With .tel, individuals or businesses can be found wherever they are from one simple-to-remember .tel domain, and the .tel owner can fully control the modes of communication he or she chooses to receive.
At present, there are two broad usage models that effectively package services up from an individual and a business perspective.
For an individual, it's a communications hub, an interactive business card that changes depending on the viewer's relationship with the .tel owner.
And from a business perspective, it's a listing in the first, live mobile-optimized global business directory under their control and accessible from any device connected to the Internet.
Invariably, people and businesses fall into either an early-adopter or late-adopter segment.
Early adopters will have a myriad of communications methods that they will need to manage and share -- think Robert Scoble or Dell.
Late adopters will be small and large businesses and the general population that will have fewer forms of communication that they want to share, but would still like to not miss out on being connected.
So Bob the window cleaner who previously used the Yellow Pages communicating to a local audience can suddenly reach a far broader audience and have a Web presence with a .tel address.
The best part is he can do all of this without incurring the sometimes significant fees associated with designing and maintaining a Web site.
With .tel if Bob drops his cell phone into his bucket of water he can quickly switch his .tel address to point people to another number and not lose any customers.
Similarly, a large company that needs to get an emergency number out quickly to manage a crisis or product recall can use.tel to publish information on the Internet within seconds, complying with best practices in corporate communications and disclosure.
Alternatively, [these companies can] replicate their IVR through the .tel and allow grateful customers to connect to the department they want to quickly without having to wait on the phone for "Press 1 for new customers, press 2 for existing customers," and so on, thereby delivering superior customer service without the feeling of an automated system.
Others, such as operators and handset manufacturers might use the .tel to provide a communications hub and upsell new services, social networks, content and access to data services.
So the model is and will continue to evolve.
How will this domain differ from the other domains?
.tel is the first top-level domain that doesn't allow an owner to host a Web site. It's not about Web content, it's about communications -- all forms of communications.
.tel is the first domain that allows you to publish information to the Web, from any device, without the need for a Web site. .tel information can even be accessed without having to open a Web browser.
Some are referring to this as the "Webless Web," because it requires no ongoing fees for Web hosting, no Web coding, and can be changed at a moment's notice to be updated.
As a .tel address is not a Web site, people accessing the information over mobile devices will get to it as quickly as their Internet connection allows.
Further, the cost of access -- for example, while roaming -- is much smaller because .tel code is more streamlined than when downloading HTML code.
How will .tel be indexed by the search engines?
Search engines already visit the DNS to look up records. In fact, it's already quicker for these engines to read all of the information from the DNS which is formatted in a way that they understand than information residing on a traditional Web site.
As .tel is structured information with labels in each record, it's Googlejuice. And, of course, it can provide another link to drive better discovery and linkage to your existing Web properties.
For more technical information about records in the DNS, our developer Web site, http://dev.telnic.org, has a mass of whitepapers and APIs for people to delve into.
Who would you consider as your primary competitor?
Definitely not other top-level domains!
.tel is a publishing platform, focused on connecting people with other people or businesses. So really, it competes against Web-based directories, limited and fragmented Yellow or White Page solutions, cached and outdated information in search engines and old-fashioned business cards.
While .tel contains elements of a network, it has none of the time-wasting elements of a social network and also provides greater granularity of contact sharing than existing business contact solutions.
The nice part about .tel is that people looking to get in touch with you don't have to join a closed community to access your information -- and yet you as an individual continue to retain 100 percent control over that information and can make it private at any time.
What about dotMobi?
Again, .mobi is about Web content, but content optimized for one format -- mobile devices.
.tel is focused on communications, not content, and it can be accessed in the right format across all browsers and many devices without needing to open a browser.
.tel is the first mobile-optimized contacts directory under the control of the individual listing owner, who has the power to change it at any time.
Furthermore, .tel information can bypass the Web completely and be accessed through applications directly on PCs or mobile devices.
Example applications can be found at http://dev.telnic.org and have been created for the iPhone, the BlackBerry, Microsoft Outlook and Windows Mobile. These are open source and anyone can take them and develop them further.
What is it about .tel that should appeal to marketers, publishers and small business owners?
As .tel information is stored in the DNS, it can be accessed quickly and cheaply. Your brand can jump directly into people's address books and remain there, updated every time you need it to be.
A .tel also supports search engine optimization out of the box, as all of the information is stored as machine-readable, standards-based records with descriptions, so Google can index it and understand it better than a traditional Web site.
Finally, it's low cost and can be refreshed continuously without significant investment in development, ongoing hosting fees or complex and expensive SEO to make sure it remains discoverable.
It's the perfect Internet billboard for bite-sized information. It's great for running competitions quickly, pointing to other sites such as auctions or Web chats.
You can quickly change headlines for breaking news stories. You can use the text records to highlight special offers. And you can monetize it through premium rate numbers, SMS downloads and other cost-per-click solutions.
What are you doing to market the service?
We've been educating enterprises since they will be among the first to be able to purchase a .tel address.
Telnic has been running a marketing campaign over the last few months and will be shortly embarking on a broader publicity campaign that will hit individual consumers and small businesses.
Our channel -- the registrar and reseller community -- has also been reaching out to their customers and early interest is strong.
This should make the business audience sit up and re-examine their investments in this area.
We believe that usage will be generated at the grassroots level and then percolate up.
Companies who invest in a .tel from the start could derive significant and unique benefits.
After all, it's a lot cheaper to retain a customer than to acquire one, so many are saying that getting a .tel is a no-brainer when it comes to smarter business and customer retention.
What's the charm of .tel for mobile marketers?
The .tel is the purest form of advertising and people will go there specifically because they are looking for what is on offer.
The contact information is the advert. It's the opposite of stealth marketing.
The product is the marketing as you are sharing all the ways in which people can interact with you or purchase from you.
It cuts out the middleman but can also be used to direct people to other sites, depending on the .tel owner's desire.
Customers and viewers of the .tel will appreciate it for what it doesn't do -- bombarding the reader with pay-per-click advertisements.
So people can connect in any way they want -- be it by visiting a Web site, picking up the phone or sending an email.
And finally, the .tel platform is optimized for mobile delivery with even less code than a small-screen formatted Web site.
Editor in Chief Mickey Alam Khan covers advertising agencies, associations, research, and column submissions. Reach him at mickey@mobilemarketer.com.
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