John Lawlor

johnlawlor.tel

.tel is a new top level domain (TLD), launched between December 2008 and March 2009. Operated by Telnic, a UK-based company, the TLD enables users (organisations and individuals) to publish contact information about themselves in a fairly simple, structured manner. While it is possible to access a .tel domain over the web, the suggested power of the system is that it can be accessed quickly and easily using mobile devices like phones, Blackberries and iPhones; it does not require a web site.

The basic idea behind .tel is that it will become an Internet-based directory, keeping all personal or organisation contact information in one place. For example, if a company changes phone number or address, it would only be necessary to change the entries in their .tel account and publish this information immediately to the Internet. With its “free text” feature, an organisation or individual can also post current information, say, about an upcoming sale or event, or a company profile.

The type of information that can be stored in a .tel account includes personal information such as name, address, hobbies and interests; phone numbers; websites; Flickr sites; Skype and Google accounts, and geolocation information. A user can decide what information to make public and what to show to selected people only (Telfriends), who must also be .tel account holders. Organisations can publish similar information as individuals and, using an internal directory structure, can add specific information, such as details of regional or branch offices. This makes it easier to navigate the .tel site.

Given the type of information that a .tel domain holds: contact information; web sites; identities; location information and searchable keywords, it is a little difficult to see how .tel is a lot different from an informational web page, blog, or OpenID profile. Indeed, I have stored all that type of information on many of my websites, blogs, social media sites, etc. I also set up a VeriSign Personal Information Portal (Beta) that provides much the same information as .tel, although it is web-based. It would also be very easy to set up a single web page on your existing domain with all of the information you want on it; by simply changing details on this page, you could, in theory, achieve the same end as a .tel account. However, Telnic say that the benefit of a .tel account is that a website is not needed and that a user’s account can be accessed easily over mobile devices, using very little bandwidth and low amounts of data transfer. They also suggest that there will be many new applications developed to exploit the features of .tel and that, for this reason, it is a useful service.

They offer ten reasons to use a .tel domain:

1. Controlling your information hub
2. Being part of a global online directory
3. Routing customers to your departments and locations
4. Increasing online discoverability
5. Connecting with customers from any device
6. Having an effective online presence
7. Performing live updates anytime from anywhere
8. Promoting premium rate numbers
9. Generating revenue from generic domain names
10. Driving traffic to e-commerce shops.

Before deciding whether to open a .tel account, I did a little research on the web and in discussion groups to see what the chatter in the community was. I found mixed views on the whole concept. Many companies who were selling domains or services were positive about .tel, while many individuals and IT professionals were more sceptical. Some people felt that it was just another over-hyped product. Concerns have also been expressed about privacy and identity theft.  I share, to a degree, the views of the sceptics and wonder how useful and secure this service will be. Nevertheless, I decided to get my own domains, johnlawlor.tel and lawlor.tel, to test their utility. All of the information I have added to my account (johnlawlor.tel only; lawlor.tel is not completed yet) is already publicly available on the Internet, so I am not too worried about publishing it in the one place. However, I have some concerns about the possibility of suffering an increase in spam or phishing attacks and will monitor my email, in particular, to see if there is an increase in these nuisances.

.tel domains cost from around 10 to 15 euros per year. There is no associated hosting cost, as all .tel accounts are hosted by Telnic as part of the domain registration. It’s very easy to register a domain and I registered mine with Blacknight Solutions in Ireland. If you’d like to have a look, check out http://johnlawlor.tel/.

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