New Templates Are Available

hulltv wrote:not got time to play about like that and telmasters is to complicated.

Try TELcp; the user interface is very comfortable.

A lot of people complained at Telnic about the missing features, but no reaction so far. Sorry for that!

anyway please you guys are all hanging in there....

who knows one day we might see a great template were even [Inappropriate words deleted! - The admin] looks good

bye 4 now

mike

You're welcome!

We'll see that template for sure; it's just a question of time!

very good forum....this...i will try TELcp thx

TelTalk wrote:Yes Jonathan, template 7 is the best by far!

Template 7 (and 6) comes close to its draft, too!

After the contest I thought template 8 would be better, but after seeing it live I've changed my opinion:

• Template 8 can't fold the sections as intended.
  
• Template 8 can't compress related content as intended.
  
• Template 8 doesn't use new icons as intended.
  
• Template 8 doesn't separate folders and contacts as intended.
  
• Template 8 doesn't allow flexible sorting of text as intended.
  

So unfortunately it doesn't look as great as planned:

For those who are unfamiliar with the 3 winners of the design contest that led to these new templates, here's the links:

Winner 1 - http://99designs.com/designs/6904564-original

Winner 2 - http://99designs.com/designs/6902998-original

Winner 3 - http://99designs.com/designs/6787230-original

Click the image page when displayed to get a full size view.

http://MikeSeaton.tel

PS. Here's the full design competion results - http://99designs.com/web-design/contests/tel-design-decade-63737

mikeseaton wrote:There is a .Tel product that does all this NOW - available from http://www.Telnames.com - the 8 Telnic templates unfortunately do not (it looks like they never will) and therefore will have limited appeal to the mass public.

So if I was a newbie getting involved with .Tel for the first time I would ignore the Telnic templates and focus on the offering from Telnames as shown by http://YourBusiness.tel

Mike, I agree the actual situation isn't satisfying. But mainly the current confusion of customers isn't caused by the technology state today but by lack of communication from the main provider.
When I take a look at template number 7 from Telnic (including subdomains, Telfriends, ads, unlimited contact types and separated sections), this one is much more appealing than the one from Telnames.
The only disadvantage of template number 7 is the missing background picture!
Anyway there is still a lot of work to do until .tel can provide everything what is needed to satisfy customers (upload pics / vids / ads, integrating existing features for ALL templates and realization of blogs, text formatting, sorting of content and more).

mikeseaton wrote:PS. Here's the full design competion results - http://99designs.com/web-design/contests/tel-design-decade-63737

This is very helpful, because there are so many great designs (many are deleted meanwhile). Why we can have only 3 more? Telnic proved today they can still do so much with DNS data. It doesn't have to stay static and boring!

JH wrote:Mike, I agree the actual situation isn't satisfying. But mainly the current confusion of customers isn't caused by the technology state today but by lack of communication from the main provider.

Jens, being realistic I don't think the lack of communication by the "main provider" Telnic will change.

Telnames have been doing promo work at UK business exhibitions to small businesses and 1-man traders and the Telnames single-page template does seem to appeal to them.

Telnic does zero promotional work - if you look at pictures of the business fairs you will often see Justin (who still sticks with a Telnic template at http://Justin.tel) hard at work promoting Telnames not Telnic.

Nothing wrong with that of course - just pointing out that newbies to .tel are not going to come across the Telnic templates, unless of course they register their .tel at their favourite registrar and then find they can't have a background image, an image gallery, a coupon offer, and need to find a 3rd party provider (they may not be forum members so won't know of Mark & TELcp) to load their video.

I think the newbie marketplace is going to get incredibly confused by the 2 completely different products that are now represented by .tel - confusion can often lead to indecision when encountered during a buying process !

So whilst the 3 new Telnic templates are welcome by forum members I think what really matters is whether they will help .tel reach "critical mass".

IMO they won't - since even if they are viewed as better than the Telnames template (a personal opinion of course) the Telnames single-page one is being promoted and the Telnic multi-page subdomain ones aren't.

How did Telnic get themselves into this mess ?

http://MikeSeaton.tel

mikeseaton wrote:How did Telnic get themselves into this mess ?

I would like to fly on the wall in their office to find out, but unfortunately their development plan is one of the best kept secrets in domain business.

[quote="TelTalk"]

mikeseaton wrote:How did Telnic get themselves into this mess ?

They don't listen much to their community. In the year and a half it took to develop these new templates (should have been 3 months tops), they should have consulted via simple polls, provided some customizable layout and colour features instead of fixed gradients, fixed width headers, unclickable images, etc etc (SOAP API can support for short term). A simple CMS (content management system) is what should have been developed over that same period of time to give us some flexibility on designing sites. Instead we still have little control. Not one size fits all, same goes for static templates.

Don't get me wrong Telnic, I am thankful for the effort by the development team, but Telnic management called the shots on what they developed and dropped the ball on forward thinking in favour of Telnames. I still continue selling .Tel locally, am developing Canadian.me to utilize .Tel DNS data, keep on updating tools and making new products. But sure would be nice to have Telnic use some smarts and common sense with their deliveries.

Harsh but I think true.

Mark

JH wrote:

mikeseaton wrote:PS. Here's the full design competion results - http://99designs.com/web-design/contests/tel-design-decade-63737

This is very helpful, because there are so many great designs (many are deleted meanwhile). Why we can have only 3 more? Telnic proved today they can still do so much with DNS data. It doesn't have to stay static and boring!

If Telnic allowed a mechanism for developers to have a custom template style, then we could develop and submit our own CSS for testing and approval. For instance I have found many things I'd like changed in all three new templates, but that is my opinion, others might not agree. The answer would be to allow some flexibility in the way colours and layout is rendered mostly on the desktops. We are not living in a one size fits all world. This new social world is about self-expression and customization is key to success.

Such a custom CSS file would require testing and certification by Telnic, perhaps the developer pays Telnic a modest submission fee and a new template would be born through the efforts of the community. That's what the contest was about. However, Telnic's mistake was to take those templates exactly as shown without some degree of flexibility through simple design options. The .tsm DNS record for layout can easily accommodate limited customization, yet static layouts continue because they are easier to develop. But not much effort is needed to make layout more robust, customizable and suitable for different business users.

Telnic needs to give us the opportunity to experiment by opening that closed door and support more in the area of layout.

Markedit: BTW, the biggest job of developing templates is developing the layout not the testing. So the win-win in this idea is that the community does 80% of the work, which means less time for Telnic to test and implement new templates in the future. Having a customizable environment would minimize all efforts.

[quote="JH"]

mikeseaton wrote:When I take a look at template number 7 from Telnic (including subdomains, Telfriends, ads, unlimited contact types and separated sections), this one is much more appealing than the one from Telnames.
The only disadvantage of template number 7 is the missing background picture!

The background image can easily be supported by the desktop proxy because the image url is stored in the .tsm record. That record is read by all proxies, yet the b/g image is ignored by Telnic's default proxy. Yes it would be nice to have a b/g image, but template 8 goes a long way and is in fact better because now you can have large images on all subdomain pages. Perhaps that is better in the long run. Backgrounds don't count in the mobile world, so might not matter anyways.

Mark

I've another idea what is going wrong! Doesn't matter what template is chosen for a .TEL, the website always looks like parking pages (which have are very bad image), because usually a .TEL consists only out of a collection of links (or contact entries).
The restricted content is the problem. Telnic need to allow us to insert flexible and long text (for articles about our products or reviews), not only contact entries!
This problem could be solved by the CMS mentioned by Mark, too!

Mark, Have you ever spoken about these topics personally with the staff of Telnic (not only via e-mail or forum messages)?

Is it possible to arrange a meeting with Telnic (e. g. via videoconference) where you can demonstrate your position?

Since your suggestions are so important, in my opinion it's needed that Telnic see the potential of the suggested improvements!

TelTalk wrote:Mark, Have you ever spoken about these topics personally with the staff of Telnic (not only via e-mail or forum messages)?

Is it possible to arrange a meeting with Telnic (e. g. via videoconference) where you can demonstrate your position?

I remember a long time ago Mark suggesting (on Telnic's forum) some of the major .tel contributors could assist Telnic as a "Steering Group" in finding out what was actually wanted by .tel customers - I think he was prepared to fly over from Canada to London to attend such a meeting.

As so oftern happens nothing came of this forum suggestion, not sure whether Telnic officially acknowledged the offer with a "Thanks but no thamks" reply ?

Giving customers what they want works wonders in most areas of business !

Involving developers is a pretty good idea as well - it hasn't done Apple any harm with its annual worldwide developers conference !

But this approach does not seem to appeal to Telnic, not sure why ?

http://MikeSeaton.tel

TelTalk wrote:Yes Jonathan, template 7 is the best by far!

Template 7 (and 6) comes close to its draft, too!

After the contest I thought template 8 would be better, but after seeing it live I've changed my opinion:

• Template 8 can't fold the sections as intended.
  
• Template 8 can't compress related content as intended.
  
• Template 8 doesn't use new icons as intended.
  
• Template 8 doesn't separate folders and contacts as intended.
  
• Template 8 doesn't allow flexible sorting of text as intended.

So unfortunately it doesn't look as great as planned:

http://99designs.com/designs/6902998-original

I guess after finishing template 6 and 7 the programmer at Telnic didn't have enough time to realize all designed functions for template 8 anymore, so he couldn't finish it.
The question must be allowed what else Telnic was busy with the last 18 months! As we know they have realized another template for Telnames, too.
But since nothing else happened during this time, what Telnic was busy with meanwhile? Do they still have some surprises for us?

mikeseaton wrote:As so oftern happens nothing came of this forum suggestion, ...

Perhaps the forum doesn't have the significance as needed.

It would be necessary to speak to decision makers inside of Telnic. Shouldn't we try to do this?

Perhaps the valuable information from Mike, Mark and other community members has never reached the right people!?

mikeseaton wrote:I remember a long time ago Mark suggesting (on Telnic's forum) some of the major .tel contributors could assist Telnic as a "Steering Group" in finding out what was actually wanted by .tel customers - I think he was prepared to fly over from Canada to London to attend such a meeting.

What a great idea! ... and what a pity it hasn't happened!

mikeseaton wrote:Involving developers is a pretty good idea as well - it hasn't done Apple any harm with its annual worldwide developers conference !

The day when Telnic would let external developers in (at least for consultation), it would mark the point of change for the better!

Rambo wrote:Do they still have some surprises for us?

Good question!

One surprise we got this week when the 3 new templates arrived - just in that moment when most .tel owners have given up the hope they will ever be developed.

I guess the next release will be the possibility to upload pictures, videos and ads with the control panel.

And who knows? Perhaps one day we will get even an usable user interface for Telfriends!?

New templates are nothing of that what has been promised.

It is just yet another NEW BRUSH OFF perpetrated by group of [Inappropriate word deleted! - The admin].

JLouisBiz wrote:New templates are nothing of that what has been promised.

It is just yet another NEW BRUSH OFF perpetrated by group of [Inappropriate word deleted! - The admin].

,,
What they promised was 3 new templates scaled down to fit the proxy standards and that is what we got, 3 templates that are supposed to work in all web devices based on the designs submitted, they told us they would be similar and keep as many of the features they could make work so I don't see any lies and my partner even likes them, if you want to suggest bits that need tweaking I'm sure they might listen but I doubt you could suggest we got brushed off in the face of what we can all see is what they said we'd get.
..
Maybe our expectations have been far too high, but once devices improve in power and are more universal in bandwidth allocation we'll probably see more additions to the proxy/themes as set by the web/Google speed/universal standards etc.

You are right, I am going to slowly drop some of the domains, let me go down by 30-50 at a time, I have already started.

JLouisBiz wrote:You are right, I am going to slowly drop some of the domains...I have already started.

That is a strategy that many .tel investors are now adopting, including myself.

There is very little demand currently for .tel domains, and virtually all of it is from fellow .tel forum members at knockdown prices, that it is quite feasible to let drop many of your "second tier" .tels knowing that the vast majority will still be available to re-register in a year or two should you so wish.

Without Worldwide Marketing there will be no awareness, and consequently no demand, from "Joe Public", and hence very little value attributed to .tel domains.

What on earth are Telnic/Telnames waiting for before they commence Worldwide Marketing ?

And please don't say Telnic have no money to pay for this - the accounts filed in 2011 show Telnic have nearly 10 Million GBP cash in the bank - see http://companycheck.co.uk/company/03555437

http://MikeSeaton.tel

mikeseaton wrote:And please don's say Telnic have no money to pay for this - the accounts filed in 2011 show Telnic have nearly 10 Million GBP cash in the bank - see http://companycheck.co.uk/company/03555437

So no worries about the future of .tel !!!

*smile*

TelTalk wrote:

mikeseaton wrote:And please don's say Telnic have no money to pay for this - the accounts filed in 2011 show Telnic have nearly 10 Million GBP cash in the bank - see http://companycheck.co.uk/company/03555437

So no worries about the future of .tel !!!

Not if they spent it on marketing, but that never seems to happen !

.Tel will never go viral in the same way that Facebook did - money needs to be spent to let the world know what's on offer.

Try this simple test:

- Go into your local High Street (or Main Street as they say in the USA) and enter a mobile phone shop.

- Discuss the latest smartphones and the contracts they currently offer.

- When the salesman has finished his pitch, ask if they will throw in a .tel domain registration as part of the deal.

- Try not to look too disappointed when you are met with a blank stare and a reply along the lines of "What's that then ?".

- And that's from someone in the industry, never mind "Joe Public" !

I've done this, got the above reaction, and then spent time explaining to the mobile phone salesman about something he should have been trying to sell to me as an add-on - had he even known .tel existed !

http://MikeSeaton.tel