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?

 

[DubDubDubDot]

Here's the video of Digitrad's OrganiP presentation at DEMOfall - pretty interesting!

The more that .tel is involving, the more I believe that domain quality doesn't matter. You could have jdu37d-8fska.tel and the user experience will be exactly the same as abc.tel since the domain itself is totally irrelevant when accessed through the third party applications that the pumpers talk about.

If I want to call John Smith and I know his Facebook username, then I'm searching for his Facebook username and getting his phone number. At no point in this process did his choice of a domain mean anything. He could have spent reg fee on hjs37f07yaa8.tel or $500 on John.tel. It's all the same.

If you want to access the main .tel profile a memorable domain would help, but it sure looks like the goal is to access the .tel data though other methods.

If this is indeed the case, then .tel domaining is absolutely dead.

For instance, take someone who is selling a really great MySpace username. That has value because people access MySpace profiles from MySpace.com/username. But image if the primary way to access the profile content was through some method that didn't involve the username. Then it doesn't matter what your username is, and that prime username is suddenly worth nothing. That seems to be where .tel is headed. The funny thing is, that is a great thing for Telnic, but totally sucks for domainers.

 

[hullswingerscom]

Digitrad's OrganiP presenation at DEMOfal..pritty poor to me.
i do have a few dot tels .and i use it for my mobile phone shop and it works well.lots of calls from my dot tel for unlocking phones.
for me it works but only coz it phone related

i may do something with a2z.tel.

 

[zlaja]

Tray with "port hotel istanbul" or "titanic port hotel istanbul" on google.com and my hotelistanbul.tel is on 1st and 2nd place on Google, and lot of adds on top and right site of google. I think it is good result for one afternoon working on populating this site.

 

[steveteva]

I watch the vid and didn't even understand what he was explained but was a good try.
Dot tel could be show as something more useful and practical something like the ben tel video but a business version.

 

[mactel]

Those (.tel/Digitrad) presentations at expos, camps, meetings, etc., are more for the press and techies.

.tel will take off, when hookers, girlies, iPhoners, mums, aunts, grandma's, shool kids, "just wanna be cool people", graffity sprayers, shop empoyees, sales staff, average joe, average maria, "the girl from nextdoor", "the boy from next door", the business woman on the go, the business man on the go, all people on the go with mobile phones, but with no time to study ,tel, "Simple_Simon", other people, will see, that .tel works for them.

They are not interested, to know, how, and why .tel works, as long as .tel works for them.

Most consumers don't want to go into the dept of functionality, and into tech details. They prefere to have it as a mystery that magically work, when you turn the key, or press the button.
That is much nicer, than to have to realize, that what they are using, is bassically rather simple, or nearly primitive.

Like users of stationary phones, tv's, car drivers, who have not the slightest idea, how it works, but are using it, as long as it works for them, and is useful and entertaining.

Or if a car or a mobile phone is a toy to play with: Then it will be used, as well.
Not only, if needed.

So, how shall those people out there get the chance to try it out, and see if it works for them, when they have never seen, nor heard of dot tel?:

Put dot tel as standart feature in all new mobile phones, iPhones, etc.: step back, take coverage, and see, how .tel takes off.

Mind you: this is a crazy world with people that get their daily dosis of media (print media, radio, televion, cinema, news paper, internet, print advertisments, poster advertisment, all sorts ofdisplayed adverstisements in public). Probably 90% of that, does not stay in the memory of the consumer, at the end of the day, if not repeatetively brain washed with the same stuff, day by day...

If .tel wants to be memorized, and stay in the minds of the consumers, it has to do its promoting very good, or let's say: very smart.

A package ".tel + iPhone" is a no brainer, for any mobile phone user.

Or: "One free dot tel domain name, with every iPhone contract ("josepinesmith.tel", "pancakejoe.tel", "friedchickenjoe,tel", "uncleben.tel", "auntyclare.tel", "jesuschristchurchpriester.tel").
.
Or: .tel is something that everyone just gets, and has, for using, like a telephone book, or a game software, without them having explicit bought or ordered it.

Or like some sort of freeware or shareware, etc: If you like it, you can renew it after one year.
.
Any other suggestions or ideas, are welcome.
.
A word about dot com:
Registrars did not have to promote (.com) much: people who where interested in having a dot com domain, just bought one. (.com) got attention, and appreciation, because it received the best "inbuilt" optimization for search engines (SEO), and was priviledged, compared with other domain extensions.

Dot tel, won't quasi promote it self, like it was the case with (.com), if not added to mobile phones, or iPones, or displayed in mobile phone shops: because it is made for mobile phone usage, at first place.

People surfing the web, wanting to get a website, will want to get a (.com) domain, at first.
So, the dot tel domain, has not received a chance, to get noticed, till then.
Once, joethebusinessman has set up his website, he might want to try to figure out, if (.mobi) or/and (.tel) could complement his website.

In other words: the dot tel domain ist best promoted outside of the world wide web.

Mobile phone users will spend their time more in mobile phone shops, than in Internet.

So: Telnic would like to reach those mobile phone users?: They know now, where to find them...
.

 

[plaggypig]

The more that .tel is involving, the more I believe that domain quality doesn't matter. You could have jdu37d-8fska.tel and the user experience will be exactly the same as abc.tel since the domain itself is totally irrelevant when accessed through the third party applications that the pumpers talk about.

And the same pedantic argument could be made for other domain names pointing to websites. Truth is the user experience for both the web and .tel is affected by name quality in terms of memorability, speakability, branding, relevancy, search, etc.

If I want to call John Smith and I know his Facebook username, then I'm searching for his Facebook username and getting his phone number. At no point in this process did his choice of a domain mean anything. He could have spent reg fee on hjs37f07yaa8.tel or $500 on John.tel. It's all the same.

I think you've misunderstood the process. Your .tel name is used to resolve to your Facebook profile, and the call is received via a web app. The point of OrganiP is that it uses .tel as a platform to unify mobile, voice, and social media.

 

[mactel]

Care to tell us how people are going to find the .tel first?

The way the NAPTR records are configured, will make it easier for .tel sites to rank high in their prospective keywords.
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These electronic business cards / electronic directories could become little cyber gems, and highly sought after, especially in high-ranking keywords.
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The dot tel domain is not a tld like others, which turns off many domainers, who find it hard to think out of their ppc box…, but that certainly doesn’t prevent innovators from monetizing .tel addresses in a number ways.

The greatest strength of .tel, is in terms of mobile usage…: light, fast, predictable access to communications info, which is afterall the primary function of mobile devices. If I were a corp, I would optimize my .tel to point people to my .mobi address… (or mobile friendly .com webpage). Think about the fact of 4 billion plus mobile users.
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There are some great .tel applications out for the myriad of handsets on the market, as well as a number of .tel search engines.
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Dot tel domains are attractive to Google, because they love information that is well-formed, predictable, and useful to their users. Furthermore, .tel won’t be a haven for junk ads.
.

 

[DubDubDubDot]

The way the NAPTR records are configured, will make it easier for .tel sites to rank high in their prospective keywords.

I have never heard of server configurations playing a role in Google ranking. Care to explain how Google gets access to the server to see how things are set up?

In IE, right click on a .tel profile and then View Source. That is what Google sees about a site. Nothing else.

 

[bmugford]

Sorry, but I am going to call BS on this one. Not sure where you pulled this one from, but I have an idea.



Brad

The way the NAPTR records are configured, will make it easier for .tel sites to rank high in their prospective keywords.

 

[Steven]

The way the NAPTR records are configured, will make it easier for .tel sites to rank high in their prospective keywords.

I'm not sure what NAPTR records have to do with ranking on Google.

 

[mactel]

.Tel content is fully structured and published on the domain name server (DNS) rather than the World Wide Web. That makes it easily read and indexed by search engine crawlers, strengthening your presence in search results.

The technology behind .tel allows for the data to load much quicker than other domains including .com, making it ideal for pocket internet surfing devices.

The .tel system is DNS-based, any.tel takes just a fraction of a second to load, and is much quicker than loading a typical website.

Instead of hosting a site, .tel stores all the information on the Internet backbone itself. So whenever you type henry.tel, you get data which is not hosted by any server but is contained in the domain name server itself. How can they do this? They have done this by utilizing the NAPTR, TXT & LOC records on the DNS itself. Its a simple and a brilliant solution.

How is it done?:

Name Authority Pointer (NAPTR) is the protagonist of our story, after proving its robustness in implementation of VoIP phone calls (when your phone call is routed over the Internet with the help of the protocol ENUM) its back to help us with the implementation of .tel technology. NAPTR allows the publication and management of your business card and ways for us to distinguish between them. That's not the end of what NAPTR can do, it can also allow you to manage different instant messaging and VoIP identities like of Skype, AIM and GTalk. Also updating these records dynamically is possible which allows us to make innumerable changes (at no cost!).
TXT records or the Text Records are the human readable format which is stored in ASCII format and the LOC record allows the user to allow somebody to pinpoint his/her exact location.

The most interesting (and useful) difference between .tel and other gTLD's (generic top-level domains) is in the DNS. From the Telnic FAQ, "...the value of a .tel domain lies with the ability to host personal (or corporate) contact information directly in the DNS, which can then be universally accessible. This stands in contrast to the typical use of the DNS for other TLDs, in which the DNS only provides a mapping between domain names and IP addresses."

Why This is Useful:

Storing contact information in the DNS enables developers to write code which can query these custom .tel DNS records to gather and store information about you, your connections, family, or friends. For example, instead of managing a set of virtual business cards, software can simply map an individual or business to a .tel domain. When a user needs to look-up the email address or phone number of an individual or business, the software can simply run a DNS query against a .tel to retrieve the latest contact information. For example, if all of my friends know that my .tel domain is mac.tel, their digital Rolodexes can stay current by querying mac.tel. If my email address changes, I only have to update my .tel information in once place, instead of pinging each friend individually to alert them of the change.

Getting Started:

When you purchase a .tel domain from a registrar, like Network Solutions, the registrar will create an account for you on their .tel information management portal. This portal is used to manage the contact information available through your .tel domain. Note, that no knowledge or understanding of DNS is required to own or maintain a .tel domain. All you need to do is login, determine what information you want to share, and your registrar and Telnic will do the rest.


How It Works:

Be warned, you cannot host your own web-site under a .tel domain. However, you can add custom MX records to your .tel which allow you to redirect email from your .tel to your service provider of choice. From the record types page on telnic.org, "...compared to traditional top-level domains, the .tel DNS uses a different set of record types. User-specified Address and CNAME records are prohibited, and the following are allowed:

* TXT - text record for storing keywords and other freeform text.
* LOC - location records containing latitude, longitude and altitude data.
* NAPTR (Naming Authority Pointer Record) - a record holding a URL and an Enumservice that indicates the type of URL information, such as email or phone number."

In other words, the contact information you provided through your registrars .tel control panel is embedded inside of these DNS records. This is the true power of a .tel domain.

.

 

[bmugford]

What is this some canned talking points?

Show me 1 example of where .TEL is outranking gTLD's for a term with actual competition. Not some niche term that no one cares about.

Not being able to add "Real" content is a major issue with .TEL and SEO.

Brad

.Tel content is fully structured and published on the domain name server (DNS) rather than the World Wide Web. That makes it easily read and indexed by search engine crawlers, strengthening your presence in search results.

The technology behind .tel allows for the data to load much quicker than other domains including .com, making it ideal for pocket internet surfing devices.

The .tel system is DNS-based, any.tel takes just a fraction of a second to load, and is much quicker than loading a typical website.

Instead of hosting a site, .tel stores all the information on the Internet backbone itself. So whenever you type henry.tel, you get data which is not hosted by any server but is contained in the domain name server itself. How can they do this? They have done this by utilizing the NAPTR, TXT & LOC records on the DNS itself. Its a simple and a brilliant solution.

How is it done?:

Name Authority Pointer (NAPTR) is the protagonist of our story, after proving its robustness in implementation of VoIP phone calls (when your phone call is routed over the Internet with the help of the protocol ENUM) its back to help us with the implementation of .tel technology. NAPTR allows the publication and management of your business card and ways for us to distinguish between them. That's not the end of what NAPTR can do, it can also allow you to manage different instant messaging and VoIP identities like of Skype, AIM and GTalk. Also updating these records dynamically is possible which allows us to make innumerable changes (at no cost!).
TXT records or the Text Records are the human readable format which is stored in ASCII format and the LOC record allows the user to allow somebody to pinpoint his/her exact location.

The most interesting (and useful) difference between .tel and other gTLD's (generic top-level domains) is in the DNS. From the Telnic FAQ, "...the value of a .tel domain lies with the ability to host personal (or corporate) contact information directly in the DNS, which can then be universally accessible. This stands in contrast to the typical use of the DNS for other TLDs, in which the DNS only provides a mapping between domain names and IP addresses."

Why This is Useful:

Storing contact information in the DNS enables developers to write code which can query these custom .tel DNS records to gather and store information about you, your connections, family, or friends. For example, instead of managing a set of virtual business cards, software can simply map an individual or business to a .tel domain. When a user needs to look-up the email address or phone number of an individual or business, the software can simply run a DNS query against a .tel to retrieve the latest contact information. For example, if all of my friends know that my .tel domain is kolich.tel, their digital Rolodexes can stay current by querying kolich.tel. If my email address changes, I only have to update my .tel information in once place, instead of pinging each friend individually to alert them of the change.

Getting Started:

When you purchase a .tel domain from a registrar, like Network Solutions, the registrar will create an account for you on their .tel information management portal. This portal is used to manage the contact information available through your .tel domain. Here's a screen shot of my kolich.tel management control panel from Network Solutions. Note that no knowledge or understanding of DNS is required to own or maintain a .tel domain. All you need to do is login, determine what information you want to share, and your registrar and Telnic will do the rest.


How It Works:

Be warned, you cannot host your own web-site under a .tel domain. However, you can add custom MX records to your .tel which allow you to redirect email from your .tel to your service provider of choice. From the record types page on telnic.org, "...compared to traditional top-level domains, the .tel DNS uses a different set of record types. User-specified Address and CNAME records are prohibited, and the following are allowed:

* TXT - text record for storing keywords and other freeform text.
* LOC - location records containing latitude, longitude and altitude data.
* NAPTR (Naming Authority Pointer Record) - a record holding a URL and an Enumservice that indicates the type of URL information, such as email or phone number."

In other words, the contact information you provided through your registrars .tel control panel is embedded inside of these DNS records. This is the true power of a .tel domain.

.

 

[mactel]

I suggest, that DubDubDubDot and bmugford, make their own experiences and dicoveries with comparing .tel against other tld.

If you are only after theory about .tel, you will post anthoer 500 posts, putting .tel in question, and get know where.

You need practise, now, not theory.

I bet, you don't have a single dot tel domain. Take .tel, or leave .tel: it is for you to decide. But why all that fuss, around .tel? Have all your posts brought you anything? Most of the time, you where not listening to others, where having quasi a monlogue, and only picked up the points, that meant something to you.

About ranking: one time, a .tel domain will outrank a .com, and another time, it will not (yet, but maybe later).
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Why all the fuss?
A lot of .tel owners are very happy to see, how good their .tel domain ranks in Google. Full stop.
.

 

[bmugford]

I have not posted that much in this thread. I really don't care that much about .TEL to be honest, but if you are going to make these ridiculous claims why not back them up?

The claim about .TEL outranking a gTLD because of a nameserver is total BS.

Also, is this your post Mark Kolich on .TEL? If it is not you should really give him credit since you basically just copied everything in his post and took credit for it.

I see another part of your comments above came from Nikhil Joshi on .TEL

By the way, I do own 2 .TEL domains.

Brad

I suggest, that DubDubDubDot and bmugford, make their own experiences and dicoveries with comparing .tel against other tld.

If you are only after theory about .tel, you will post anthoer 500 posts, putting .tel in question, and get know where.

You need practise, now, not theory.

I bet, you don't have a single dot tel domain. Take .tel, or leave .tel: it is for you to decide. But why all that fuss, around .tel? Have all your posts brought you anything? Most of the time, you where not listening to others, where having quasi a monlogue, and only picked up the points, that meant something to you.

About ranking: one time, a .tel domain will outrank a .com, and another time, it will not (yet, but maybe later).
.
Why all the fuss?
A lot of .tel owners are very happy to see, how good their .tel domain ranks in Google. Full stop.
.

 

[Ader]

I'm keeping out of these technical discussions/arguments. Way above my non technical head.

Just want to say that owners of .tels should start using their titles more imaginatively now that they can be customised. They can be used to give prominence to key words etc, and to lift the appearance of the page.

Example; (the listed property does not exist - it's just to illustrate the point)
House for sale in Fulham. As you can see, it was easy and fast to find this information on your mobile!

 

[mactel]

Yes, I admit to have quoted thos two gentleman. And forgot to mention, that they are quotations, Sorry.

But I don't think, it is cool, either, if the naysayers quote long posts, that are just obove of their comment.

@Ader:
Good post and contribution.

@all:

This thread look to me like some sort of a show trial of .tel, where a few members are having the role of judges, that have pre made their judment about .tel already. Trying to bash all arguements for .tel.

One of thes ".tel show trial judges" has two dot .tel domains...: How is he using them? What sort of results does he get? Has he popuolated them? Filled them with content?

I have more than only two dot tel domains, and am a bit more ambitious and I am confident indeed, about tel.

Success about .tel, is not only about "what can it do?", "how good does it work?", etc., success about .tel, is also about how good Telnic is able to promote it.

A lot of the these technical discussions/arguments here, are quite fruitless, as it will be the mainstream user, that has not much knowledge about the .tel technology, etc., who will decide, if .tel will be a widely success within the billions of mobile phone users.
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.tel does not have to compete with (.com), as it is a helper and friend ot (.com).

We are just happy to have .tel, and to be able to use it, and benefit from it.
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All these tiresome discussions, trying to back up counter statements against statements from Telnic and other Techies, take up energy, which could be used in a productive way.

This show trial against .tel, where a few members are trying to back up their statements against .tel, is not so cool: why not move over to the "telsucks" forum?

Peace, please.

We won't give up something we love, just because of a few neysayers, who have either no, ore only two probably unpopulated .tel domains, that they are not properly using.
.

 

[Kate]

.Tel content is fully structured and published on the domain name server (DNS) rather than the World Wide Web. That makes it easily read and indexed by search engine crawlers, strengthening your presence in search results.

You need to consider this:

• will the search engines start extracting .tel data straight from the DNS ?
• how will they render the information in search results ?

I think this is a fair question because as you know, search engines normally crawl websites only...

 

[mactel]

.
I am not a techie, and I am not that interested, to go into such further technical details.

I am only a user of .tel, but without programming kowledge or skills.

All I basically know, and can see, is that .tel works very good, and is very useful for me and my needs. And I am able to roughly explain, why we get such good result with .tel, and how .tel basically works.

I suggest, that you address your questions directly to Telnic, about more technical information about .tel, or visit the developers forum, or the other forum on the Telnic website.
.
Quote:
"will the search engines start extracting .tel data straight from the DNS ?":

I guess, the point is, that the .tel data is not comming via the server of a hoster: It is embeded in its own DNS, from where Google gets the .tel data directely.

Because Google can retrieve data that way: we can say, that this process is a given SEO for .tel. It is a easyer and faster way, for Google to get data from a server.

(.tel domains store your contact information directly in the DNS which can then be universally accessible. This stands in contrast to the typical use of the DNS for other domains, in which the DNS only provides a mapping between domain names and IP addresses.)
.
To come back to your quesion, again:
I do think, that is what Google, at least, is capable of doing: getting .tel Data straight from the DNS of that specific .tel domain name.

 

[igo]

This board doesn't seem to be a constructive conversation about .tel, anyway. It is mostly people expressing their opinions, informed or not. Since .tel isn't so much a domain as it is a DNS directory, the point is missed by most on here who are involved mostly in domain speculations. Check back in a year or two and see who is supportive or dismissive at that time.
It would be interesting to compare discussions 6 months after the release of any other TLD and see how much support there was for them.

 

[mactel]

New dashboard features for controlling your .tel domain

.
New function for the folder part of the .tel dashboard:

Changing names of subdomains:
Renaming folders with one click; all links are auto-updated:

Excursion:
About foders:

Folders functionality expands the navigation capability of your .tel domain.

If you have a lot of contact points, you probably want to spread them on several pages. This will provide a better visibility of your contact details in mobile devices with small displays. In this case, you should use the Folders option to logically group the contact information – like business details, favorite links, social media sites, professional information and more.
Technically, a folder is a sub-domain of your .tel domain. You can set a direct link to it.
Entering your folder name:
Enter the folder name. You can enter only letters, digits and hyphens in the subfolder name. A subfolder must contain at least one letter and its minimum length is 3 characters. The links to the folder in a browser will have initial capital letters and any hyphens will be converted to spaces. For example "my-business" will be visualized as "My Business". Once you are ready click on the Save button.
The Dashboard will only show the first level of sub-folders. If you want to view a deeper folder level, click on the corresponding subfolder. The contact information under the subfolders can be managed in the same way as under the main fodler.

End of Excursion.

Telnic has included a few more functions for de folders part of the dashboard:
They are only minor changes, but they can simplyfie handling nevertheless.

One is now able to change the the names of the subdomains at one single area of the dashboard.

When you hover with the mouse over the list of subdomains, you get to see icons, such a a pencil and a waste bin, with which you are able to do the different tasks.

You have to be very careful, with the deleting function:
In order to delete a folder, hover the mouse over its name and click on the Delete link. By deleting a folder you will permanently remove all of its sub-folders, the contact details and the corresponding items.
Accidentically deleting can have some serious consequenses...
Therefore, it would be wise, to have backuped the .tel domain before (for example, by using the .tel tool tel-machine, and its backup function).


New function for the .tel dashboard:

Changing the title of your .tel domain:

Till now, the domain name on the TelProxy of a .tel domain was quasi „given“, and pre configured, and corresponded with the name of the domain.

Now you are able to customise that title/name, and have 255 characters provided.
Which allows you to make a extensive title for your TelProxy.

According to the complexity of your title, the font size will be automatically adapted.
For each 10 character words, there will oviously be a own CSS tag: One for maximum 10 characters, one for 20 characters, one for 30 characters, and so forth...
The longer the title, the more the font size shrinks,
Furthermore, there will be implemented a sub title, with the same name, as your domain name.

Because the title of a TelProxy is important for search engines, as well: with this possibility, you have another SEO option, respectively, more SEO potential.


New function for the .tel dashboard:

New contact types:

The list of contact types, has been extended, as well, here:
Telnic only mentioned, that there is a new type of „user“...:
With this option, one should be able to, for example, deposit his username for online services or games, and can add a short comment, as well.

I did notice, when I over saw eveything, that there is also a typ, so called „Info“: Either, I had over seen that, up and till now, or it had been added, as new, as well.

For me, this typ is so far of interest, because one can integrate further text in to a .tel domain, with this. This text (maximum 255 characters) can be displayed on the TelProxy, according to your preferences.
With this feature, you have another option: next to integrating keywords, to integrate text on the TelPoxy.