The .TEL Discussion Thread

[brendan52190]

Hi

For this, let's assume that .tel will not be a total flop.

What type of keywords will be most valuable for this extension? Will it be geographical keywords, like newyork.tel, losangeles.tel, etc, or what else?

 

[Keith]

Any descent .tel aftermarket sales lately? I want to unload Missouri.tel ASAP
and need to price this right.

 

[bmugford]

Similar State.tel sales -

Ohio.tel - $1,000 4/24
Alaska.tel - $1,050 - 8/11

Missouri is certainly not as good as Ohio.

If you want to sell it you are looking at a price around $1,000 more than likely.

Brad

Any descent .tel aftermarket sales lately? I want to unload Missouri.tel ASAP
and need to price this right.

 

[plaggypig]

mobi was everthing that .tel is trying to be and more.

The comparison is a fairly superficial one; while both address issues of mobility, they are completely different problem spaces - .tel is about disseminating contact information, .mobi is for resolving websites designed for mobile devices.

.tel has ONE big advantage over mobi. people bought mobis and never developed them because they didnt know how. dot tel is simple to "populate" (vs/ develop) and this reason alone may help it to become accepted where mobi failed.

Good point. As adoption amongst individuals/businesses grows, the proportion of unpopulated .tel's will be reduced to a fraction of the namespace.

the second biggest cause of death for mobi was the iphone. not so much because iphone was able to browse the web but more because one button placed ".com" at the end of the domain name that you were typing.

The points you raise are not an issue for .tel, since you should only really be accessing .tel's via the web as a last resort There are two apps available on the iPhone already; Superbook (for looking up .tel contacts), and My .tel (for managing your .tel records).

 

[mjbenterprises]

IMO, now is not the time to be selling such GREAT geo .tels, but I don't know your financial situation...However, if .tel takes off in any way, Missouri.tel could be a gold mine....

I personally plan to renew my 20 or so .tels for 3-5 years, with no intention of selling any...For buyers of .tel, this is definitely the time to buy, I can't see US State GEOs getting any lower than this....

Any descent .tel aftermarket sales lately? I want to unload Missouri.tel ASAP
and need to price this right.

 

[Kate]

We also tend to overlook the fact that's it's not simply phone numbers listed there: it's every point of contact you want to give out. So, you might not have that much difficulty giving someone your phone number only, but what about fax number, skype, email, personal web sites or social sites, etc. etc. etc.

Problem is that .tel does just one thing: deliver contact information in a static, non-interactive way.
Customers can still find you if you don't have a .tel - you are simply consolidating your contact information in a single place.
Sorry, but I just don't believe in the lame monetization attempts, because there is no real added value service. For that reason I find it difficult to justify heavy investments into that TLD but good luck with your endeavors :imho:

 

[Steven]

Nothing new about an internet contact page.
It has been around for more than a decade.

 

[plaggypig]

.tel does just one thing: deliver contact information in a static, non-interactive way.

".tel does just one thing: delivers contact information in a dynamic, low-latency way. High availability. Real-time indexing."

FTFY

I've found it hard to take any of the critics seriously for a long time, but I've finally realised they didn't even bother to show up and see the damned play.

Edit: I'm wrong, I admit it, the "non-interactive" aspect of .tel is killing me - I wish the system had been designed to walk me through an interactive process to ensure that I really REALLY did want to look up that phone number. Interactive is good. I figure it should be like Clippy, but EVEN MORE interactive!

 

[davidwest]

congrats..

Should we congratulate you on that or feel pity? :P

congrats... i suppose...
she is at least interested in some of it ....

---------- Post added at 10:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:23 PM ----------

The comparison is a fairly superficial one; while both address issues of mobility, they are completely different problem spaces - .tel is about disseminating contact information, .mobi is for resolving websites designed for mobile devices..

mobi also has the ability of " disseminating contact information".

The points you raise are not an issue for .tel, since you should only really be accessing .tel's via the web as a last resort There are two apps available on the iPhone already; Superbook (for looking up .tel contacts), and My .tel (for managing your .tel records).

IMHO- if you are only seeing the values of dot.tel in terms of MOBIle devices, you might be missing the biggest value that dot tel has...

 

[tkstark]

".tel does just one thing: delivers contact information in a dynamic, low-latency way. High availability. Real-time indexing."

FTFY

I've found it hard to take any of the critics seriously for a long time, but I've finally realised they didn't even bother to show up and see the damned play.

Edit: I'm wrong, I admit it, the "non-interactive" aspect of .tel is killing me - I wish the system had been designed to walk me through an interactive process to ensure that I really REALLY did want to look up that phone number. Interactive is good. I figure it should be like Clippy, but EVEN MORE interactive!

generally speaking, reading this thread (with all of its boring repetitiveness) is pure drudgery, but i keep coming back because of the occasional newsy post. one thing i NEVER expect to find here is wit.

thanks, plaggypig, for bringing a smile to my face.

 

[WordWalker]

"..... and even payphones."

 

[Kate]

I've found it hard to take any of the critics seriously for a long time, but I've finally realised they didn't even bother to show up and see the damned play.

Why not. Show me the money, maybe I will want to buy shares

generally speaking, reading this thread (with all of its boring repetitiveness)

I have to agree on that and I must be guilty as well, clearly all has been said on the matter, especially after 200+ pages of pure hype and there is nothing else left to say really.

 

[MicroGuy]

Why not. Show me the money, maybe I will want to buy shares


I have to agree on that and I must be guilty as well, clearly all has been said on the matter, especially after 200+ pages of pure hype and there is nothing else left to say really.

Well said!! :gl:

:talk: .TEL - The Smoke and Mirrors Extension™

 

[mjbenterprises]

To me, the most important thing is, Google seems to like .tel as far as rankings and Pagerank...

Hotels.tel, and Celebrity.tel both have PR 5s, and the sites hardly have any links on them. and they are such new sites... You could have put those sites together in 5-10 minutes...It seems the ease of retrieval of information is what is going to be this extension's strong point, due to the info being stored directly on the DNS...

 

[kukgle]

Due to my baby would come out very soon. I listed my premium .tel for sale here.

 

[Sarena]

To me, the most important thing is, Google seems to like .tel as far as rankings and Pagerank...

Hotels.tel, and Celebrity.tel both have PR 5s, and the sites hardly have any links on them. and they are such new sites... You could have put those sites together in 5-10 minutes...It seems the ease of retrieval of information is what is going to be this extension's strong point, due to the info being stored directly on the DNS...

agreed....

i believe that if you have a domain that you have developed, but could not afford to pay 10k to 2million dollars for that keyword then you can get the dottel for a mere pittance and set up your company contact info on the tel AND link back to your main site... while boosting the rank of your main site can be done in many other ways, if your tel is at the top of google and it links to your main site it might be the best 10 bucks you ever spent (or a few hundred to grab anything that you want right now).

 

[DubDubDubDot]

Nothing new about an internet contact page.
It has been around for more than a decade.

... and they have seen very little use. This should be the biggest red flag since it displays a lack of desire for contact pages.

There are three stages a product marketplace goes through.

Stage 1 addresses the market's need for a product
Stage 2 gives the market what they want in the product
Stage 3 innovates features beyond the market's desires

Where does .tel rank in this? Realize that for .tel to become what is constantly hyped in this thread, it's going to have to be a stage 3 alongside MySpace, Yahoo, YouTube, etc...

Let's assume that "My contact info is on my SomeSocialSite profile, and my username is JoeBob. Just go to somesocialsite.com/joebob." is Stage 1. Cost and stripped feature arguments aside, does .tel simply having a (possibly) easier to use URL warrant bumping it up to stage 2 or 3?

Does it really matter when there is NO MARKET for free stage 1 contact pages anyway?

---------- Post added at 03:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:16 PM ----------

Originally Posted by DubDubDubDot
"..... and even payphones."

Think about it.

People are saying that .tel is going to replace the phone number. Therefore, all communications devices will have to support .tel. That scenario naturally includes replacing 100% of pay phones on the face of the earth with more hi-tech versions. And that is going to happen in a year or two? LOL!

 

[DNNinja]

I love .Tel - I add RingRevenue and so far so good. A few calls and a nice check.

 

[Kate]

To me, the most important thing is, Google seems to like .tel as far as rankings and Pagerank...

Hotels.tel, and Celebrity.tel both have PR 5s, and the sites hardly have any links on them. and they are such new sites... You could have put those sites together in 5-10 minutes...It seems the ease of retrieval of information is what is going to be this extension's strong point, due to the info being stored directly on the DNS...

What kind of ranking are we talking about ?
If Hotels.tel was in the first page in google results for keyword 'hotel' (it isn't) then yes it would be good ranking.
But it's probably not for contents (or the lack whereof) or link juice. The keyword ?
I doubt PR is really meaningful, anyway it's no guarantee of traffic.

Seriously, if .tel had any magic virtues () the SEO community would have found out by now.

 

[DNNinja]

What kind of ranking are we talking about ?
If Hotels.tel was in the first page in google results for keyword 'hotel' (it isn't) then yes it would be good ranking.
But it's probably not for contents (or the lack whereof) or link juice. The keyword ?
I doubt PR is really meaningful, anyway it's no guarantee of traffic.

Seriously, if .tel had any magic virtues () the SEO community would have found out by now.

Actually it does have traffic (43 - 54 hits a day) according to Googles Traffic Estimator plus lots of Sponsor Links for 'Hotels.tel' and it sits at #1 of Google. The same with 'Hotels tel' but not 'Hotels'.

 

[DubDubDubDot]

if your tel is at the top of google and it links to your main site it might be the best 10 bucks you ever spent

This remains to be seen, but the speculation seems to be based on Hotels.tel and Celebrity.tel having PR5. Keep in mind what we see is the Google toolbar PR and not the actual PR (something that nobody has access to outside of Google).

I just did PR checks on a bunch of premium keyword .tel's, and every one of them was PR0.... which tells me there is PR manipulation going on with Hotels.tel and Celebrity.tel. Each has mock data set up to show how it could be used, and we can not rule out them faking PR as an added selling point.

---------- Post added at 05:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:40 PM ----------

I love .Tel - I add RingRevenue and so far so good. A few calls and a nice check.

The only way that statement is true (99% chance it's bogus) is if you bought advertising for your .tel. And in that case you could have done the same thing with a much higher ROI from a .com.

 

[mis_chiff]

I love .Tel - I add RingRevenue and so far so good. A few calls and a nice check.

Can you share with the rest of us what and how you did it?

 

[DubDubDubDot]

Can you share with the rest of us what and how you did it?

I'll add to this.

Tell us what you did and if I try it, I'll PayPal you my first months revenue. This is not a joke.

 

[DNNinja]

Can you share with the rest of us what and how you did it?

RingRevenue is a part of CommissionJunction and you need to apply from there then get approved by listed company on RR. Once approved you'll be given access to phone numbers in which is tagged with your i.d. and add them to your .Tel when someone calls as stated below you get paid. PPC varies.

Example: Price Per Call: Base: $6.00 if duration >= 2 min 30 sec

I got the link from one of the post in this discussion.

 

[mjbenterprises]

Thanks for the info...Programs like this are going to increase at a geometric rate...

I can understand differing viewpoints concerning .tel, the naysayers make some good points, but the one thing I can't understand is when they say this TLD can't be monetized.. That's like saying "advertising" can't be monetized....

RingRevenue is a part of CommissionJunction and you need to apply from there then get approved by listed company on RR. Once approved you'll be given access to phone numbers in which is tagged with your i.d. and add them to your .Tel when someone calls as stated below you get paid. PPC varies.

Example: Price Per Call: Base: $6.00 if duration >= 2 min 30 sec

I got the link from one of the post in this discussion.

 

[DNNinja]

Thanks for the info...Programs like this are going to increase at a geometric rate...

I can understand differing viewpoints concerning .tel, the naysayers make some good points, but the one thing I can't understand is when they say this TLD can't be monetized.. That's like saying "advertising" can't be monetized....

Everything has a price we just have to think out of the box.