.tel is a .joke

Morgan,

Does that mean that a .TEL domain could be made into a directory?

Using your ‘Hotels.tel’ as an example, if you can get hotels to pay a listing fee that would certainly be a way to monetize the .tel extension.

Not referring to you. Received about four comments on this post all with people advertising either their websites or services.

Thanks again for your comment!

Best,

Morgan

Very true – there may never be monetization potential. In fact – there is really no reason this will *ever* take-off!

That being said – on the 1% or .05% or .005% chance that .tel becomes a replacement for phone numbers I’d like to have a few. I think an small investment is fine – it is these speculations that can sometimes pay-off in the long run.

Even though you might not get your name – think of how much easier it is to remember “stevestu” (short for Steve Stuart) than 555-124-9957. Even if you can only get “stevestuart117″ at least that is something that makes sense and is specific to you. There is nothing personal about a number – and if a number changes – you have to get the new number. With a .tel page all of your contacts get your updated information – and you can specify exactly what to supply to each.

Remember this is just speculation. Like I said – I’m expecting .tel to fail and nobody to ever use it. But if there is just a sliver of a chance that something big could happen – I’d like to be a part of it rather than standing on the sidelines saying “if I only spent $50 to just buy a few names”. So far I’ve put $50 and that’s about all I’m going to be putting-in, for now. Literally a nothing investment, a shot in the dark – but it is these shots in the dark that sometimes hit something truly great.

Thanks again for the comments – I would like to make my blog and open and inviting forum for everyone to share their opinions. I only ask you include no advertisements in your posts as these will be removed.

I don’t think it is a viable alternative for what you and others have described here. It’s such a big what if, and considering only one person can own a name your metaphorical friend better be a domainer or it’s already off the market. He’s out of luck and the thousands with his name are also out of luck. We have smartphones now–blackberrys and iphones–with facebook apps, nontheless, and hopefully your hypothetical business man owns one or he’s a pretty bad businessman, where all he’d have to do is update through facebook and all his friends and contacts would be updated also.

I can see a limited applicability for businesses, but I don’t see monetization possibilities for domainers.

my two cents anyway.

.eu had 1,500,000 or so (i think)

Plus the fact you only really have 1 option, contact info.

which is easily done on another extensions, with better results/options.

cant see many becoming massives sites, can you ?