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Has .tel created an enemy of its own making ? More than a year on since the availability of .tel and i think its safe to say that more than just a few .tel owners are already feeling on the low end and frustrated by the slow take-off of what initially appeared as the new "gold mine". Take the nearest competitor platform for instance, (.mobi), I say nearest even though .tel is based on an entirely different technology, yet the largest target audience for both platforms is similar; the mobile phone user. In its first 9 months .mobi captured 500,000 registrations while .tel by comparison managed around 280,000 in the same period. It will be extremely interesting to know how many of these 280k .tel domains were dropped in the March 2010 first renewal period (which is usually a key measure of confidence in the new domain). Further, it is clearly evident the majority of the registered tel names are just "up for sale or lease" since inception with not so many interested buyers, (One would have to ask who would want to buy a domain if its not active / nor generating any income ??) .mobi domains that got sold fetched some cool figures up to $200k whereas .tel is in the $3k area at best. Even though a large number of the big brands / organisations have registered and protected their corresponding .tel name, the majority are yet to make any use of it, infact most just add a link on it to point to their .com website or just display an email address to contact their domain legal team etc. So why is all this happening to the new "gold mine" ? Obviously many reasons have been highlighed in this forum already including the need for more promotion etc, but could .tel have also created some enemies of its own ?? .mobi was created & backed by the largest mobile phone manufacturers / network providers in the world (Nokia / Vodafone etc) in addition to google & microsoft; Have these giants viewed .tel as a noisy newcomer to the domain world and have no interest in seeing it succeed ? Does it even contradict their business model ? afterall .tel is designed to carry minimal traffic (bad for network providers who want more revenue from traffic), and its not the greatest for online advertising anyway (as google adsense adverts do not display via mobile phones presently) . Also ( & I hope Telnic can answer this one), why isn't the largest registrar in the world (BY FAR) godaddy.com not registering .tel domains ?? Surely this is missing on a third of the worldwide domain registration market share !! On a bright note however One needs to believe in the conspiracy theory that some of the mobile phone manufacturers / network providers who have not been involved with .mobi might eventually choose to get involved and / or sponsor .tel (Telnic should hopefully welcome strong marketing partners and any available cash that will help it expand) Finally, one needs to observe that this will take time but eventually succeed,, (even .com took years to become what it is now), and the real asset of .tel is its uniqueness in concept,,, developers working hard will one day come up with the killer "app" that makes .tel a big winner in the community and then interest will really take off,, afterall, who believed in apple before the ipod / iphone came round ?? Your thoughts welcome.... |
Interesting insights. I tend to view .tel prospects like a broken circle. Instead of a complete solutions set, you need to integrate still with a 3rd party developer to truly utilize or operate a .tel domain. The potential future, in my opinion, is to integrate the .tel directory alongside apps that perform in the cloud. The oauth, xauth instance highlights a possible opening: become the authorization platform of choice, the true 'sharing platform' across all social sites. Another likelihood: creating directories that mimic the yellow pages or white pages, and hope for traffic and adsense revenue? Better use of apps and better integration with online presence is really the bottom line. If these don't shake out, with better offerings that are totally 'laymen' accessible, our investments really will be wasted. |
Welcome to the forum, Smart. Every person, who spent money on .mobi, knew what .mobi is about. That is one reason, for engaging in a .mobi adventure. Another reason is, that based on that understanding, there where high expectations, and big hope ("gold mine"). That explaines, why so many people where willing to add .mobi to their domain portfolio, and why some people could justify high prices that they paied at auctions. With .tel, it is different: It is hard to explain .tel in just a few words, or a sentence. .Tel is much more complex and complicated. And so, more difficult to imagine, how .tel would perform within existing constellations of domains, computers and mobile devices. I could well imagine, that there is a person, who is willing to sell his .tel domain for $20, but five years later, a other person would be willing to pay $200'000 for it, just like "once upon a time, in .mobi world...", or lets assume a lot of prices in the region of $5000 to $8000. The only advice I can give, is: Hold and sell as late as you can, and as long as you can afford to hold. The comparence with .mobi does not work, because .mobi is a no-brainer, and .tel as a whole, is not a no-brainer. But .tel is of course more interesting, and saves costs and time, because it is already a mobile site. The answer to your post, why .tel is not more successful at this moment, can be understood in the way, I just explained. But: Cars are complecated, and not many drivers understand cars, and how their car works, or how their telefon or television works. And so, as soon as users of .tel can controll their .tel, they will like it, and tell others about how brilliant .tel is, and that it works just fine for them, and that they wouldn't want to be without .tel anymore, etc. That is the so called "mouth to mouth ...". I think, people had wrong expectations about .tel, not really understanding .tel, anyway, to its full extent. Everyone, wanting super results, after the first year, whre just following their hopes and dreams, based on assumptions about how .tel would look after a year. If unfullfilled expectations are a reason to drop and sell good names, then you are not the type of domainer, who knows when to sell, and who earns a lot of money with domains. You probably should just spend renewal fees for the first years of this "child", without any pressure, having to make profits with all of your domains. Some are due for selling, now, some for selling soon, and others, for selling later. Like having a wine cellar with good wines which have to mature. Or like you are aging cigars, for them to get better in taste, and unfold more aromes, flavors and fragances. With time, there will be a higher demand for scarce domain names with good and sought after extensions. . |
I use domainmonster and according to them on 26-Mar-2009 Domainmonster.com was confirmed by Telnic as worlds largest .tel registrar, obviously as time goes on other domain registrars could try to match, but the metric your looking for here is the renewal rate. For the .tel Anniversary all Domain monster.com registrants received the usual notices, in particular it contained this statement. Quote:
Note: .tel pages = A page of contact information & not 2million registrations, but upwards of 2million domains & sub domains. And after when one of mine was due to expire because I didn't want it due to it being a duplicate and unnecessary purchase, part of my renewal notice contained this statement. Quote: [/size]
So I consider this considerable proof that renewals where high enough to state .tel is not dead just yet, and say that even though .mobi and other domain's where purchased in higher quantities, most where for reselling and therefore don't count in any metrics comparing them to .tel profiles, who use them for SEO and their own profiles. Because with 5millions pieces of contact information and pre existing websites progressively latching onto new .tel profiles, .tel has maintained a higher throughput of steady use, unlike other domain's that are transferred, sold, parked or dropped.[/size] |
I still have lots of faith in .tel domains. The problem is, so many people bought into .tel domains without thinking, many people thought they would buy loads of great keywords, christuan names, places ect and be able to flip them straight away with in the first year for a nice profit, unfortunately this has not been the case, and im not surprised as .tel for me is roughly where I thought it would be a year on. Many of the people who rushed in and bought loads of .tel are now coming unstuck which is why the market is not doing anything and people are able to get great bargains I think to make money from any .tel you will need to hang on to them them for a good few years as yet, and for us that do and of cousre put the effort in to populate them will be rewarded. As others have said in previous posts on this thread, .tel is like wine and the older it get the more the value will increase. If you can afford to keep them, renew them and also keep your eyes peeled over the next few nmonths as I think there will be some little .tel gold mines out there to buy for an absolute bargain. Welcome to the forum smart Regards Gav |
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No hosting involved that's the reason godaddy isn't interested. Cheers[/size] |
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The main point here, perhaps, should be - investing, be not too greedy; invest not more, then you can afford yourself without risk of getting into financial problems. If this condition will be fulfilled, then it is not a stress to wait two, three, five or seven years...[/size] |
The real functionality is upon us. Superbook's integration with Telpages. The day that is put into production (in beta now) is the real birthday of the global online directory. Ladies and Gentlemen buckle your seat belts, the ride is about to start! |
. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0CwEMUJ8Ow...telmaneken.jpg http://www.domainnamenews.com/wp-con...mages/logo.gif Quote: Raffaele Della Peruta March 30, 2010 @ 5:07 pm EDT As a person that has been collecting domains for over 15 years, I have to say that dot tel is definitely a domain name that people should be paying close attention to. I could turn the domaining world upside down. I’m convinced that this domain name will push itself into the mainstream and be the root domain people use for sem/advertsing. In my area of the world Vancouver, British Columbia, I am already seeing many companies using this domain on business cards, print advertising and on the side of their vehicles. Why is this better than the dot com domains we have been using to do the same. There are dozens of reasons. ----------------------------------------- Raffaele Della Peruta April 1, 2010 @ 7:55 pm EDT Wake up Drew. There is plenty of room on this bandwagon. Total annual costs of $20.00/year, no hosting, no IT computer technician costs and it can be set up in twenty minutes by a person without technical skills. How about the fact that people can update their information on the fly, such as contact details, using their smart phones. i.e. http://www.VancouverElectrician.tel -> Correct me if I’m wrong. Doesn’t this guy have a nicer looking page that most of the hosted websites on the internet? Not saying this replaces websites… because it isn’t designed to do that. These domains are designed to do a hell of a lot more than. My question is, if you were an electrician wouldn’t this be the best suitable choice to get an identity online fast? ------------------ Source: http://www.domainnamenews.com/regist...june-15th/7403 http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0CwEMUJ8Ow...telmaneken.jpg . |
