Telnic Announces All-numeric Long Domain Strings Available from 15th October 2013

I think the reasons for the lack of interest by Telnic's registrars in the new long all-numeric .tel launch are pretty well covered in these posts by Sunrise and myself:

The reasons why registrars don’t like .tel

Registrars to start dropping .Tel soon ?

Domainmonster said they will be selling them, but no information available just yet.
Said to contact them again closer to the 15th

Hi Mike.
Agreed ... about the fact TELs  SO FAR DID NOT generate a stream of further revenues on hosting to Registrar is very clear in today TEL business footprint .

But,
But there are many ways TELnic can re scope this at anytime, in case they would like to do so.
One example is replicating the TElnames business model to have it deployed seriously at lowest cost as possible (or no cost)  to Registrars side in their "home" country ) or to a Telco.
For sure certainly TELnic has to show first that this (TLN) model is successful enough in matter of business metrics, to be able to monetize it , therefore I further stop this interesting disgression about it in this thread about long numbers.

Back to the main subject, and concerning Registrars, WHEN you see that Registrars already suggests that nTLDs might (not sure) be grabbed    1. at least to avoid cybersquatting 2. to be redirected to incumbant DN from regular owners with IRL-useful content  just for SEO reasons  and then wait and see  ,
     
THEREFORE ,

 this just means that Registrars are already just familiar with the idea, or fear, that nTLDs might generate , whatever the figures for registration itself, some higher rate of bare registration (without additionnal hosting revenues for Registrars before long)  , a situation not unfamiliar to dot TEL  ( and generate perhaps a huge risk of vane spendings for ntlds , unless for the handfull 0,000001% of high premium DNs inside some nTlds) .

(or even, for the more pessimistics among them, may increase the risk to capture customers remaining ability to spend  some money and energy on some bare domain name only with no offsets, jeopardizing, by partially drying it up in a dangerous way, the previous business logics that a useful DN+potential usefull usecases >> hosting or services >> revenues for Registrars  << before such DNs are useful and generates revenues for the registrant himself, aftermarkets being only a differential consequence of above)

And even though, after a few months when buzz about ntlds sunrise will be down, facing real numbers of nTlds finally registred  ,  perhaps people will start to reconsider IN CONJUNCTION of what are the real usecases of such/any nTld :

"hey, BTW, what an alternative Tld which costs still some money is for in daily life  ? ??
show additionnal contact , generate traction and business on the main website from SMBs or corporate ???" .
Then they will mechanically by that time rephrase positively indeed what TEL was already for   !

Of course TEL Registry should struggle in this jungle to be able to survive during this long "meantime", and encourage whatever use of TELs since that date,  not to push  .TEL in the museum of defunct nice technologies by unwise action , or  not being obliged to transfer Telnic business to new shareholders at a fraction of initial value ( as already, well known public low CAPEX and OPEX for launching a new Registry for nTlds without real costs of marketing them being really taken into consideration so far, should have urged initial shareholders fromTELnic to have written off already some value from their own books, or look to resale their shares before being obliged by  launched nTld facts and data, to such write off .... )  .

So back again to the main Title of this thread, the "quit or gamble " question is :

What potential usecases ? first , and , after some period, what IRL usecases ' track records on the table ?

For long numbers ,and before 15th of October , we are still on the first part of the question, USECASES, supposing as in my previous post above that the Registry has or indeed, will correctly inform Registrars about long TEL .
But anyone interested in, can just check it at its level with its favorite registrar.

After reading this topic, my personal conclusion on long-numerics TELs is very simple - do not spend any money on them, because:

- As an investment for domainers they has very questionable value now, and - the most possible - any value in future.

- As domains for making projects for gaining revenue from Adsense they are much worse that word.tel domains. So, they are not worth of this kind of investment also. 

- As a point of contact they do not fit also because it is easy to remember word.tel it is but quite impossible to remember something like this: 00444505656867.tel

- As an address for selling your goods or services in Internet they do not fit also, because for Google and other search engines it is much much better to have address like your_goods.tel or your_service.tel. 


The only application of them I see as a toy for people who believe in tales and think that if repeating mantra for a long time it will become a reality - which, of course, in a real World usually do not happen.

Thanks Maxi for your post.

I also agree long numbers dot TEL :

a) are of no use to domainers,
b) do not make sense for adsense purpose i) in general without a real usecase   ii)as a kind a subset of above case .

When considering :
c) betting on such third usecase  with such prerequisite of  i) REMENBERING a long number tel YOU NEVER HEARD BEFORE and THEN  ii) TYPING somewhere such long number by REMEMBERING IT without typos errors   and THEN iii) ADDING dot TEL somehow (even arguable) ...
agreed this is of course NOT OBVIOUS .

HOWEVER IT IS NOT A PRELIMINARY VALID ASSUMPTION that ALL USECASES SHOULD BE ONLY ABOUT  "some phone number you never heard before and should remember by heart to type into some browser " , unless to introduce a big flaw there.


d) This one, well not 100 % sure, as here are IRL two examples , without me saying this would be definitively appropriate for  long number TELs :
  d1) Indeed you mentionned " on internet ". First consider free and paid reverse lookup services or databases today do exist on internet to some extends,
so not sure if or how this can or not interfere into their business models of phone information freemium models , by individuals or SMB knowing their (others ?) phone number is in demand for some reason and would like to benefit from it ( even also when changing, or being forced to change your phone number, and/or willing volontarily to attach some info to a given phone number (fixed or mobile) .

  d2) BTL basic street marketing and informal street marketing of services (you know , the white pieces of papers with phone number written on small  detachable parts that you tear off for a painter , gardening, massage, dog groomer, babby sitter etc ) are also a reality in real life for millions of Joe public ... Just print a QRcode ALSO on your paper flyer pined up in the street which directs to yournumber.tel ( to avoid call launch and immediate drop back) , and print also onto detachable pieces of paper to be picked-up, your number AND yournumber.TEL  , and you have more chances to trigger at least mobile discovery / bookmarking of some practical and retrievable info for your service/offer related to this ugly-mobile-phone-number-once-saw-but-could-not-retrieve-nor-check-for-more-info-or-without-engaging-into-unless-by-anonymous-voice-call-or-not-anonymous-SMS-query.
And JIM public can understand easily about this once he sees  a JOE public street flyer affixed at the butcher's, or near an ATM, or on week ends at open markets , this the long number .tel ...

It is still a pity we cannot read so far from more on usecase study , recommandation or research work from the Registry about long number TELs  .

Indeed if there are no usecase supported , or offered by Registry before the 15th of October,, and no communication from the Registry of this potential finally reaching or being understood by Registrars , it will be another non event (again ?) without any benefits to Telnic nor any collateral benefits to Telnames .

Market will always decide with at least what it has been shown ...

Possibly all positive efforts from this forum to better understand and list usecases for long numbers would have been somehow vain, but the forum may claim towards the Registry in future that it has publically done its job, or at least tried again. 

Still , the Registry has to do his job full time with full responsabiltiy as a Registry .

To be remembered.

@Boracay wrote: wrote:Domainmonster said they will be selling them, but no information available just yet.
Said to contact them again closer to the 15th

@Boracay 
thanks for your interesting update. Did not see your post until know sorry .

Do you mean that Domainmonster had received valuable some info and PR Advanced marketing materials about potential usecases of long numbers release from Telnic on the 15th, or that they were not really aware of that and are now investigating themselves ?

Hey guys!
You are too serious with this stupid marketing step )
Nobody needs it. It's a shout of dying marketing strategy to tel owners to squeeze some bucks)

In case of end user contact hub or in case of geo|thematic directory short names are better because of simplicity, pronunciation and remembering

mikeseaton wrote:OK I've sussed it - my BIG IDEA - probably .tel's last opportunity to survive and prosper - is going to get ignored !

From comments made by Aled about the marketing of long all-numeric .tels being done by registrars - who clearly have lost interest in .tel and are now focussing on the new gTLDs - it does look as if 15 October is going to turn out to be a damp squib !

So if this doesn't work what's left, that Telnic/Telnames might actually get round to doing ?

Answers on a postcard please - I need to take a break from all this !

http://MikeSeaton.tel

maxi wrote:It would have a marketing sense if they would let register numerics TELs for FREE (for one year or more) for all owners of respective phone numbers.

In this way they will not lose money from registrations of domains with letters (which could be really of great value for their owners) and at the same time will make good advertisement of TEL almost not spending money for making it.

247 wrote:Do I have to add the country code, the area code and one or two zeros? I don't know!

I see a phone number in my phone address book. Now how can I tell my phone to find the related .tel? I have no idea!

This is far from reality!

If Telnic would like to use these long-numerics for advertizing the extension (i.e. promote that idea that one day, may be, such TELs could replace traditional phone numbers), then now they perhaps should consider for every registered phone-number-like-numeric-tel giving for free also its variant with 00 at the doman name's beginning. In the same manner as now they give siplifyed Chinese variant for every registered TEL with Traditional Chinese spelling.

In this way they could reduce hesitations of possible customers, who surely will ask "What variant of numeric TEL - with "00" or without - I need to register?"

No need to talk about .tel as long Telnic doesn't solve the main problem of .tel: DISCOVERABILITY
If Telnic doesn't provide .tel content (nice / long text and subdomains), a .tel directory and / or cooperation with search engines / Yellow Pages, anything else is just meaningless.
Long-numerics are completely unimportant as long .tel domains aren't developed by Telnic!

Mike: and make the idea much stronger with integration to phones' adressbook like another standart contact type| meta contact with sync. But $30M is gone already, which money to pay manufacturers if telnic doesn't have a good sales man to negotiate with them.

@Maxi  wrote : wrote:
now they (dot TEL Registry) perhaps should consider for every registered phone-number-like-numeric-tel giving for free also its variant with 00 at the doman name's beginning. In the same manner as now they give siplifyed Chinese variant for every registered TEL with Traditional Chinese spelling.

They might also think outside China, in a kind of double bundle offer , about offering a discount code of 50% for registering an IMEI long number (IMEI is the unique 15 to 16 digit long number ID of a cellphone) under TELnames as a nice digital tatoo avoiding or publically limiting behind the counter trading of stolen smartphones, for those who have already registred some phone number with a TEL , in addition to @Maxi proposal above.

As soon as such a so special 16 digit long number for IMEI is registred through a dot TEL domain name,  (or a TLN packed name ) with some basic related info and current status of phone ( STOLEN Y/N , most likely mobile network, most likely country or town, nothing too sensitive , etc )  then such special so long number will start to be searchable and reachable through a simple query over Google even more if adding keywords as dot TEL and IMEI , some basic reco which can be explained by TELnic/TLN within some FAQs for some suggested usecases.

Of course interested parties might still be capable of registering their smartphone IMEI as a long number under some unpackaged pro TEL through Registrars for cheaper protection of their expensive smartphone, on a DIY basis.

An easy way for TELnic building positive awarenes worldwide on Telnames pack and on TELs against a public problem concerning more than 1 million phones (preferably latest Smartphones) STOLEN  per MONTH so about 3M to 5M "directly concerned" people per MONTH (when including immediate relatives of the unfortunate owner and by direct word of mouth) . So not only a handful of them, but some with real motivation or relatives knowing what IMEI is for what are today limitations that could now be solved, and through sales which are independent from any further potential deal with an heavy-weight player as discussed previously.

If TELnic pitches such a few potential usecases and let the market decide, certainly Registrars can calculate some statistics even from their own customer base about how many of them could have a smartphone (guess what : probably one smartphone for one already customer at Registrars, and then easy maths calculation inside Registrars  dept...)

One of these days someone is going to take the .tel concept - which Telnic/Telnames seem incapable (after $35,000,000 of investment and 14 years since company formation) of exploiting commercially worldwide to "Joe Public", and blow them away !

Say you had a domain called Telxxxx.com, offered the same facilities as .tel but made it FREE OF CHARGE (users get registrations such as boatsales.telxxxx.com etc), developed a Telxxxx Global Directory, and did all the things RIGHT that Telnic/Telnames have got WRONG !

As I said it could happen, just needs a top class domain Telxxxx.com and lots of time commitment to get this started !

http://MikeSeaton.tel

TELwax wrote:

@Boracay wrote: wrote:Domainmonster said they will be selling them, but no information available just yet.
Said to contact them again closer to the 15th

@Boracay 
thanks for your interesting update. Did not see your post until know sorry .

Do you mean that Domainmonster had received valuable some info and PR Advanced marketing materials about potential usecases of long numbers release from Telnic on the 15th, or that they were not really aware of that and are now

Sorry I can't answer exactly as you had hoped, received this on requesting of marketing available and best format to register etc. perhaps you should make your own enquiry.

"At this moment in time no we don't have any promotional material for long number .TEL domains.

If we do produce any we will be sending it out to all of our customers with .tel domains!

So keep your eyes peeled!"

@mikeseaton wrote:.../...
Say you had a domain called Telxxxx.com, offered the same facilities as .tel but made it FREE OF CHARGE (users get registrations such as boatsales.telxxxx.com etc), developed a Telxxxx Global Directory, and did all the things RIGHT that Telnic/Telnames have got WRONG !

As I said it could happen, just needs a top class domain Telxxxx.com and lots of time commitment to get this started !

http://www.telREADER.COM concept indeed smart and interesting . 

>> See  http://8294.telreader.COM  rendering & capturing landing monetisation .

>> So that can be useful also to long numbers, whether phone number or IMEI longer numbers  or whatever number

mikeseaton wrote:Say you had a domain called Telxxxx.com, offered the same facilities as .tel but made it FREE OF CHARGE (users get registrations such as boatsales.telxxxx.com etc), developed a Telxxxx Global Directory, and did all the things RIGHT that Telnic/Telnames have got WRONG !

And before anyone dismisses the above idea as fanciful, there is a company called Central NIC which has already made this subdomain registration concept work !

They have registered numerous domains which reflect a country's identity, such as uk.com and us.com, and then proceeded to sell the subdomains such as mydomain.uk.com and mydomain.us.com as "normal" domain registrations.

These subdomain registrations are available at companies like Name.com - see http://www.name.com/pricing for prices charged.

So it's quite possible for a .tel competitor to be generated from someone with a really good Telxxxx.com domain - will it happen - Only Time Will .Tel !

http://MikeSeaton.tel

@Boracay wrote:

Domainmonster said they will be selling them, but no information available just yet.
Said to contact them again closer to the 15th

@TELwax wrote:
@Boracay 

thanks for your interesting update. Did not see your post until know sorry .

Do you mean that Domainmonster had received valuable some info and PR Advanced marketing materials about potential usecases of long numbers release from Telnic on the 15th, or , that they were not really aware of that and are now

@Boracay wrote:
Sorry I can't answer exactly as you had hoped, received this on requesting of marketing available and best format to register etc. perhaps you should make your own enquiry.

"At this moment in time no we don't have any promotional material for long number .TEL domains.

If we do produce any we will be sending it out to all of our customers with .tel domains!

So keep your eyes peeled!"

@Boracay

Thanks for your feedback about situation with this registrar, apparently considering or discovering the launch ?

TELwax wrote:TelReader.com concept indeed smart and interesting .

Agreed - that's what .Tel was/is supposed to be about in Phase 2 - store your data in the DNS and get it Published Free Of Charge by multiple software routines developed by different companies.

One of the best forms of FREE ADVERTISING & PROMOTION I have ever had was using http://DMOZ.org - known as the Open Directory Project.

Here you list your details once, then software companies from around the world extract the DMOZ directory data and produce their own (monetised through ads) version of it.

If you can get listed (it depends on volunteers to assess your site) you find after a few months you get backlinks / traffic from numerous sources with no effort on your part.

That's what .Tel (Phase 2) was/is supposed to be - store your data in the DNS and let others publish it for you.

BTW I developed TelReader - as an alternative to Telnic's  proxy reading of the DNS.

http://MikeSeaton.tel

Marketing of registrars for the upcoming launch of numeric domains of eight digits or longer:

http://www.rrpproxy.net/News.html#8
http://www.comlaude.com/tel-numeric-domains-to-launch
http://brandshelter.com/english/news/current-news/index.php?article_id=49&clang=1&id=291

Nice use of a numeric .tel: www.118218.tel

Thx. Nice but not long number, here discussed, which should therefore be more than 7 digits. (8 digits and more)

This one has 6 only and has certainly been registred ages ago, dropped, and registred again  ;+)

It is more or less considered as a short-code , or let's say a medium short code, with special price per minute when calling.

Such usecase of this medium length numeric dot TEL is  same family of usecase however as to some disucssed here and expected for longer numbers , although this one has a "jingle" in it and is leader on its local market, so,  easier to retrieve/remind although no real info on efficiency and ROI about its dot TEL registration.

It was registered yesterday.
It's a short numeric .tel, but one day nice short numeric .tels won't be available anymore.
Then 8 digits and longer can be used.

Moonlight wrote:...but one day nice short numeric .tels won't be available anymore.

Code:

<sarcasm>Yeah...the world full of dottels..that was the investors' Dream.</sarcasm>

So, now, a week before availability of long numbers, who are the Registrars  promoting, pitching, or at least, letting their customers know that all-numeric dot TEL with related usecases will be available on the 15 th ?
Still difficult to tell .

Did they have any usecase communicated , in order to tell to their customers with lowest effort ?
Nobody really knows, we can guess only.

From here this is what could be gathered on the forum as identified usecases for registration of long numbers , whatever their popularity to be, or any distinctive added value for the money  :
(please add some other realistic ones if there are still some )

So we have :

1. enterprise getting their hot line number to display through TEL more options to call their call center or other number on PABX or access to specific areas for Customer care on the enterprise website

2. not hyperbranded merchants but with nice easy-to-remember long number, willing to drag attention to other digital  assets or incumbant website

3. known (branded) merchants with some existing long number, willing to drag attention to their other main digital assets or their official website, their opening hours and coupons, in case their long number is already registered in many directories and yellow pages and on their fleet of vans.

4. cold call heavy campaigns specialist willing to get traffic back on the long number set for the campaign from lookup search originated by thousands of callees who did no respond but want to know who called

5. merchants and shops , after being offered coupons for a long number TEL , offered by Hibu or other YP companies to attract and lock customers in their online directories though longnumber dot TEL entry gift

6. mobile email anonymizer : register mobile number XXYYZZPPQQRR.TEL  for your number and tel your contacts on your voicemail or auto SMS responder, they might sent you an email at  telco1@ thismobilenumber dot TEL or telco2@ thismobilenumber dot TEL to drop you a message in a convenient manner, or to download you latest vCard

7. As your friends know your mobile number already , or as it is already registred on their mobile phone book, just TEL them on your voice mail or by SMS that now to get more related updated info about you, or your  , just need to search adding dot TEL to your number (to easily retrieve in mobile friendly format from their mobile, your FB account, your email, latest photos or phone number or address of that bar were we gather on Thursdays  nights, phone number of the tennis club where you can meet, etc). You may give them pw to access TELfriends zone attached to your number

8. Protect your expensive latest smartphone by registering its 15 to 16 digits unique ID number so called IMEI number as a TEL, to reduce possibilities for thieves to extract some money with it on "second" hand markets as its IMEI can be Googled by anyone before buying/reselling it, and encourage being returned back the soonest at contact details shown on the .TEL

9. If you are a TAXI  do register under dot TEL your long phone number with the vanity tag 8294 in it, to get additionnal traffic to your booking website or to get your phone number rank better in wild search from Google for Taxi + location (to be explained how by Registry )

10. Florists, PIZZA, etc might also register their long number with vanity tag for PIZZA or FLOWER that they do rent at high monthly for years now, to build more internet visibility throught this vanity long number they have been paying fr msuch a long time, and get more online and mobile traffic and sale orders.


11. Promotion of so far unbranded proximity services :
BTL basic street marketing and informal street marketing of proximity services by individuals or smal businesses ( painter , gardening, massage, dog groomer, babby sitter etc ) promoting their phone number written on flyers pin on walls or message boards with detachable parts that you tear off for to keep the phone number to call later....

Printing also a QRcode which directs to yournumber.tel ( to allow preliminary  discovery) , and printing  onto the detachable part of said papersheet to be picked-up,  the phonenumber .TEL along with the phone number itself, might show more chances to trigger mobile discovery and bookmarking of such easy retrievalbe proximity service/offer, instead of an anonymous ugly-mobile-phone-number-once-saw-but-could-not-retrieve-nor-check-more-info-or-without-engaging-into-unless-by-anonymous-voice-call-or-not-anonymous-SMS-query.
In case they do not go for a TLN or have never heared/will never hear of it .
Therefore providing a basic mechanism from everyday technology (street flyers and papersheet on messages boards !) to increase chances to be get discovered and in touch with anyone  by their prefered mean of communication as :
a. Calling NOW the promoted phone number /service because it matches your urgent need
b. Discovering now or later their phonenumber .tel from their mobile on the go, which dot TEL has all the different contact methods on it plus basic presentation of service, and can be mobile bookmarked by user for more convenient later use.


WHAT ELSE  ?

4444 wrote:Marketing of registrars for the upcoming launch of numeric domains of eight digits or longer:

...

One more: http://www.lexsynergy.com/news/324-all-numeric-tel-domains

This event will be hardly noticed by customers.