.tel

[vans]

mattlane, it's good to see enthusiasm, had it not been for your post I wouldn’t have looked at .tel.

Currently, I can see no reason for me to get involved in the Landgrab. I assume large company will think differently.

If .tel takes off I assume there will be lots of variations, like .tel.uk and .tel.eu, .tel.me?

Also, I guess contact companies will spring up offering sub domains, a bit like email companies do now. I checked and contact.tel has already been taken. So perhaps in the future if contact.tel sets themselves up as a contact company, I might be able to purchase a sub domain cheaply, like JohnDoe.contact.tel?

[ankupan]

Hi,

I have booked a .tel domain in landrush period.

We have a company and it is involved in so many business.

So .tel will give us our centralized contact info too. Even we are going to use .tel domain for our email purpose also.
like info@xyz.tel and so on.

so if email is coming from .tel domain means it is from group only.

[David]

Originally Posted by mattlane

In many ways, it’s a shame that it’s a domain name, as it then has to overcome the traditional arguments about new TLD’s. At the same time, the way it uses the DNS gives it the much needed solidity of a foundation that can support the entire world adopting it.

Welcome to the forums mattlane. I share your enthusiasm about .tel and wonder as well why they chose to call it a domain name. It's not a domain name really (in the regular sense of the word) and it's naming as such will only allow folk to trash it. I will register my surname after landrush is over. It's not a common surname so I doubt it will be grabbed.

Do you expect many more registrars to jump in (later on) ? It is pretty limited at the moment with not a lot of competition. I will likely use webnames.ca (who have a good reputation) but who usually price a little higher than other Canadian registrars.

[vans]

OK, I have been on the Telnic site, and I have created a beta account under their vip.tel scheme. Anyone can create a "sub domain" of vip.tel for free, so you can create myname.vip.tel. After my email address had been checked/authorised, I when back into the site and added some contact details.

Now if I type myname.vip.tel (no www) in the address bar of my browser I can see my contact detail. So now I have a better feel for what id does.

It was quite odd, but I felt very uncomfortable adding my contact detail, so I restricted them to an old email address and a mobile phone I don't use very much.

I think .tel could be good for business but I an note sure about personal use

Hi vans - I agree entirely about Landrush. Unless you make a living from your name (eg you're a minor celebrity, a consultant or a well known blogger, etc), I wouldn't recommend anyone shell out the Landrush fee. Even if you have quite a common name, chances are that you could find a suitable derivative using a combination of your first name, last name and initials.

There are definitely a lot of domainers talking about trying to monetize .TEL with lists and directories, and there's a very vibrant thread over at namepros.com. Someone has purchased Nebraska.tel and is trying to create a local directory. It's less likely with people's names however, as the current security doesn't support multiple administrators, so I think it would only work for people in the same family.

Each TLD or sponsored TLD needs to declare its use as part of its ICANN application, so it’s unlikely we’ll see other TLDs emulating .TEL. That said, writing a telephone number to a NAPTR record is possible under any domain extension and nothing breeds emulation like success, so I wouldn't rule out a private company could register somethinglike tel.com and having a go at it. There's a lot of infratsructure around .TEL though and it would be a costly undertaking. My hope is that we see ideas building on this one and moving us forward.

Congrats on the new account, but my suggestion is to make pretty much every bit of data private, if it’s a personal account. This is especially true for e-mail. The web proxy page is published and eventually it will be scraped by a spam bot. I’ve just created another new demo account to help illustrate this.

If you go to mattlane.vip.tel, you’ll only see one link. It points to matthewlane.vip.tel. You must have one NAPTR type record according to the Telnic AUP (Acceptable Use Policy). So, I’m out there, but all my data is 100% protected by 1024bit encryption.

If you send me a friending request by going to my page and using your demo credentials, I’ll add you to the friends group I’ve just made called Online contacts. Once you receive confirmation, go back to, or refresh matthewlane.vip.tel and you’ll be able to see half a dozen contact points. These are all made up, as again, I don’t want to be seen as selling, but you should get a good sense of how it works.

For a business, you’d want to be much more forthcoming about your information and put most of it out there in the public domain. The issue with spam, is the same you face if you put your company e-mail on your contact page

There are also apps for the Blackberry, iPhone and Outlook produced by Telnic. They’re early stage demos, but they give a strong hint as to how .TEL can be integrated into our everyday lives.

Originally Posted by David

Welcome to the forums mattlane. I share your enthusiasm about .tel and wonder as well why they chose to call it a domain name. It's not a domain name really (in the regular sense of the word) and it's naming as such will only allow folk to trash it. I will register my surname after landrush is over. It's not a common surname so I doubt it will be grabbed.

Do you expect many more registrars to jump in (later on) ? It is pretty limited at the moment with not a lot of competition. I will likely use webnames.ca (who have a good reputation) but who usually price a little higher than other Canadian registrars.

Thank you David. It's great to find such a respectful and constructive forum. I certainly understand some of the criticism and uncertainty. You probably remember similar arguments trying to convince people that e-mail had advantages over passing memos back and forth. When the existing system isn’t broken, change seems like an unnecessary headache. But ask someone to stop using e-mail, the web or their cell phone and you’d have an even bigger challenge on your hands.

There are 136 registrars accredited to offer .TEL (http://www.telnic.com/business-buy.html). This is up from around 100 a month ago, so the list is growing all the time. But I think the bigger question is: when will it be offered by your telephone company or carrier?

Anyone that gets a .TEL in the next year or so will be an early adopter and have a pretty good name. But the middle of the curve will happen when Sprint or Bell get involved and start offering it as part of your plan as an incentive for you to buy the latest smart phone or switch carriers. Just like the number you currently get, it will be rolled into your plan, so it won’t (apparently) hurt as much as the $20/year you’re spending at the moment. The way I look at it, I’m risking a pretty small amount up front to invest in a good name that I’ll have for the rest of my life. Eventually I’ll transfer it away from my registrar to my carrier and let them pick up the tab – or at least roll it into the $60-100 I pay per month - and think I’m getting a deal

In the meantime, you won’t go wrong with your current choice of registrar. They were one of the first ones in; set their pricing on .TEL to reflect mass adoption; you’ll get great support – and they’re very, very nice people and love .TEL

[theog]

Originally Posted by mattlane

Good points theog. I certainly admit to having the bug and I wish I didn't. The last time I evangelized about anything was in 1989, when I was first introduced to the web and internet. .TEL may not have quite the magnitude, but I I honestly believe it will be just as pervasive. By way of a disclaimer and maybe adding some perspective, I work for a domain registrar. I tend to keep this quiet and don't advertise which one, as it tends to color opinion with respect to my motives.

That said, I’ve been involved with the launch of .CA, .US, .CN .ASIA, and .MOBI. Not once have I written a public word about any of them (nor any other product or service we offer). I also have reservations and concerns about current talks to allow near unlimited domains onto the market.

When I heard hear about .TEL it took me 6 months to summon the energy to look into it and that was only because of the looming deadline of whether we would participate in the launch. Within a day of researching it, I was convinced this thing would change the world (eventually). Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time speculating not only about what it is, but what it could be, based on the extensibility and potential of the underlying architecture and technology.

In many ways, it’s a shame that it’s a domain name, as it then has to overcome the traditional arguments about new TLD’s. At the same time, the way it uses the DNS gives it the much needed solidity of a foundation that can support the entire world adopting it.
As to alternate or comparable technologies, I’ve heard it compared to Plaxo, XFN, vCard, .mobi, ENUM, LinkedIn, Facebook, OpenID and many, many others. It’s also stated that you can use any extension to store data in NAPTR records on the DNS (this is true, if you have the technical skills, but you’d still need all the infrastructure around it to make it work in the same way as .TEL). Unfortunately when you get into the details, none of these even come close.

In a very real way, I’d like nothing more than for someone to point me to a viable alternative, so I can stop all my preaching and get back to the rest of my life and stop annoying people. So far it hasn’t happened, but I’m definitely open to looking at any suggested alternatives. Until then, I feel compelled to beat the drum and urge everyone to take another look at .TEL. It certainly isn’t a domain in the traditional sense. And when you stand back from it, it’s really very dull and mundane, but in my opinion, it will could have the same level of impact on our lives as e-mail or the cell phone. [I did a small edit above to correct an unintentionally ambiguous tone.]

Tell me, in very specific detail, what a .tel can do that a .com cannot with the "underlying architecture and technology?"

edit: to be fair, I have read the .tel website that explains what they are trying to accomplish, but I want to hear what you can do (or will be able to do) with a .tel that you can't with a .com. None of the marketing, just straight talk of what you want to specifically accomplish with a .tel domain...

Obviously, they are attempting to build out applications for .tel so it will be interesting to see if developers come to the party...

Originally Posted by theog

Tell me, in very specific detail, what a .tel can do that a .com cannot with the "underlying architecture and technology?"

While I'm really happy to have a go at this, its a pretty broad question. Can I begin with a with a couple of existing starting points that will probably do a better job than I can succinctly achieve, at least to get going?

The first is a Telnic document that I think does a good job of explaining the underlying concept and technology succinctly, without getting too technical. You can grab a PDF of it here:
http://www.webnames.ca/downloads/Tel_Technology.pdf

The second is to try the demo. I set up another demo account myself this afternoon to give vans an opportunity to try the friending process and noted that it took just over 90 seconds to apply, get my credentials and be logged in to enter my details. My hope is that the demo would give you a better sense of exactly what it does than my description could - and its very distinct from .COM. You can sign up for the demo at http://www.telnic.com/vip

Feel free to visit http://matthewlane.vip.tel and send me a friending message if you want to see how that component works. You'll notice there's no data there before I accept the friending message, but after you'll see half a dozen entries. I can also send you a screen shot of how this appears if you access it using the Blackberrry plugin.

I'm really not trying to dodge your question and am happy to discuss and argue the pros and cons of .TEL ad infinitum (or even ad nauseum if my friends and colleagues are to be believed), but these two things should give you a really solid and fast intro to how it differs from traditional uses of TLDs and exactly what it does. From there we can discuss/argue the details and merits - or lack thereof.

Originally Posted by mattlane

If you send me a friending request by going to my page and using your demo credentials, I’ll add you to the friends group I’ve just made called Online contacts.

I just received a friending request from a member trying out the demo and realised I gave incorrect instructions. The friending request on the demo accounts is initiated from the administrative control panel of the demo account. Go to the Friends tab and in the Messages panel, click the Send button. Then enter the account to friend - eg matthewlane.vip.tel.

Apologies if I caused any confusion - the web proxy template for .TELs is a bit different on the 'live' .TELs

[David]

Originally Posted by mattlane

Anyone that gets a .TEL in the next year or so will be an early adopter and have a pretty good name. But the middle of the curve will happen when Sprint or Bell get involved and start offering it as part of your plan as an incentive for you to buy the latest smart phone or switch carriers.

I have been going through a few exercises Matt (asking questions etc) re sub domains. Let's say you register smith.tel and create contact information for Joe (who would live at smith.tel) but joesmith.tel would be a different domain entirely (as would joe.smith.tel) You can create customized 'key words' to identify yourself (so I have read) to try and avoid confusion. So jsmith.tel registers an account also, and a few more besides, with a variety of different variations of domain names.

There could however (if this flies) be many hundreds of Joe Smith's (all seeking an address to register) - If that happens, how can one be sure, they have the correct contact info, for the correct Joe Smith, I am wondering

On yellow pages (hard copy phone book) one is able to identify fairly easily which Joe Smith one is seeking to contact. Is the online model as flexible (or more flexible) do you think?

Originally Posted by David

There could however (if this flies) be many hundreds of Joe Smith's (all seeking an address to register) - If that happens, how can one be sure, they have the correct contact info, for the correct Joe Smith, I am wondering

On yellow pages (hard copy phone book) one is able to identify fairly easily which Joe Smith one is seeking to contact. Is the online model as flexible (or more flexible) do you think?

Great points David. You've put your finger on some very real issues. While I really like the .TEL, I don't believe that it's a silver bullet for all our problems. The main advantage for me is the ability to attach all my information to it, pass it around easily and control who sees what. I also like the concept of propagated updates, so I never have to manually update my address books.

Personally, I don't subscribe to .TEL being the end of online or offline directories. For things like the White Pages, I'd like to be listed, but instead of having my details there for telemarketers to grab, it just lists perhaps my name, street, city and .TEL name. Enough for someone who knows or has business with me to have a chance of identifying me, but enough of a buffer to protect my actual information and give me control.

For online, I think Facebook and LinkedIn offer much better mechanisms for finding a friend than I can foresee in .TEL. For a start, you can't upload a photo to .TEL, which is often critical for identifying old friends or acquaintances.

BUT, once you've found someone, it’s the simple convenience of importing all the data in a single handle (name) that's attractive to me. At that point, I don't much care if its smith.tel, jsmith.tel or js384745.tel. I still get all the info with minimal keying and it stays up to date for ever. In any event, I'm probably going to assign the data a display name that's meaningful to me in my address book or dialler - like "John S". Arguably, this is little better than a vCard and I agree, except that I can't tell you my vCard on a conference floor and have you key it in, or have the data auto-update. Again, my point is still that .TEL is just that little bit better and that little bit easier than the mechanisms we have today.

The issue of correct identification of an individual or business and the associated issues of spoofing and certification are not specific to .TEL, nor can I see how they'll be solved by it.

At the same time, I think we've become fairly attuned to knowing what's real and what's not, whether it's SPAM or friend requests through IM, Facebook, Skype or visiting the web site of a company that doesn't quite feel right. To the best of my knowledge I don't think I've ever been fooled into accepting a request from someone I didn't want on my friends list, irrespective of the application or technology, or keyed my credit card into a site that wasn’t legitimate.

What I would like to see - and what I would be willing to pay a small amount for - is a certification system for my business .TEL. It would somehow need to warrant that the information associated with the .TEL is accurate and legitimate (or preferably the whois information of the .TEL, since the .TEL will likely change). This isn't perfect, but it would give businesses that want it a degree of legitimacy and those viewing the data, a degree of confidence.

On a final note, I like the Yellow Pages - both hard copy and online. It carries certain inherent assurances, not least of which someone has paid to place this listing, probably with a credit card or an invoice to a physical address. It also provides much needed structure and a geographic filter. .TEL lacks internal structure. It lacks accepted schemas and classification. For the foreseeable future, I think the most likely scenario, is that we'll see a growing number of occurrences of ads that include the .TEL name along with the existing suite of details - not only in Yellow Page ads, but on vehicle signage, billboards, magazines, TV, etc.

As a mechanism for finding and correctly identifying people and companies, I can't see me moving away from the old favourites, including Google, and regularly using more than one source for cross reference. But when it comes to storing and maintaining (or not maintaining) the contact information I've found, I'll be using the .TEL name.

Sorry, my responses are getting longer and longer. I’ll try to do a better job of editing and staying on point!

[vans]

Originally Posted by mattlane

If you send me a friending request by going to my page and using your demo credentials, I’ll add you to the friends group I’ve just made called Online contacts.

I have sent you a friending request. My feedback on the process is as follows

1. The site was very slow and buggy. Sometimes an action worked, sometimes it didn't. I tried IE and Firefox. IE worked better.

2. I couldn't find a record that I had sent a friending request. Therefore I don't know if the request worked. I think a schedule of requests should be added

Separately I looked at the BBC iPlayer interview on .tel and I think they made a very good assessment. They feel it is great for small businesses. A very simple method of getting some form of online presence for someone who knows nothing about website design etc. They also feel it is a good addition to a business card

Originally Posted by theog

edit: to be fair, I have read the .tel website that explains what they are trying to accomplish, but I want to hear what you can do (or will be able to do) with a .tel that you can't with a .com. None of the marketing, just straight talk of what you want to specifically accomplish with a .tel domain...

It's a very reasonable and straight question.

What I want, in an ideal world, is embarrassingly simple:

I want you to be able to tell me that your contact name is "theog". I want to key in "theog" in my Blackberry and have access to all the information I need to contact you instantly available. When I want to contact you again tomorrow or in two years or ten years, I just want to click "Call theog" or "E-mail theog" and know its going to work. Then I want to repeat the process for every contact I've had or will have. That's it. Anything else for me is gravy. Oh, if all my devices and apps (eg Outlook) could be synched, or if I get a replacement phone, the address book would be auto-populated, that would be great too.

It seems almost too simplistic and what baffles me most is how we can get to this stage in our technological development and still be struggling with something so fundamental. Anyway .TEL appears to be the first technology to be able to actually deliver this, so I'm behind it. The other benefits and potentials are great, but what I want personally is pretty low key.

@vans: Got the request and accepted. You should be able to see my test private data.

Good feedback. I've seen similar comments around and tend to agree. I haven't had issues with anything not working myself, but the pages are very heavy on first load. It's early days yet, so I think we'll see rapid improvements over the next month or so. Anyway, glad you got a chance to try it out and see whether or not its a good fit for you.

Cheers


Matt

[vans]

Matt, just to see what happened I rejected your friending request (no offense intended).

I expected to see a little text box (so I could explain the reason for the rejection like "sorry mate I'm not really President Obama"). I also expected to see a message asking if I really did want to reject the request. However, the action is instant. Also I could not see a record of rejected friending requests, so I cannot now go back and accept the request.

I can now see your private information and I used my login details to do this. Therefore, I assume only a person who has a .tel account can see private data? Surely I must be mistaken?