Dot Tel technology utilizes the Domain Name System of the internet to provide fast, and accurate contact information in the form of directory web sites, individual web sites, and business web sites. In the one year that it has been available, it has been adopted slowly. This article examines possible strategies in the viral video medium for bringing Dot Tel to broader public and business attention.

Dot Tel is useful, but its adoption appears to be slow and this is because it has failed to capture the attention of a broad cross-section of the public and of business entities. A viral video appeals to people sufficiently that they forward it on to other people. Those people in turn forward it to their people and so on until a single video can be seen by literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of people.

There have been some attempts by Dot Tel registrars and owners to create viral videos of Dot Tel technology but these attempts have largely failed to attract attention on YouTube.com, the best place for videos. The promoter of the technology, Telnic of the UK, has produced some video content as well and viewings have reached a few thousand, and in the best case 13,000. It seems that none of the videos released to date have any kind of hook, or reason for people to send the video to other people.

A good example of a successful viral video is the Britain’s Got Talent video of Paul Potts, the now well known tenor. In the video he arrives on stage looking rather motley and by the time he leaves he has the audience in the palms of his hands and he has impressed the judges tremendously. His video was viewed by millions of people on YouTube.com. This type of video appeals emotionally but it is much harder to register emotionally when creating a video for a business.

One attempt at emotional appeal in a business was that of the ice cream company, Haagen Dazs. It developed a campaign about the reasonably well-known disappearance of honey bees. This consisted of humans dressed as bees performing a rap song about the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder. This had an emotional appeal centered around the fact that our food supply depends to a significant degree on bees. People are also naturally inclined to worry about animals (insects) and the environment. The video got some traction on YouTube.com going over one million viewings.

With Dot Tel the situation may be a little more difficult. The only emotional content in the technology concerns the environment. Dot Tel, unlike its competitors – Yellow Pages and White Pages among others – does not require any paper for users to get to its directory information. This hook has not been utilized correctly yet and is a significant advantage. It is one possibility for getting the broader public interested in the technology. This green issue should be employed heavily in bringing Dot Tel further into the public consciousness.

Another example of the possibilities of viral video could involve the construction industry. Dot Tel has a real advantage in projects for making project contacts available immediately, and project wide. A video which could potentially go viral within the building and construction industries would be a ‘before and after’ clip on a construction project.

The before scene could contain builders, sub-contractors, and other project partners fishing around for bits of paper containing contact information about the project. Some of them would find their bits of paper out of date. They could be falling down ladders and queuing to get to the sole computer on their level of the project. The after video would picture a calmer scene with the builders and project partners just reaching for their cellphones and connecting to the project Dot Tel web site. With a couple of button presses they reach the person that they want.

I think this approach could be good for Dot Tel because it shows a genuine and demonstrable value in the technology itself. It does not just leave it up to the viewer to figure out why they need a Dot Tel. People do not want to think too hard when viewing video, but a real point of value will be watched and passed on within a commercial sector.

In summary, there are opportunities to use viral video to improve the penetration of Dot Tel technology into the public consciousness. They should be used as soon as possible to develop this domain technology’s reach quickly.

Bill Rutherfurd is an early Dot Tel adopter. He thinks it is great for providing a cheap web presence with fast access to contact data and information especially on mobile phones. To find information about his Taupo, New Zealand Dot Tel directory please go to http://www.squidoo.com/Taupodottel. His dottel blog can also be found at http://www.dottel.blogspot.com.

Our heads spin. Round and round like those wind-up toys. There is so much information, so much data coming at us day in and day out. And many of us have to provide multiple pieces of our contact information to different people every day.

We have Facebook IDs, Twitter IDs, mobile phone numbers, land line numbers, and personal and business website addresses.

We have physical addresses, multiple email addresses, and business addresses (physical and mailing). We have Skype or Google Talk, MSN, usernames for gaming, and for forums, and blogs. It is endless!

And it is driving people crazy. How can we keep track of all this and not have to give the same pieces of information to different people? At the same time we want to protect some kinds of information.

A way was needed on the internet to unify all these different contact types and bring communications back to a single contact point or hub.

It now exists and it is called the Dot Tel Domain. It is the new top level domain extension which you see as ‘.tel’. A top level domain extension is just that bit at the end of a website address including the period.

Let’s say your name is John Smith. You decide to get a Dot Tel with this name. All your contact information is on this single domain name on the internet.

You have a business or personal card with just that name on it. That is all you need to give to anyone who has an internet enabled device such as a PC or a mobile phone. They access this information through any web browser. When you change personal or business details everyone with your Dot Tel name is automatically updated almost instantaneously. Everyone!

And you can protect any contact information you choose to through a process called ‘friending’. This is outside the scope of this article, but you don’t need to worry about the wrong people getting your contact information. Telnic, the promoter of Dot Tel, launched the domain publicly less than a year ago and now there are around 275,000 registrations worldwide.

And remember, you never need to give anyone you know or meet more than just your Dot Tel address. They will always be able to find you.

For more Free information see the Dot Tel Domains Blog.

To see the technology go to this Squidoo Page and follow the links.

Dot Tel Domains have been available to the public for nearly a full year. On 23rd March, 2010, or earlier, owners of these domains will have to make a decision about whether they renew or drop those domains which were only registered for a single year.

This not an easy decision to make. Firstly, it is hard to find enough information to base a sound decision on. The sales history of Dot Tels has been sparse and hard to find. Sales in the public domain have been made on Bido, Sedo, and a few other sites. But most of the sales, one would believe, have been made privately. This information is only available in drips and drabs on forums, and can not be verified.

Domain forums that have Dot Tel threads include Telnic’s, Telsters, NamePros, and DNForum. Most of the recorded sales are poor evidence because in many cases they are just hearsay. Dnsaleprice, which is an aggregator of sales information, has a list of recorded sales made on sites like Sedo. But their sales list is inaccurate and outdated. Telnic’s forum is now the most popular of the forums by a wide margin.

Registrations since the launch date are a more reliable indicator of the popularity of Dot Tels. Within 72 hours of launching on 24th March, 2009, there were 100 thousand registered domains. According to Telnic, the promoter of the top level extension, there are now 275 thousand domains. This is an increase of 2.75 times. This is a fairly good outcome for the first year.

Telnic had a professionally produced video made of a train station scene in which a hypothetical Dot Tel user named Ben, wins the attention of a girl by using his Dot Tel. This, and copies of it, have attracted over 600 thousand views on You Tube alone. There is definitely growing product awareness.

The potential for Dot Tel to lose ground to a social network that might produce personal web sites for their members exists. But Telnic’s technology is targeted to just contact information and some text. If using it, you can go straight to the contact information without having to crawl around any high content web site pages. This is a solid advantage, and a clear niche for the extension.

Recently, Telnic advised owners of Dot Tel domain changes. These included changes to the web page displays and the addition of Google AdSense to to them. This can only be positive for the web sites, for users, and for owners wanting to make money from them.

The facts surrounding Dot Tels now indicate that owners should lean more towards renewing rather than dropping their domains. This top level domain extension has not yet had time, given the low marketing budget and short period since launch, to penetrate into the marketplace in a big way. There is currently quite a lot of development activity in the extension with the addition of valuable domain management tools. And there is also a growing commercial interest. These things could lift the domains’ popularity significantly within the next registration year.

Bill Rutherfurd is an early Dot Tel adopter. It has fast access to contact data and information especially on mobile phones. It is also one of the cheapest ways for a business or individual to get a web presence. To see his Taupo, New Zealand directory please go to http://www.squidoo.com/Taupodottel and follow the links. He also has a dot tel blog at http://www.dottel.blogspot.com where anyone can request a free copy of his new ebook called Decision 2010, Renew or Drop.

The new Dot Tel Domain display is a significant change for this top level extension. The new display will be released in March, 2010. I am somewhat positive about the new display design. However, it seems to have drawn its inspiration from Tax Department forms; especially those of New Zealand, a country South-East of Australia.

Telnic is the promoter of Dot Tel. Their timing with the new design is excellent. It was no doubt planned for the month before the domain’s first year renewals which are due on 24th March, 2010. The display changes are dramatic, and welcomed. They are the shot in the arm that this internet top level domain extension needed. I mean, who got any pleasure out of showing anyone their Dot Tel with the current display?

Colour customisation will be offered through a series of templates. I do not know the details yet of those templates. The components of the design appear to be square, whereas the old design was curved. I liked the shape of the previous design. It was the drab colour scheme that was the problem. I am ambivalent on colour customisation because I do not know if it will detract from the Dot Tel brand. I favour just one template with a fantastic design to keep the brand strong and recognisable.

Strong and colourful borders are better. Although colours increase the data amount per page, data costs are falling. Perhaps in time, as data costs drop the display will evolve into something that people really love to see.

The Tel logo will be moved to the bottom of the page. This is a shame because it completed the text header for the current web site page. The current design also put the logo right in the user’s face when they pulled up the page. It now has a semi-tube or lens-like design. I preferred the previous Tel logo for its simplicity and I think that the change was not required. It will also affect brand recognition as it will sit below the fold of the page on many computers and mobile phones. Perhaps, the logo position will be adjustable.

The VCard is now at the top right of the page. This an improvement because it makes this important feature more accessible, or noticeable than when it was at the bottom right of the page.

Custom icons have been allowed for popular web sites such as LinkedIn, and Facebook. This is an improvement because well known and colourful symbols can now be placed on a Dot Tel page making the page more exciting. The previous display lacked this excitement factor.

The placing of well-known icons on the page improves the perceived quality of that page because they are some of the best known symbols in the world. They give a web page status whether that status is deserved or not. This is a major improvement which adds value to all Dot Tel Domains. There are also new contact type icons.

One thing missing from the new display is the breadcrumb trail that is on the current display. Studies of usability indicate that the breadcrumb is an indispensable part of a web page. I hope this is an error because it is a significant mistake to remove it. It could be at the very top left of the page on the same line as the new management tools. I hope they do not leave it out!

There are two new features which are critical. One is absolutely necessary and that is a way to search the current Dot Tel or all Dot Tels. Top marks here! The other addition is the top-of-the-page management and login functions. If I am not mistaken, this means that the previously roundabout route to managing a domain is gone. Excellent stuff and in the correct position, as is the search box.

Telnic are also introducing Google AdSense on Dot Tels which will be greatly appreciated by owners. It will provide another income stream for Dot Tel owners, and add credibility to the domain extension. Hopefully, it will not involve any third party applications. This is another step in the right direction.

Telnic at long last have done some things right. There are still things to improve. After being available to the public for nearly a year, there are at last grounds for cautious optimism about the future of Dot Tel.

Bill Rutherfurd is an early Dot Tel adopter. He likes the fast access to contact data and information especially on mobile phones. It is also a very cheap web presence. To visit his Lake Taupo Region of New Zealand Dot Tel directory please use the link at http://www.squidoo.com/Taupodottel. He also has a dottel blog at http://www.dottel.blogspot.com.