if .tel suceeds or not.

By: David J Castello

David J Castello — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 07:08:50 +0000

Yes, if MySpace jumps in feet first things will get very interesting quite quickly.

By: Robert Haastrup-Timmi

Robert Haastrup-Timmi — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:59:07 +0000

I must admit, I like Steve’s analysis of .tel from a white pages perspective. Think about it this way, if Myspace & Facebook integrate .tel as an app or something along those lines, then what Steve has just outlined above becomes very meaningful to the facebook generation, which looks like most people yong and old.

But that is just the beginning imo. Once people start saying “do you have a .tel?” you can begin to visualize a whole new eco system and businesses will want in!

No wonder why Uncle Rupert at Myspace is getting interested!

By: Steve S.

Steve S. — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:53:41 +0000

Hey Dave:
No, I wouldn’t. That’s why .tel offers the opportunity to create “friends” lists (as many as you want) and to designate what info each group of “friends” (or acquaintances or co-workers, or corporate peers or whatever you desire) can see on their browser. I understand you can have multiple lists of different catagories of “friends” that can see whatever variety of info you choose to display on the .tel. Remember, the option is also there to display whatever quantity publicly. The choice is the owner’s.
The short of it, I guess, is that .tel realizes the concept of privacy. From my short access to .tel I see all kinds of user controls allowing us to display any combination of submitted information.
I will keep manipulating our submissions and options to give us the best use of the system. I have no qualms to delete all info and abandon the system all together if it doesn’t live up to expectations. We’re willing to give this a (critical) try.
s.