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Improving the navigation through .tel domains Obsolescent |
Agreed. All that. Build your own app. Simplest way is to create an interface wrapper and have the .tel data load into a webview space. That way you get instant navigation satisfaction allowing you to jump to subdomains many levels deep. Well, that's one way. Pm for a chat |
Hi Boracay, Hope you are well. By the way, it is a great island. I have been there on holiday and it is great. Back to biz, i am building also directory for a city and wanted to know your opinion...tips, hints etc..I see you mentioned to build an apps but what is the point of .tel is supposed to offer you the convenience of all in one place. Do you have a team of developer? or are you one yourself? thanks! |
Yes, 3 of us working full time now on Boracay.tel as we gear up for an off-season soft launch. The primary reason we decided to build a custom directory app, is due to the length of time and uncertainty it takes to see obvious changes re on/off options implemented in the underlying .tel logic Directories are not simple .tel cards. .tel directories need a very well thought out structure. And a whole lot more flexibility... We will see what's around the corner I guess with beta cth, but at this stage we are headed full steam into our own app wrapper, dodging as best as possible the limitations of the .tel system, while all the time knowing that a website and mobile website is the stripped down base accessible to all. Boracay is changing almost daily. It's an amazing place to be a part of. Perfect for a digital directory that only digital could keep pace with. |
App looks good as does your .tel logo. BTW you have a typo in your Administration folder see below, See Cocmangas Beach Resort. Example: search in google for "Cocomangas tel" this will give a page 1, position 1 result for the well known, 20 years established resort "Boracay Cocmangas Beach Resort". |
Please respect and focus on the essence of the thread because this is the only place of source through you can directly involve the founder of the Telnic….. |
On my mobile phone all the site's except .tel absorb in terms of speed and legibility. |
there's already a seperate smartphone proxy telnic manage and develop. as smart phone use grows and becomes the norm, I'm sure they will switch more time and investment into development of this proxy. |
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Jens, I apologise for moving off topic.... What you want as standard has not happened, and likely will not happen. Many past threads here show we can't even get simple things to be turned on or off (and at this stage 2 years+ down the track, it's no longer an option to wait and hope) So, building an app with interface buttons to jump directly to the .tel data has given Boracay.tel faster navigation results for users. The trade-off we will just have to live with (ie that there is an even poorer website experience in terms of some extra drill-down clicks to get to a single .tel card) Good luck with your own decisions. We are very happy with our app. It's a 1-click tool.[/size] |
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I would like to thank Jens and the other participations for their ideas; this kind of brainstorming is certainly interesting. I’ll address the initial 6 suggested made by Jens in this thread; if I’ve missed anything, let me know. Quote:
Please remember that there’s a maximum of 100 entries per page/sub-domain, so your welcome page will never be 100 screens long. And making some sections or items within a page larger in size will not solve the problem of a page that has too much data. Quote: [/size]
I assume we are talking about the web display only here, leaving smartphone and feature phone displays as they are since this solution will not work on a mobile phone. There are a number of potential issues with the suggested behaviour including pre-loading all the data from a hundred linked sub-domains, handling links to other .tel domains, script errors across browsers, etc. The benefit would be that visitors don’t have to see a different page, even if it’s within the same resource. However, clicking links on the internet is standard behaviour, people do it all the time so it’s difficult to argue for going against the standard practice. You can also use the built-in search to locate any specific information you need within this .tel skipping the navigation. Quote: [/size]
Auto-redirection based on geo-location is a widely disputed trend on the internet, and can cause a lot of grief for visitors, especially on mobile devices with limited interface options; for example, the fact that I’m currently in the UK doesn’t always mean that I want to find out about the UK; I may be doing research for my visit to France. And if I’m in France, I want content in English, not in French. Quote: [/size]
You’ve listed a number of features that are discussed in this or other threads, so I’ll focus on the shortcut icons which I assume would be links to specific sub-domains or other content that is of greater importance. There are two solutions to this: placing the most important content at the top and labelling it as such; and linking to deeper-level sub-domains at the top. If your primary focus in UK within a global directory, don’t force visitors to click through to Europe, link to uk.europe.countries.main.tel from your welcome page. You can also use the advertising space at the top and on the right to highlight specific content that you wish to promote. Quote: [/size]
I don’t see a problem with sub-domains. A hotel directory would do well to have a separate sub-domain for every hotel with the hotel’s contact information, location, keywords, and logo displayed. This way, information for the hotel is self-contained, will have a direct address that they can promote on the web and share with clients, and can potentially control themselves using tools like TelCP rather than relying on the ever-busy administrator to update their details. A sub-domain also offers more monetization options with AdSense and affiliate links, better SEO, etc.[/size] |
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That’s an interesting point, can you please provide specific data on data load times. Do .tel domains load longer than sub-domains? Are those domains comparable in data sizes? An example with details on connection, location of visitor and sub-domain in question would help us investigate and hopefully improve the situation.[/size] |
Jens, Thanks for a prompt reply and detailed comments. Re point 6, can we contact you on email directly with regards to loading times? Something like a trace log would help us understand what's causing the delay. Customer service should have more details. On other points, many of them make sense. Specifically on point 4, I personally don't think it's worth creating functions that, as you correctly indicate, are already in every browser, like zooming and going back/forward. These are browser features that people customarily use, and .tel should not be over-cluttered with this standard stuff. Linking to "home" is your breadcrumb trail while links to keyword or a-z categories are created by the directory owner using sub-domains, no functionality changes needed. The "direct call" is an interesting one, and we have this on our roadmap for later this year. Location will be tackled by some of the templates so that it's higher up the page. In summary, many of these additional navigational options can be included today using sub-domains. Your general idea of looking at alternative ways of displaying data from sub-domains, be it a preview button, an embedded frame or a shortcut link, is interesting and certainly something to take a look at once our table is clean from all the other features already in development. |
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Hi Nadya, these comments you make are very relevant in regards to the working interface wrapper we have been readying for Boracay.tel. Could you be a little more specific, or possibly show a glimpse of the new "location" positioning being higher up the page? Does this positioning change also apply to the mobile proxy template? thanks[/size] |
Boracay, to answer your specific question, no, the new templates will not apply to the smartphone or mobile versions that will preserve the current flow. |
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Ok thanks Nadya[/size] |
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Jens, its great to hear your enthusiasm. I think we need to be realistic though, and these things you want to see are not going to happen anytime soon. Telnic has answered many times on this front. its a .tel contact card, not a website, so small icons etc and flexibility is just not happening. ...and that does not make it easy to build an intuitive, fast 1-click style directory. with regards to displaying telephone numbers only... 1. I can tell you that from the moment we started out, that was our priority, to provide a list of speed dial phone numbers at 1-click away. that doesnt make you money(who knows), but it does provide a resource and if its kept uptodate, will get used, then trusted, then dominate etc etc. marketing opportunities thereafter. 2. as a user selectable alternative choice, we are providing a grouped map locations "list" (via the webmasters mapping tool). if done very carefully (a lot of thought and design must go into this) then the next 1-click away gets you full details of each listing 3. and then lastly, we also provide "detailed" individual listings as the last choice (less important maybe?) Who's to say. And thats why the directory proposition of a .tel domain needs a thorough examination. one things for sure, the flexibility is just not an option being offerred with the current .tel toolset, but again who knows. It would be fantastic to have a list of resorts with little icons next to each listed result, but its just not in the cards (.tel cards) and thats the thing. .tel is simply not flexible enough for the directory vision you have. gotta run with whats there. cheers ps If telnic was able to "cookie" a users preference as to what information was most important, then 1, 2, or 3 could default as the directories method of display. thats why I went the route of building an App. the user sets the display method.[/size] |
