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?

 

[Kate]

@sdsinc

Curious to know if you would be purchasing a .tel during GA? And would you recommend to companies or end users wanting a way to communicate their contact information (at GA prices)? I can assume your a healthy skeptic at 300 but when it hits 20 will it still be there?

No, I won't be buying any. I will avoid buying .tel just like I passed on .mobi .asia etc. I don't buy extensions I have no faith in - even for the sake of 'who knows'

As for your second question, I would not recommend it either. I agree with Acroplex that it makes sense to register your own corporate name, but I still view it as a defensive registration.
The lack of monetization options does not really help - if you can't develop, if you can't monetize, if you can't build 'traffic' (ie. DNS queries) then your name is dead. It is a liability. Names are useless without traffic.
It is extremely hard to get a new TLD off the ground from scratch and .tel has major limitations that no other TLD has. It's hardly a TLD.
How is it going to take off and go mainstream, that is the question.

 

[onspec]

How is it going to take off and go mainstream, that is the question.

Good evening and welcome to American Idol.... "All you have to do is go to AmericanIdol.tel and vote for your favorite performer".

Cheers,

 

[MicroGuy]

For those of you who invested and are having second thoughts, well, that's part of investing. And if you invested without knowing the limitations of .tel, I don't know what to say except that the info was out there (including here) and NOT just on Telnic, either.

False!

While it is true that many of the limitations of .TEL were known beforehand, there are new limitations just now being discovered by .TEL registrants (eg. proxy redirect issues, unremovable advertising footers, potential hosting fees, slow page load times, etc., etc..).

Investing in .TEL was a long-shot with the KNOWN limitations, but with these newly discovered handicaps it's nothing more than a relentless unforgiving money-pit. IMHO.

 

[phase111]

Which market are you talking about ? I don't see any
If I'm blind my experience and sixth sense should more than offset my impaired vision :p

Ok, lets talk about the .tel after market....Casino.tel alone had 57 sunrise applications (albeit 4 seperate entities applying) with only one successful applicant that got it well before Landrush applicants even had a chance to go for it. Surely it's not hard to see that if it was put on the auction block tomorrow, it would sell for more than the sunrise application fee, this is supply and demand plain and simple. In the manner of blackadder- You'd have to be as mad as a hatter who spends all day in the lead melting department of his workshop, singing 'I must be bloody mad', to think that such great domains would not fetch more on the open market.
:sold:

 

[onspec]

Luv ya Micro. Don't agree with ya. Don't know you, never met ya. But at some point we will meet. And either I will buy you a beer or you will buy me one.

Cheers,

Oh... and Arco and SD as well....

 

[Traveler]

Good evening and welcome to American Idol.... "All you have to do is go to AmericanIdol.tel and vote for your favorite performer".

Cheers,

Um, they could go to AmericanIdol.com and vote for their favorite performer.

http://www.americanidol.com/

With the .tel the producers of American Idol would be stuck with that 90s looking webpage that they can't change and only add links and contact info to. I'm not sure what you are smoking, but pass it around because it must be good :hehe:

 

[phase111]

False!

While it is true that many of the limitations of .TEL were known beforehand, there are new limitations just now being discovered by .TEL registrants (eg. proxy redirect issues, unremovable advertising footers, potential hosting fees, slow page load times, etc., etc..).

Investing in .TEL was a long-shot with the KNOWN limitations, but with these newly discovered handicaps it's nothing more than a relentless unforgiving money-pit. IMHO.

Mate, your blowing these types of concerns way out of proportion... .tel does load faster than a website.... The proxy redirect issues are being addressed and will change... hosting fees wont be an issue for the regular dashboard, may be for some types of add ons etc... Unremovable advertising footers? Do you mean where it says 'get your .tel' or 'about telnic' right at the bottom? Who would want them removed, the whole idea is about spreading the use of .tel globally. These are tiny footers and like hotmail.com they will be valuable in helping make .tel really take off. Hotmail.com became absolutely massive by simply putting in it's footer 'get your free email account at hotmail.com'. I would be worried if they didnt have this small bit of advertising to help market the domain.
Still awaiting some some decent arguments against registering a .tel so bring it on. :imho:

 

[onspec]

Um, they could go to AmericanIdol.com and vote for their favorite performer.

http://www.americanidol.com/

With the .tel the producers of American Idol would be stuck with that 90s looking webpage that they can't change and only add links and contact info to. I'm not sure what you are smoking, but pass it around because it must be good :hehe:

...Yeah... I suppose you're right...

But wait. Hmmm... I must have missed that silly user name and password part that they want me to input. You mean I have to register? Hey, I love the show and all, but all I want to do is to vote... awww...screw it...

Here, take a drag...

 

[Traveler]

...Yeah... I suppose you're right...

But wait. Hmmm... I must have missed that silly user name and password part that they want me to input. You mean I have to register? Hey, I love the show and all, but all I want to do is to vote... awww...screw it...

Here, take a drag...

Thanks for the puff...

They want people to register for a reason, so they can send e-mails and do the marketing they want to do. They can't do that with a .tel. If they really thought that asking a user to register to vote would somehow hurt their bottom line, they would not require user registration.

 

[phase111]

Um, they could go to AmericanIdol.com and vote for their favorite performer.

http://www.americanidol.com/

With the .tel the producers of American Idol would be stuck with that 90s looking webpage that they can't change and only add links and contact info to. I'm not sure what you are smoking, but pass it around because it must be good :hehe:

Hey that sounds like a marvellous idea, however, not only will it take a lot more time to even load the .com page, but when you finally get to it, you'd have to navigate your way through it just to find the vote now section. The whole point about using .tel is it has a very specific purpose.

 

[Traveler]

Hey that sounds like a marvellous idea, however, not only will it take a lot more time to even load the .com page, but when you finally get to it, you'd have to navigate your way through it just to find the vote now section. The whole point about using .tel is it has a very specific purpose.

Just for the sake of arguement, you do realize if they sent someone to the .tel page to vote for their favorite idol that the person would have to navigate somewhere else to do the actual voting, maybe even to a .com page that you say takes longer to load. You can't vote for anything on a .tel page. All you can do is click links to websites and view contanct info, unless I am mistaken.

 

[MicroGuy]

Hotmail.com became absolutely massive by simply putting in it's footer 'get your free email account at hotmail.com'.

That's how FREE services like Hotmail work.

But when you pay $300 for an already crippled domain (no 'A' or 'MX' record access) you should be able to opt out of the darn advertising. Again IMO.

 

[Steven]

That's how FREE services like Hotmail work.

But when you pay $300 for an already crippled domain (no 'A' or 'MX' record access) you should be able to opt out of the darn advertising. Again IMO.

How do you get [email protected] email if you can't change your MX record?

 

[tel_me]

You can change the mx record

How do you get [email protected] email if you can't change your MX record?

I have successfully gotten e-mails forwarded from my .tel domain to my gmail account.

 

[phase111]

Just for the sake of arguement, you do realize if they sent someone to the .tel page to vote for their favorite idol that the person would have to navigate somewhere else to do the actual voting. You can't vote for anything on a .tel page. All you can do is click links to websites and view contanct info, unless I am mistaken.

Yes, absolutely, you are correct sir. However, you don't seem to understand the voting procedure for American Idol.. they do not send you to their website to vote, they offer you a quicker way, which is a long telephone number or a text number. Now this means that when you say they cannot collect your sign up info to log in on a .tel, that's fine, they use their .com for this type of data collection, this kind of info isnt required for voting anyway as it stands at the moment. What stands at the moment is a long number to dial in, a text number to type in that is different for every single idol. .tel will mean that you just type in americanidol.tel (which could be saved to your favorite contacts list for easy access next time) and then click on any idol you like and go straight to the number you want and then click on that number instead to be connected immediately...no having to type in different awkward numbers all the time. It's about streamlining communications.

 

[onspec]

Thanks for the puff...

They want people to register for a reason, so they can send e-mails and do the marketing they want to do. They can't do that with a .tel. If they really thought that asking a user to register to vote would somehow hurt their bottom line, they would not require user registration.

I concede Neo.

You win... but wait...

Why did American Idol reg their own .tel?

Must be purely for defensive/brand protective measures eh?

...Hmmm. what if... just WHAT IF... they could shave 2 minutes off the entire show by NOT saying... for "Billy" call 1888 xxx-xxxx and push number 2 (and so on throughout with all of the contestants) For "Alecia" call 1888 xxx-xxxx and push number yada, yada, yada...

Maybe all they have to say is .. "To vote, go to American Idol .tel".

Do you think Simon Cowell and his band of merry (moneymakers) could use that time to sell and extra 1 or 2 sixty second commercials? Say at ... oh I don't know.. a half million a pop.... say $1 million bucks in additional revenue.. think they might forego a few email addresses?

Hey, who knows, I could be way off base... Mohawks think a bit differently.

Cheers,

Dude... I'm out,... pass me the papers..

 

[Kate]

Good evening and welcome to American Idol.... "All you have to do is go to AmericanIdol.tel and vote for your favorite performer".

Why make things simple. The crowds will love it
BTW should mobile surfers go to the .tel or .mobi to cast their vote ?

Still awaiting some some decent arguments against registering a .tel so bring it on. :imho:

Still waiting for a valid reason for registering .tel
In particular at landrush price.

Ok, lets talk about the .tel after market....Casino.tel alone had 57 sunrise applications (albeit 4 seperate entities applying) with only one successful applicant that got it well before Landrush applicants even had a chance to go for it. Surely it's not hard to see that if it was put on the auction block tomorrow, it would sell for more than the sunrise application fee, this is supply and demand plain and simple.

Yeah, it might sell to another speculator. But it doesn't make the TLD any more useful. TLDs don't thrive on speculation alone.
If the bulk of domains consists in speculative registration by domainers and defensive TM registrations by the large corporations, then there is no life in the TLD. In theory resellers could sell to each other, at least at the very beginning but that won't last long. If your names don't make any money and you can't do anything about it then there is no point in paying for renewals.

On a side note, take note of reported sales for casino.[TLD] and see how many are parked and how few are developed. It doesn't surprise me, I would not expect a bona fide casino business to operate on a TLD like .vg or .gs :]
Sorry for drifting offtopic, my point is that the rush for so-called coveted keywords in any TLD has more to do with speculation :imho:

 

[Acroplex]

Well-said Kate. What more can I add.

 

[phase111]

That's how FREE services like Hotmail work.

But when you pay $300 for an already crippled domain (no 'A' or 'MX' record access) you should be able to opt out of the darn advertising. Again IMO.

Well, people who have their websites made (which they usually pay more than $300 for) have a small footer by the developer quite often at the bottom advertising their development skills automatically. People who have their sites hosted often have an advertising footer at the bottom too. Do you think they ask to put their advertising there? We dont even own the domain outright, we own the right to rent the name only. Also, if you want .tel to succeed (and I already know you dont anyway), then every bit of advertising of it helps make it bigger and better. I really dont think these tiny links at the bottom of the page will make .tel owners jump up and down..why should it?
If I give my friend my .tel addy and then they want to get their own too (which will likely happen), this little link will save me time explaining where they can get it and what it's all about, d'ah.

 

[Traveler]

Yes, absolutely, you are correct sir.

Don't call me sir, I work for a living :hehe:

What stands at the moment is a long number to dial in, a text number to type in that is different for every single idol. .tel will mean that you just type in americanidol.tel (which could be saved to your favorite contacts list for easy access next time) and then click on any idol you like and go straight to the number you want and then click on that number instead to be connected immediately...no having to type in different awkward numbers all the time. It's about streamlining communications.

With that approach, the "idols" won't have pictures next to them or any information because .tel does not allow for that. Why not got with voteidol.com or some other name where you could actually make the user interface the way you want it. Or better yet, just have that interface on a sidebar on your main dot com. It would save a lot of clicks and could be better "branded" than trying to force that sort of functionality onto a .tel that really is not designed for it.