Been kicking yourself for years because you missed out on registering yourname.com?
Hoping against hope that it will become available and you can snag it? Well, the new dot-tel (.tel) domain may be your chance to redeem yourself, or just another way to waste some money. It all depends on how this thing takes off.
The idea behind dot-tel is pretty simple. It provides a single point of contact for you or your business, for life, or at least as long as you pay the annual fee of about US$20. Kind of an online business card. No webpages, no ads, no dancing babies or videos of the kids, just the basic (and not so basic) facts of how to contact you easily.
Compared to setting up a traditional website (like www.yourname.com) getting a dot-tel domain is a breeze. and requires no technical skills. You visit an authorized registrar (such as Vancouver-based Webnames.ca) and check if your favorite name is available.
If it is, you pay and are emailed a password that allows you to enter your information. One tip is not to panic if your data isn't updated instantly. There can be a lag of a few minutes for changes to take effect.
There are no issues about arranging domain hosting or the expense of hiring a professional web designer. Everybody's dot-tel entry has roughly the same appearance, and your information is stored right in the DNS (domain name server.) This is about functionality, not flash.
It's easy to update it as often as you please. For example, if you're in Europe and get a temporary mobile phone, you can make that your dot-tel phone number. You can also enter your current location right down the latitude and longitude.
If you're fussy about privacy, do as I did, just provide a city. This will allow people who are looking for you to view your position on Google Maps.
A dot-tel era business card can be very, very minimalist. Think of George Burns, who in the movie Oh, God, hands John Denver an elegant white card with "God" printed in the middle.
My "dot-tel card" is pretty close, showing just "drfuture.tel" Armed with that, anyone can use a web browser or mobile phone to get my up-to-date contact details.
Yes, I grabbed drfuture, which is a nom de plume that I sometimes use. I was too late for keenan.tel (it went to someone in California) or even tomkeenan.tel (a guy by that name in Ireland got there first.)
If you're thinking of a dot-tel name for yourself or your business, you certainly don't want to dally. A competitor, cybersquatter or distant relative could get there first.
Bona fide trademark holders were given a headstart in registering their domain names, before the gates were thrown upon to the public on March 24, 2009. So if you were planning to retire on the profit from reselling microsoft.tel, google.tel or ibm.tel, forget it. Their rightful owners have claimed them.
There is apparently some speculation going on, because nortel.tel and aircanada.tel have been snapped up, apparently by individuals in the U.K. According to the whois listing at U.K.-based Telnic, a guy from Brooklyn, N.Y., named Vladislav Zeleznik has registered uhaul.tel. Closer to home, the name calgary.tel has been taken by a person from Coaldale, Alta., and edmonton.tel is registered to a person in Surrey, B.C. Now that's confusing!
It's likely that the cities of Calgary and Edmonton could reclaim their dot-tel names through a dispute-resolution process with the outfit in charge of the domain.
And, some say that since dot-tel domains will not have advertising, they will be unattractive to cybersquatters, who often seek to make money from misdirected click-throughs. True enough, but they still might hold companies for ransom.
As blogger "Julianna" wrote on the webnames.ca blog, "when you think about it, dot-tel's unique qualities make it a highly important piece of Internet real estate to secure. Dot-tel would enable a cybersquatter to input information of their own choosing in the contact fields, and redirect a visitor to whatever website, phone number or email address they wish. There is serious potential for a company's brand and good name to be compromised and their customers diverted to competing interests with dot-tel."
One of the first touting dot-tel domains, RegisterDotTelDomainNames.Com, acknowledges that "there have been many new fancy domains announced over the years. Not surprisingly, none of these new domains have changed the world. There have been so many new domains lately, such as .mobi, .biz, etc, that the general public likely has turned a blind eye to such announcements."
They argue that dot-tel will be different, because it's a business card where you can choose what information it contains and also choose who exactly can access the information. Obvious uses will be things like email addresses and phone numbers.
But beyond that, you can list your VoIP, Skype, Twitter, instant messaging, Facebook, xbox live and any other communication or social-networking device that you want to share ... As the tentacles or arms of the internet expand, so does the potential of dot-tel domains.
While getting a dot-tel now may seem like an exercise in vanity, there is a good chance that it will pay off in the future.
News Corp.-owned social-networking site MySpace has gotten behind it, selling the domains to its members. Developers are working on software so you can easily exchange contact information by flipping dot-tel addresses between smart phones. The best is, undoubtedly, yet to come.
If nothing else, it may be worth US$20 to see the face on your biggest competitor when they type in their desired dot-tel domain name and find that it points potential customers to your contact information!
(Tom Keenan is a professor at the University of Calgary and an expert on technology and its social implications. He can be reached at keenan@businessedge.ca)
