Considerations on .tel after a heavy supper and little hours of sleep

Telnic has created .tel for providing a single name space for Internet communications services, directly in the Domain Name System, without the need to build, host or manage a traditional web service [Wikipedia]... Simple, fast and without frills.

But .tel didn't have the success hoped for. Come to a maximum of around 350000 registrations, the number of domains registered began to decrease. People seem not to affect anything about DNS and co.

Telnic noted the success of sites like flavors.me, about.com, jolicloud.com, DooID.me, that offer a free single page where to enter bio and contact details.

Telnic decided to copy the idea by offering something different from its templates and therefore created Telnames, that in a single template with a single page, offers the possibility to add a custom background, some pictures, and video...

But Telnames does not take off. Layout too fixed, images too small and low-res, ditto for videos, costly, sales only in UK. The layout of Telnames is a .tel page that wants to looks like a page of a web site. Probably people prefer the free services or pay for a real and full website.

With only 2300 registered domains and an average of 20 new daily subscriptions in the last 30 days, Telnames seems to have failed.

Perhaps it would be better if Telnic would decide to deal better all the other retailers (that sold 350000 domains and are still selling), and other users, providing the option of the Telnames template for all. Or, better, a template like Telnames with subdomains.

However, the .tel will remain a niche product for fans. I say this with regret.

Because Internet does not forgive. If after four years you did not made a bang, you'll not; and remember the arrival of 1000/2000 new domains next year.

Ok, have your say or pass me an after-dinner drink.

Telnames should realize they can't attract enough customers with their current strategy. They have a great product, but it's not great enough to fight against so many competitors in so many sectors (TLDs, website providers, registrars, phone services, social networks, search engines, virtual business cards, yellow pages and so on). Even companies which are much bigger struggle a lot (MySpace, Yahoo, Nokia). If Telnames want to succeed, they need to think bigger. There are only three possibilities for them to gain interest (partnerships with market leaders, tremendous marketing and offering free services) or better a combination out of all three. But if Telnames continues like now, they will sell only a few thousands domains yearly while old customers will just give up and drop much more than the new registrations can ever be in this situation. But why I'm writing this? This has been repeated by so many already so often!

Spocky wrote:They have a great product, but it's not great enough to fight against so many competitors in so many sectors

Wrong!
They have an even better product!
But nobody, REALLY NOBODY knows about it, beside themselves and a few forum members.
As Mike has pointed out so many times Telnic want to gain critical mass before they start penetrating the business .tel was invented for.
That is the integration in phone applications, not offering mobile hosting.
But how is this possible without offering any services from their own vision?
As long they don't accept any advice, this is a hopeless case!

3 great posts above - detailing the nightmare situation .tel currently faces !

Will Telnic/Telnames make the changes we all know are necessary for .tel to succeed ?

Even if they did this tomorrow, would it be "Too Little, Too Late" ?

Does it make business sense to pour more time and money into the .tel project ?

So many questions - I guess many of us know the real answer - but are perhaps reluctant to face up to it and admit we made a mistake regarding .tel's expected success ?

I'm as guilty as most !

http://MikeSeaton.tel

mikeseaton wrote:
So many questions - I guess many of us know the real answer - but are perhaps reluctant to face up to it and admit we made a mistake regarding .tel's expected success ?

Don't you believe in this anymore?
http://www.teltalk.org/t150-my-tel-predictions-for-2012-2013
Nothing has changed during the last 4 months.

mikeseaton wrote:

TelFan wrote:Nothing has changed during the last 4 months.

That's precisely the problem - the internet doesn't stand still - even if .tel does !

http://MikeSeaton.tel

Unbelievable no update at Telnames has happened since launch!
Only the background view has been added.

you all must have known this was going to be a long road when you saw what telnic launched?

TelKing wrote:

mikeseaton wrote:

TelFan wrote:Nothing has changed during the last 4 months.

That's precisely the problem - the internet doesn't stand still - even if .tel does !

http://MikeSeaton.tel

Unbelievable no update at Telnames has happened since launch!
Only the background view has been added.

I wish they'd add the money features, so I can invest a few pounds here and there etc in businesses or users that use dot tel.

That would be an ideal situation for small business to be able to tap into a pot of dot tel capital that's not banker restricted, after all the issue is that banks wont lend where as we have plenty of people who would throw a business a bone from time to time for a small return and a chance to score big on it from time to time.

Markets and shares are all gambling but legal and addictive so should dot tel not also be for joe public or joe plumber who want's to invest? what hes hard earned in another dot tel enabled business without going though banks and other scalpers who try to cream off the top so that small business has another avenue to maintain itself in the current climate.

Micro loans used to be a big thing at least for developing countries for small business owners who wanted to farm etc, but there was some complaint that not enough was going to the people who need it, bureaucracy etc though dot tel could side step all that.

So I would like the ability to have a wallet on my dot tel, this wallet I can deposit cash like paypal holds different currencies in preparation for a payment action to occur.

I would then like to be able to nominate amounts of these virtual credits (virtual because that transcends legalities, call it fictional/game currency but with a real cash out value like second life has and it's more legal and don't require certain legal things to admin) to other dot tel users who can dip into the credit pot should they need to but are required to pay it back plus a little extra or a lot extra depending on if I put say 1000 in his pot but require a 20% return or 10% etc via what ever I set my "pot" rate as.

So say I hold 2000 credits (£20) and I nominate 1000 creds to go to teltalk, he then can see he has the ability to borrow that when ever he needs it to maintain his site, but he must pay back 1100 creds etc to me via his virtual pot or lose his dot tel and his reputation.

I would see a tier structure with only small amounts allowed at first tied to a reputation ranking, when and if they dip into that pot from time to time and pay it back their reputation meter goes up and allows greater amounts of credits to be borrowed vs going down if they fail to repay on time or repay at all and become restricted to borrowing any more until the previous is paid off.

They also need to add donations (none borrow pots) and the donation meter as talked about years ago so small organizations can collect donations through dot tel.

After all if dot tel is about supporting small business then they need to add currency features and develop a trading market so small business can trade wares and collect currency from other members who need such services.

So if telnames don't do it at least someone else could as all you need is a dot tel login website with the ability to list your products and wears offered to other members who need such supplies.

The dot tel trading supply terminal/virtual warehouse much like the pioneers of the wild west required supply stores to continue their journey.

I play tf2 look where I get items from: http://www.tf2wh.com/ when I need to find things, credits for "stock" you might import wool as a small start up and want to sell that onto someone who has a dot tel and sells pillows or makes jackets etc, facilitating small business is not just about making phone calls or emails you need to be able to list stock or what you sell/trade.