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TelFriends - Dummy Username/Password During our campaign to promote the tel to community clubs and SMB's, some suggested the need for a secondary Username(s)/Password(s) for group(s) that can be created from an existing TelFriends account. With this secondary Username/Password, the owner of a .tel Domain can allow a group or groups of Viewers ONLY TO "View private data" for a limited period decided by the .tel Domain Owner. The users of this secondary Username/Password shall not have the option to Sign in to the TelFriends account. It's just a Dummy Username/Password only. Telnic, can you please tell us if this can be done in the near future? If possible can you give us an approximate time frame please? Thank you. |
TelCP, can you provide any further details as to why you think this is required please? At the moment, a TelFriends account is separated from a .tel, so that an individual can become "friends" with as many different .tels as they wish with just a single login. A .tel owner can group "Friends" together, so that certain groups can only see certain private information. They can also revoke that access at any time. Under the proposal you have here an end user would end up with a different set of friend credentials for every .tel, making the process more complex for them? |
@Aled, Thanks for the reply. The proposal for a secondary "dummy credentials" at TelFriends.tel. is based on the following: 1) We found it is difficult to explain the process of "TelFriends.tel" and creating accounts to "View private data". Here, I am talking about direct prospective purchasers of .tel domain(s) who have shown some interest in the .tel because it offers "private data". They want to create small .tel directories for SMB's and Community Clubs (say upto about 50-100 membership). They want to post private data(NAPTR/note) viewable for a "short period" and send a common username/password to the membership (or to a selected audience), then delete the posted "private data" and the secondary (which is temporary in this case) username/password at the end of the said "short period". These prospective .tel owners do not want to go to the extent of explaining (requesting others to do so) the process of "TelFriends.tel". All they want to do is to post different message(s) (NAPTR/note), then create a different common username/password send to their membership (or audience). 2) When we collected this information, we thought for us to have a common username/password to allow "View private data" to prospective .tel domain purchasers. When we explain to them that they can "View private data" only after creating an account at "TelFriends.tel", some said "too much of a hassel" to do all that. So, they lost interest in the .tel altogether. 3) Well, personally I think this method could become something similar to Twitter within the .tel Regards. |
Thanks for clarifying. What kind of data are they thinking about in your point 1, do you know? I ask because currently, most usage of private data as far as I am aware is either: - .tel owners making their own data private and not allowing anyone access to it other than themselves so that they can get to it while on the move - .tel owners wishing to share phone numbers and links with colleagues/customers and friends Most businesses, however, do not have the need to have private data and are happy to share contact information to prospective customers. As such I'd also be interested to know more about the people you were talking to in point 2. Did they understand that they didn't have to make anything private? On the other side, if they did make content private, surely they could also understand that there has to be some kind of mechanism for them to control who can see that private data? I'm trying to understand your requirements fully here as what you are asking for is not just a tweak to TelFriends, but rather a quite different process for sharing private data. Any such change would be a significant development and as such we'd need to understand what the demand is for it is (it's not something we've ever been asked for previously).. |
@Aled, Well, I was talking to SMB.s and small social clubs to promote .tel domain + TELcp. Unfortunately, I can not disclose our clients. However FYI, they are multinational establishments having small branches scattered all over the world and having head offices in N.America/Europe/Asia. The kind of "private data" here means certain information by means of NAPTR/note intended for a small group of people Viewable for a day or two( or longer). One such .tel owner (in fact a leading establishment from Europe having a .tel domain without any content) did not want to decorate the landing page (root page) of the .tel with lot of messages etc. Their idea (also with some suggestions from me during explanation) is to provide lot of information by means of NAPTR/note but "Viewable" only for selected/targeted audiences who would use the dummy username/password given to them by the tel owner (on a short term or long term basis, decided by the .tel Owner). This .tel owner does not want to create too many sub folders and post messages on them. They would use TELcp and appoint a staff member to update messages (on the page) from a smart phone. Another prospective .tel owner, multinational, interested in buying .tel domains for each branch needs similar facility to "View private data" for staff only and Public data viewable for their customers. The .tel owner thinks it's "too much of a hassel" to explain, to the multinational staff, the process of creating "TelFriends.tel". Further he said that if someone forgets the common username/password its easier to call one of the colleagues and get it instead of going to "TelFriends.tel" and going through reset password procedure. Then I asked, what happens if the password gets leaked out to others, other than the intended staff. He said then its just a matter of changing the username/password and informing the staff. Most of these prospective .tel Owners are not interested in having a tel domain for themselves but to see how their audience (end users) would want to use it. Well, as you said it is not going to be just a tweak to the existing "TelFriends.tel". A bit of re-programing is involved there. The .tel needs to be catering to the end user (who will be using the .tel more than a .tel Owner), not only to the requirement of the tel Owners. If there are more satisfied .tel Users, some of them eventually become .tel Owners one day. I strongly believe that the popularity of the .tel domain (and its technology) depends on the number of .tel Users (end users or viewers or whatever we call them) not on the number of registered .tel domains or .tel owners. We need to create a large audience for the .tel domain. Regards |
Thanks for the additional info. Is there any reason why the business owner doesn't just set up a single TelFriends account themselves (or multiple ones for different levels of access), and share those credentials among their staff? |
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At the beginning of the thread I mentioned the reason for thre proposal for the dummy credentials. QUOTE: The users of this secondary Username/Password shall not have the option to Sign in to the TelFriends account. UNQUOTE: If a .tel owner shares a usual credentials at "TelFriends.tel" with other staff, there is always a risk of his/her own staff or anyone else who comes to know the credentials log in to the account (at TelFriends.tel) and do any changes. A secondary (dummy) credentials will allow his/her staff (or anyone else) ONLY to "View public data" in the .tel domain.. It has NO privilege to sign in to the account at "TelFriends.tel" though. So, there is no risk of anyone changing the account details and of course the password itself. Regards.[/size] |
Telnic, We would like to know your response to our request to create dummy credentials. It is going to be very useful for niche directory builders and SMB's. We are awaiting a positive response from you regarding this innovative approach. Regards. |
TelCP, We've added this to the suggestions list. This feature is not being considered at this time, but we'll review it again in 2012. Thanks, Aled |
