.Tel travels into “renewal valley”. How will it come out on the other side?
The folks at .tel registry Telnic are certainly sweating this week: .tel domain names registered during general availability are hitting their first renewal period.
I call this period — when new top level domain names hit there first renewal period — the “valley of renewals”. Renewal raters during this critical time are a barometer for how the TLD is doing as a whole, and the rate can often signify the future of the domain.
When dotMobi hit its first renewal period it lost 10% of its registration base, similar to many other domains.
At the end of last year there were about 275,000 .tel domain names registered. With $35 million invested in Telnic, the base of registered domain names will hardly support the valuation the company must have reached. It needs to grow and it needs to grow quickly. Pay attention to this renewal period to see where it’s headed.
My guess is that many of the people who registered domains this time last year will renew for another year before making a judgment call. I renewed 100% of my .tel domain names: all one of them.
I’m renewing 2 of my 3 .tels. One is my home town the other a travel generic. I’ll keep my eye on some goodies that drop… but it’s gotta fit the extension…
For a bit more on this topic, dotMobi wrote an overview of changes to its zone file during the launch registration renewal periods in comparison to the historicals of the .info, .biz and .asia zone files. The write-up is at http://dotmobi.mobi/resource/the-mobi-zone-file-analyzed-and-compared.
Thanks Vance. I tried to link to your post in my article, but the link you sent me a few months ago no longer worked.
So long as Andrew doesn’t mind, please post a .tel that you have developed.
Heck, even post a .tel that you use.
No? Still drawing a blank?
Post a .tel that you know is developed.
I’m not talking about parked .tel or .tel domains from the .tel registry people.
Seriously, I’m curious.
Everytime the college kids next door get out of hand I use my .tel to call the police… http://redlands.tel =) me=old
Here are the results of the survey “Will You Renew Your .tel Domain Names?”:
http://danieldryzek.com/2010/03/13/will-you-renew-your-tel-domain-names-vote/
Most of the domainers will renew .tel domains.
this one seems to be coming up on various searches… http://oxfordstreet.tel
it appears fully developed and loaded – maybe not the norm, but hey you only asked for 1 🙂
The .Tel extension is a joke!
Vance,
So how many .mobis have been “reclaimed” due to non- or improper-use; under those “stringent” “must-actually-use” rules?
Any?
If so, care to name some?
Example of a sub-domain of tech news sources within Khi.tel, hosted on Webnames.ca. Note the SEO value:
http://technology-and-business-news-from-karachi-pakistan.khi.tel/
Company directory, hosted on BulkRegister: http://safiy.tel/
Personal page using the new template on Webnames.ca, which includes a photo:
http://mitchell.tel/
Webnames.ca has been quicker in rolling out new features than eNom, BulkRegister’s parent company.
BulkRegister has strong delegation features, whereby a distributed company can issue .tel domains to each of its employees and give them the authority to post their own data and control their own personal information. Instant-update DIY directories are the result.
Challenges facing Telnic are to nurture an ecosystem that builds tools for functions that include directory lookups from dumb phones, automated directory building and maintenance tools, and a smoother TelFriends system that more people will participate in.
The TelFriends system is free and enables registrants and non-registrants to access personal information encrypted within a domain record. IMHO front-ends to extend TelFriends and its permission functions could provide a missing link to enable social media federation, especially for open micro-blogging or OMB. It would also boost .tel registrations.
Salmon and PubSubHub produce contrived and lengthy address strings for pushing OMB inter-network communications, while failing to discourage spam. TelFriends could provide shorter identifiers while simultaneously serving as an inbound gatekeeper that blocks spam.
I’m sure .tel will make a drop ánd I’m sure Telnic will not be too nervous about that. The .tel domain is unique, has much added value and will be a success. Public awareness simply needs time to grow; a number of speculators will decide it will take too long before they can make a nice profit.
There are many examples of interesting .tel domains, see for instance http://mayo.tel, http://sos1.tel, http://prague.tel, http://agencevoyage.tel, http://taupo.tel, http://europeanplanet.tel, http://cancel.tel and http://dialaroom.tel.
And yes, I will renew all of my .tel domains 🙂
Kind regards,
http://edje.tel
You can find many populated .tel domains in our .tel of the week list here: http://telnic.org/community-weeklytel.html none of which belong to Telnic.
Thanks,
Justin
Telnic Limited
http://justin.tel
Pardon my being off-topic, but to address Steve M.’s questions above …
The .mobi domain **never** had requirements in regards to non-use, thus there were no “stringent, must-actually-use” rules.
There are recommendations to follow three simple programming rules that will ensure a site works on practically any mobile phone:
– use XHTML-Mobile Profile programming
– don’t use frames
– don’t use the “www.” string (to save typing steps)
All sites built on the http://site.mobi program as well as created via our award-winning Instant Mobilizer program use those recommendations so that they work on devices from iPhones and Androids to low-end “free with contract” phones. And all good programmers will follow those recommendations for mobile site building as well, no matter what site naming convention is chosen by the site owner.
In general, the dotMobi company has chosen to lead with a carrot rather than a stick in addressing .mobi sites that don’t follow these recommendations, but that was what we said we would do. The agreement all .mobi domain buyers sign via their registrars allow us, if necessary, to pursue stricter measures.
Vance,
I’m not going to take the time to dig up the exact quotes that .mobi leadership publicly made–numerous times–where they made clear they would cancel the registration of those who didn’t abide by their use rules (Andrew may have more info on this).
For now, I’ll refer you to a closely-related 12/2007 posting from right here on DNW:
https://domainnamewire.com/2007/12/19/most-mobi-domains-won-at-sedo-auctions-are-out-of-compliance/
Please check your calendar.
It’s now 2010.
Given all the still non-compliant sites Andrew listed … over 2 years ago, I’d of thought you and your fellow .mobi propagandists would have run out of carrots long before now.
For a look at several near fully developed generic .tel see http://custombuilt.tel, http://breast-implants.tel, or even http://apartmany.tel (CZ)
They are each linked with about 20 other similar sites, within private .tel networks we’ve built for each customer.
Search using page titles and watch’em pop up in the results pages. Sometimes with multiple placements on the search page = “page share”
good stuff to me 😉
we’ve renewed, we’ve continued buying and some .tel we will drop…it’s just a matter of maximizing inventory for us.
One thing is certain; sitting on them in the short term will not do nobody any good.