Telnic inks deal with MySpace and directory companies.
When I last saw Telnic’s Justin Hayword, he told me the company had something in the works that would address one of my chief concerns about .tel: getting to critical mass quickly.
Telnic has signed a deal with MySpace and British Telecom (BT) to sell the domain names, and also with a German directory provider, which should give the domain a boost.
The truth is the typical domain channel for selling domains isn’t as applicable to .tel. GoDaddy isn’t offering it, perhaps because it can’t sell add-ons like web hosting and domain privacy for the domain. And few domainers are buying in because they don’t understand how to make money with the domains (which can’t have parked pages or web sites).
I coughed up $15 to get Allemann.tel so I can test it out. I bought the domain and have yet to receive any instructions on setting up my .tel domain. Although I can figure it out, I hope Telnic is aggressively pushing out instructions to new customers.
Tim Davids says
“few domainers are buying in”
then who bought all the names I tried to get yesterday 😛
Nic says
The product the registry is selling is not a “domain”, it is a directory listing.
Marg says
…which makes it more head scratching when you see “domains” like “fridge.tel” being posted for sale on the forums.
frank says
I ran approximately 10k geo names of the most popular cities countries states all over the world. Most of them were taken!
Most names were taken etc. this thing is on fire i was reading it on pcmag and twitter last night and germany is all over this.
Exciting technology with click to connect iPhone capabilities this is the new business card and it is here to stay-
Andrew Allemann says
Frank, is the domain on fire or is your pocketbook?
Ed Keay-Smith says
Like most people I have no idea how .tel will go and whether or not it has a place in a domainers portfolio but I am having a crack at it anyway.
I have searched on thousands of one & two word commercial names relating to generic products and services. I have been amazed at how many have been registered (about 95% of the names I checked anyway were gone!)
So if not domainers buying them who is? end users?
Anyway I have invested in approx 80 names so will see what happens over the next few months as to whether it was a worthwhile investment.
I have some ideas relating to using affiliate links within the contact details or maybe even charging companies to have their details in the contact form for their company. May work may not, time will tel!! LOL
Sorry could not resist!
Regards
Ed
OzDomainer
Ed Keay-Smith says
Forgot the link for the .tel users guide pdf for those who are interested.
https://telhosting.name.com/vfs/pdf/telguide.pdf
Andrew Allemann says
Ed, fair enough. It’s good to take risks with the understanding that they may not pan out. I wish you luck!
David J Castello says
Domainers are snapping these up, not endusers. Most endusers (who should) haven’t bought dotCom yet.
Robert Haastrup-Timmi says
Thanks for posting that link ED! It’s very helpful and quite impressive. Here’s my brief analysis:
It’s quite possible because of the .Tel DNS structure, any keyword query may come up tops on google search naturally, just like most Wikipedia “keyword” entries. If this proves to be correct, then that is going to be a massive bonanza for anyone owning essential keywords. Here’s a scenario: I just bought LondonAccommodation.tel NewYorkAccommodation.tel and LARestaurants.tel as 3 examples.
So lets suppose I complete the .Tel entries and those start coming up naturally in google, that means I could theoretically take booking orders for London Accommodation and LA Restaurants. Or I could actually put up one of those “premium” telephone numbers and make serious money!!…or I could use the .Tel organizational folders and list all the Restaurants in LA and Hotel Accommodation & B&B’s in London and New York, all for a nice annual fee!!
I’ve outlined this to give Domainers a nudge! If what I suggest proves correct, then …BINGO!!
Cheers with big Ears!
JF Mayer says
.tel makes sense, but not in the classical way of domain names, since it is indeed an online directory. It makes sense for centralising one’s contact information online. Instead of having a business card with a lot of information, just a .tel address would be sufficient.
I expect some other uses to develop as well (provided .tel succeeds), and here there could be some opportunities for domainers. However, it is true that many people are currently investing in impossible names.
The Telnic people seem to have a very proactive plan for developing .tel, so let’s hope for the best. And let’s see also if the concept of .tel actually will evolve over time (there were already adjustments in the past, remember .name, although I do not think it was for the best in that specific case).
I bought a few myself, primarily geo names in a specific niche.
Justin Hayward says
Hi Andrew,
You should be provided your access details through your registrar or .tel service provider. We don’t send them out directly. Once you’ve set one piece of public contact information up in the domain (e.g. domainnamewire.com), our validation tool will run over it (every 15 minutes) and, depending on whether your registrar has provisioned it correctly it should be up and running quickly.
We hope you enjoy it! And thanks for your continued interest.
Regards,
Justin Hayward
Telnic Limited
justin.tel
Robert Haastrup-Timmi says
Justin, is my brief analysis above of how .tel can be utilized to provide contact details on niche or vertical directories correct?
e.g a Hotel Directory?
I read through the pdf blurb and this seems to be the case as one can set up several sub-folders for public viewing with all contact details. Also will these sub folders and the .tel page itself get picked up seamlessly by google or does one have to do a lot of crazy SEO?
Thanks for responding here.
jason says
well I am happy I got my globalsports.tel just need to figure out how to add all the info now 🙂
Domainimal says
I managed to get hold of 8 .tel domains during landrush. I’ve since sold off 2 to cover the entire initial investment. So I’m now sitting on 6 super premium .tel, which are all profit. How high will it go, anyones guess. I already have three people contact me privately regarding purchase of one (a 5-letter geo). good on ‘ya mates! 🙂
jason says
seems the .tel is fading away, I never see any new .tel info anywhere online these days?
Robert Haastrup-Timmi says
You are right Jason! It looks like .Tel is already passe! What a big shame really, it almost feels for anything to work, it must be an American invention! I actually believe these guys were on to something, however they seem very obstinate and have failed to scale the .tel application to make it more viable for businesses. So now, no one seems to care! maybe some entity will buy them out and do a better job. So still keep any good domains you ahve if any.