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Could .Tel evolve into a Social Networking Platform? It seems to me that people are drawn to community and interaction. They love to leave comments, and especially to respond to comments; they love to express their likes and dislikes; they love to congregate. Interactivity is the key to building buy-in, user-content, user devotion, stickiness, buzz, etc. It also seems to me that the Tel platform is perfectly suited to such interaction... since everyone comes to the table with their own identity and brand that they want to share with the world. Telnic has a captive audience, who wouldn't have joined if they simply wanted to remain isolated. I appreciate that Telnic.org and this forum are an attempt to build Telnic community... but this pales in comparison to what it would be like if the .Tel proxy allowed people to interact with the individual Tels and for individual Tels to be like Facebook pages... Just a few thoughts... and curious what others here and at Telnic think? If Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, and others aren't adopting Tel then perhaps Tel needs to evolve itself into a social networking platform. Would this be against .Tel's contracts as a registry? Why can't Telnic provide additional features such as social networking options for an additional fee... to support its additional hosting and bandwidth requirements? Or how about building a facility in which .Tel owners could advertise on other .Tels, just as website owners advertise on Google Adwords? Why not motivate .Tel owners to develop their .Tel directories to promote other .Tels and get paid for it? I'm not sure what has to come first, the chicken or the egg, but I see lots of potential for Telnic to make oodles of money with this. Something more socially motivating is needed to pull in the masses and go viral with Tel. How come people care more about securing their facebook identity than their .Tel? How come Facebook and others grow so popular and large and rich offering free identities and platforms while .Telnic owners are willing to pay $10 a year, but get less? Maybe it's up to third parties to do this, but .Tel proxy must be involved. At the very least .Tel sites need to be plugged in to the social landscape more seamlessly... with options such as 'share this', or 'Digg this', or 'Like this'... and it would be nice to have the option of including various widgets in the sidebar such as tweets, or comments from other .Tel users. Instead of getting messages from people who know me prompting me to connect via Facebook, I should be getting prompts and giving prompts to connect via Tel. Perhaps there would be a way to interest the developers at Facebook or Twitter to build the software components necessary for integration and offer it to .Tel users as an option, just as Adsense is an option that they can have in their sidebar... Telnic - are you in talks with the big web 2.0 players on this? Is there a .Tel 2.0 out there somewhere in the future? Or am I way off base with this line of visionary thinking? |
Hi Geo, Your enthusiasm is commendable - we all had that once ! But in answer to your question "Could .Tel evolve into a Social Networking Platform? " the answer is an emphatic NO. It won't happen because: 1. That area is already more than adequately covered by Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. 2. The "Data in the DNS" principle wouldn't handle the vast amounts of storage that would be required for text interaction and images. 3. It's not what .tel is all about - which is inputting data to the DNS which is then made available to be read by other software for various purposes. Mike Seaton |
Apart from ... critical mass adoption, the sheep factor and further work completed by outside developers there is very little to stop tel from becoming the building blocks/framework of an open source social/machine readable network that could interweave not only with people and others socially but provide parameters and rules for machines. With reference to the points above 1. And bulitin boards,chat rooms, icq/ lycos yahoo and myspace and bebo were before them. There is always room for improvement and time to knock the current contenders from number 1. 2.the DnS would not have to handle the text or interactions as third party developers could provide them. Ie Facebook has apps and widgets (I think) android phones and iPhones have apps from third parties and even smart tvs are gaining third party apps. 3. Tel is designe to be read by Other software for various purposes. To me this means it would be ideal to use as the closed user controlled individual nodes on a open source social Network. People can only get the data you provide them. Telfirends attempted this to an extent just not very well and without enough explanation or marketing to get it of the ground. |
1. How about more integration with those other social networking platforms, similar to the Adsense box? I don't necessarily see it as competing with Facebook. Nor do I think that Facebook should monopolize all social interactions in the world. I don't use Facebook for that reason alone - that I don't want to be part of the Faceborg. 2. There are two basic sides to every .Tel... there is the DNS side, and then there is the .Tel proxy which provides a face to .Tel visitors. Clearly the Telnic proxy is open to some development and enhancements, as we are now waiting on new features. There is no clear line in the sand as to how far Telnic could take it that I can see - except monetary viability. Is Telnic restricted legally from offering value added features and services through the Telnic proxy? 3. Is that etched in stone? Businesses and services need to evolve and adapt or risk becoming obsolete or irrelevant. The only constant is change. I sense the frustration amongst people on this forum with the pace of change and enhancement. The DNS concept won't change, but the proxy side is open-ended as far as I can see. It comes down to a business vision and plan, doesn't it? With the new tlds coming out, whose to stop them with the logic that this territory is already covered by Telnic... they might see Telnic's stagnation as an opportunity to wrestle that territory away from them. |
On a further note I'm quite disappointed we can't log into this forum with our .tels.. Geo interesting discussion and thought provoking discussion. I think the general purpose of a telnic building the social network is outside its remit with Icann but if another company outside of telnic was willing to take the risk I would sign up. |
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Then if Telnic can't do it then another company with the vision, resources, and savvy is needed to partner with Telnic... Telnic needs to provide the API support. It shouldn't take years to provide different templates... that should be off-loaded then onto a different model, like wordpress, in which the userbase actually does the development and users can enhance their websites with plug-ins and templates. I also don't agree with the concept of a single uniform brand to .Tel websites... each individual and company wants to present themselves and their brand, not the Telnic brand. When I go to a wordpress site, I don't even have to know that it's powered by wordpress - it's good enough that there be a discrete link at the bottom. At this point, I do feel like supporting Telnic because I want to increase the interest in TEL domains, but as far as my own Tel brand is concerned, I want to make it uniquely mine. And I'm willing to take responsibilty as well for any glitches in my template. If people don't want that responsibility then they can stick with certain set of approved templates.[/size] |
Perhaps Telnic needs to partner and work more closely with the Opensource community in this regard? |
The catch 22 as I see it is this: To host your tel domains and inturn your own templates you are required to be an Icann accredited registrar and be able to prove to telnic you have the backend to support the domains with out issues. The prime contenders for this are registrars who can make easier money by backing already proven tlds and upselling regular hosting and certificates which requires less of a risk or development. The only one willing to take the risk so far being telchina due to the semi closed system that chinas internet operates within. Tel definately needs someone other than the regular registrars to move forward. As they will soon have more tlds to push which require less maintenance. |
Maybe I'm not fully understanding .Tel yet, but as far as I know there are 3 distinct parties involved in rendering typical .Tel pages... 1) the registrars who host the DNS records and give access through their own platforms not only to domain management, but also to access the DNS records. 2) Telnic proxy which is what basically determines how our DNS records are packaged and presented to the world. They also do some other stuff such as managing statistics and aspects of privacy and search. 3) Other hosts providing the images to which we link to in our logos and ads. Actually there's a 4) Google which feeds the map and Adsense data. And maybe I'm missing someone else? So, what I'm looking at in this thread is primarily 2) and 3) and the API and proxy rendering architecture, not the 1) DNS... although some changes in 2) might lead to changes in DNS options, but which shouldn't affect the registrars. I'm suggesting for example, treating the template like the logo image. In other words, let the user choose one of the standard templates or choose the 'other' option... in which case a URL must be provided to that template, which doesn't have to be hosted with Telnic. of course this risks slowing down the rendering of any particular .tel, but that isn't a reflection on Telnic, but on the .Tel domain itself, and at the discretion of the owner, as it should be. The template could then evolve to inclusion of other widgets and plug-ins... |
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Yes, if certain new OPERATIONS are added to the TelPagesSOAP API and with few modifications to the current TelFriends system. We have already experimented this. The .tel could be used as a twitter like service to publish news/info etc in a secured environment very efficiently. However, the storage factor (in DNS) will not be an obstacle as records will refresh at pre programed intervals. I have discussed this possibility elsewhere in this forum. In fact, you can do lot more with the tel than it does today. Time will tell. Cheers![/size] |
Khashayar Mahdavi: "Every .tel owner is automatically part of a community and, if they use the free TelFriends service, can begin to connect in more meaningful ways by sharing private contact information or links to content, pictures, music and so on, today. However, the intention is that the owner of a .tel domain has a unique place that they own, with which they can decide how they use it. A .tel domain is inherently about relationships and communication, and making that a smooth transaction; what it isn’t about is hosting rich content, games, music and other content directly – it is a single point of contact to help the .tel owner point to those places where they can if they so wish engage, so that friends can then participate on those platforms. However, we will be building functionality into the .tel to enable status updates to be placed in a .tel perhaps being drawn directly from Twitter or Facebook or another service, which enable some kind of direct communication with others. A .tel isn’t meant to replace any communications channels however, but to be an open platform from which a .tel owner can publish different contact points as new solutions emerge." How would something like a Twitter sidebar fit into this vision? What are some other ways to enhance our .Tel presence and make visiting a .Tel more engaging and inviting for both visitors as well as the .Tel owners? For example, if you're a store owner, being able to list daily or weekly specials, with a little image, or if you're a blogger, a little snippet from your latest blog post with a little image and link... etc. Why not build into the .Tel interface a little message box, allowing visitors to post a comment, ask a question, send an message to the .Tel owner's email, vote in a poll, or give a thumbs up or down, etc.? Help me understand if my thinking outside the box is flawed or has potential. I'm not necessarily talking about replacing channels of communication, but envisioning .Tel becoming a kind of focal point for other communications channels, using for the power of web 2.0 APIs to Twitter, Facebook, Google, Flickr, RSS, etc. So a .Tel user might be able to login in to his .Tel and see all the latest from all the various channels summarized neatly in one place. Wouldn't it be a big boost to .Tel if .Tel users made it a routine to go to their .Tel page first every day? http://i1-scripts.softpedia-static.c...r-widget_2.png |
How about the idea of widgets which can be situated in the sidebar and which would be optional - each .Tel user could choose, like in Wordpress... which widgets to place on the sidebar. Widgets would be required to be mobile friendly on all the major platforms, and appear first as a button or menu item on mobile to be opened at the discretion of the mobile user. What do you guys think of this idea - any merit or potential? http://www.marketinginternetstrategy...es/widgets.jpg |
What I'd like to see is the ability to "Login with your .TEL" alongside login with Twitter, Login with FB. Whereby there is an OpenAuth link secured within Tel that enables a single login for all social networks. Mark |
Something I just started reading about www.just.me Mark |
Just Dot Me is the world's first instant noticeboard service accessible to all mobile phone ... Just Dot Me requires no activation, registration, application download ... http://www.telsis.com/products/just-dot-me.asp Used to post notices to people in your group. Something a tel could be used for except instant notification via SMS. Mark |
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Unless I'm missing something here, using just dot me requires both the poster and the viewer(s) to pay for a text message, and the "dotter" has to demand the information by doing so. I can put gone to the pub on my .tel, and you can read it if you wish, for virtually nothing (unless you've exceeded your mobile download limit). It may be free to start using just dot me but I wonder how the annual cost will work out?[/size] |
One of the uses of Just.me is to post your group of any emergency or change in plans, eg our school bus for the field trip got cancelled. Mark |
In fact tel can do all this messaging in a secured environment. Can make public announcements or to a selected group(s). tel Owners themselves can do this without giving your email address away to another site (just.me in this case), and without depending on any third party tool/app. ... only if/after necessary modifications are carried out to TelFriends system. It is all there in the .tel system, fortunately. But one needs to look at them differently. Cheers! |
