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.tel On The Map apps Picture businesses in your community beaming their latest specials and coupons to your browser or cell phone. All using .tel as the vehicle. Literally putting .tel on the map. http://www.telvisitors.com/images/onthemap1.png Let's get .tel On The Map! TelView is a working, open-ended project that requires standards and involvement from the community. Today I passed a standards specification to Telnic. I will post at Telmasters.com for all to comment upon. Personally, I believe that any kind of visualizaton in this manner should be a hot ticket item for the 2011 RoadMap. When you think about it, Telpages is a repository of great information but it isn't used or known. So instead of searching, the better way I believe is to use Tel domains as the vehicle for pushing local information to consumers, where anything that needs to be found or disseminated could be found at .tel sites in real-time in the consumers vicinity. That way viewers find local stores, coupons, offers and more through both mobile and browser apps that would be developed by Telnic and/or the community. And it would appeal to SMB because the cost is a miniscule $10-$20 per year compared to hundreds and thousands for YP listings. Reduced yellow page fees is what it's all about. The standard way for finding information is via the search engine. Since search engines are far from being aware of the power of local tel information, the better way is to give the information to the consumer. When you look at TelView, what I am trying to do is make any .tel a dominant vehicle for displaying local information without the need for advertising. This puts the SMB owner in control at all times. The power of .tel can be easily showcased through visualization. This is our ideal marketing vehicle. A Killer App for Critical Mass Visualization of tel data is a killer app - these apps can be developed quickly and cheaply and given away to promote tel. The ability to show live, local information will sell itself to SMB and when promoted locally by the owners themselves, should go a long way to exposing .tel and gaining the critical mass we need. With such apps, I plan on selling tels locally just by going door-to-door and through local chambers. Promotion Visualization would need to be promoted but it would be an easy way to promote Tel. Locally through SMB via stickers on their doors. By Telnic through campaigns. Virally we could have a game embedded using random tels in views. On Telnic's website for people to see the power of tel visually. Telnic to use visualization apps for contests and offers. Place "easter eggs" among tel domains worldwide. Visiting such a domain will provide more information on a contest or offer. Create a scavenger hunt game using icons to help sell more domains. Just some ideas but the ability to place tel on the map visually has got to be the biggest here. Development and Ownership OnTheMap/TelView is a prototype project with a simple HTML5 mapping app. HTML5 is device independent and is fast becoming the new web standard. For the short term HTML5 could be used. However, since mobile apps are more robust, ideally mobile versions should be developed. It is preferable for Telnic to create and maintain the visualization apps on behalf of, and with the involvement of the community which in turn will go out and sell more Tels. There is no incentive for the community to develop and maintain apps, not to mention carry the cost of development, as no money can be made directly from these apps. These apps must be free and freely distributed. Given some standards and tools, the community can certainly enhance the apps. Happy exploring. Mark |
Like you said elsewhere, this "looks impressive", I'll have to read the post a few times to absorb the significance of this Mark. |
Specifications for mapping standards have been posted on the TelMasters Blog. Standards will allow for consistency of how tel visualization information is stored within the .tel DNS records. Here is a summary: 1) opt-in for map visualization: should your tel be on the map ? 2) primary YP-like category: eg plumbing, lawyer, grocery store 3) custom map icon url: if not using standard derived from primary category 4) coupon discovery and storage: where coupons are found 5) original content indicator: is your tel the real-time source of data or a copy 6) map information templates: how much information is shown in popups Your feedback is important. Mark |
Mapping suggestions added. You can also get to visualization via www.OnTheMap.tel via the new geodetection link. Happy mapping... Mark |
Mark, truly amazing. To help tweak this beast. For me at "onthemap.tel" it opens up highlighting at the top of the page "Click Blah etc Chatswood New South Wales Australia" This is pretty damn good but probably not the result your after. Once I click on the "Chatswood" location it does actually open up at my correct location (Quakers Hill), however thats about 35km by road from the location first shown. |
Two different technologies are employed. Onthemap.tel uses a free IP-geo database which I am finding is not as accurate as I'd like outside of North America. Telview uses HTML5 geolocation but I don't know the underlying technology for that. Once I figured it out I'll use it for both. Most that have tried find both fairly accurate. For TelView I want within 2KM accuracy as the default radius is 10KM. For Onthemap I just want nearest city accuracy. Thanks for the feedback. Mark |
Those parameters sound adequate to me. Had another look, "onthemap.tel" in my case appears to toggle between showing (thus far) Chatswood or Sydney, telview at the moment doesn't want to play! Will try again later. |
Was updating the image parameters at onthemap.tel - should be back in a bit. Mark |
Mark, the site really is excellent. The icons work amazingly well, I put my location down as Waikiki and the results are terrific. Restaurants, hotels, all of them worked.. Nicely done. Where do you find the time to dev all the cool tools and apps! I hope this gets widespread promotional backing from everyone. I definitely support your effort. best regards.. |
Aliencafe: Thanks for the feedback. Evenings mostly, just part-time. It's amazing how many tels you can find in any locality. Once visualization is widespread, it will be even more amazing. Community support will make this a reality. Mark |
Mark, that looks fantastic. Well done. Itryed to use it just now by setting my location to edinburgh but it was reporting a stack overflow error. Could be my work firewall tho. Do you have any tips for listing .tels to be picked up as tryed searching in edinburgh near the castle last night and could not pick up my listing for it (castle.edinburgh.) Wondering if its something to do with my directory structure?. Quote:
Looks like this is really well thought out. Especially that fact that opt in would be required. With regards to number 4. I would like to see events and promotions (for that day) showing on the map also eventually. I presume this would require an events (folder) added to .tels as such so the data could be located. How cool would it be if someone just had to look at a map on a weekend morning to realise that there were 2/3 events within close proximity.[/size] |
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Simon, pop up the help and there are tips already there for how to ensure your tel shows up. Two things with your tel: it shows up on the map fine, but castle.edinburgh might not because it is a hidden folder not found from your main page. Coupons, offers, specials, events could in theory be linked to one entry related to displaying current information. CPN spec has an expriy date so could also have an event date all the same. Subfolders is another approach that would work, with standard naming. As more people come up with ideas, they'll just become part of the spec. It's still up to Telnic to decide as it's in their control what goes into the DNS as new records. Otherwise all we can do is use Custom Keywords. Hope not to have to. Mark |
Maximka, coupon discovery is all about how a mapping app will find coupons (including offers, specials, events, lost and found, etc) in the DNS. Coupons is just a generic term now for additional information to attract attention. It could be anything a .tel owner wants to get displayed immediately in the results. Mark |
Simon, forgot to mention the other thing about root page edinburgh.tel. Because it is a geo tel for a city it does not have an exact street address and consequently there are several other tels in the exact same location of the city centre. On the map you'll see these tels are buried under the marker. So to ensure your tel icon appears alone, just move it over a bit in your CTH map. Mark |
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Devils advocate Mark, in the event that .tel ever becomes universal, that is everyone and his dog, will there be to much information shown? |
Hi Mark, IDNs? Regards, Roy |
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We can cover that with filters. For example, on initial load I would suggest showing coupons and offers first within 10KM. Then load maybe 20 additional tels. We would have filters by category, so if you want shoe stores or greek restaurants, you pick those. No need to display everything as TelView does now for conceptualization. Generally you have interest in something specific so you pick that category. But merchants want you to know about specials, and that's why those should display by default. And a smart app will remember your settings or past history. Mark[/size] |
Blunderer, please send me to an IDN tel with geo and I'll check it out. Thx Mark |
