If you only had one domain name, why it should be a .TEL

Sure, sure, I get why you wouldn’t have a website — I’m in small business myself.  But if you (or your neighbours’ 15yr old) has the savvy to set up a wordpress account or a hotmail account or a facebook page, etc, then you can have a website + email on your own domain.  And NO, it’s not going to cost you an arm and a butt cheek.

I bought my very own .TEL a few months back.  My intent was to get a .MOBI – the reasoning being that I don’t really want to “mobilfy” my existing website.  My personal website is pretty, well laid out and *BIG* (heh, my webpage is bigger than your webpage).  Despite it being friggin awesome, it’s not too happy on a mobile device.

When doing the research, I found there are a number of restrictions on the .MOBI domain, which, if I’m not mistaken is probably the most restrictive of the TLD (top-level-domains).  But when I stumbled on the dotTEL TLD and found out how you don’t need a web-host at all and it’s mobile friendly out of the box, well, lets just say that I *nearly* shat my pants.

Wait, wait — hold on.  The domain name you buy with a .TEL extension requires no hosting?  Yes. What’s more, is that it’s easy to set up, they have a wack of features and are constantly updating their service.

But what is it?  I don’t understand.

It’s like an online business card.  Instead of handing someone a business card with all your info, send them to this page where they can view and interact with all your contact info.  Store your phone number, fax number, facebook account, twitter information, ANYTHING!  Somebody visits http://yourname.tel in their browser (PC/Mac/Phone/iPad/XBox/Wii) and they have all the details they need to hook up for a beer (business meeting or otherwise).  I have a QR code on my business card so if I meet you, you scan it with your phone and a few swipes of the finger later, you’ve got all my details stored in your phone.

To the meat:  Why a .TEL domain?

• Low cost; $20/yr total.  That’s less than $0.08 a day.  Trust me, I used a calculator
• Easy; my grandmother could do it — no, really, that spry old bag has a .TEL domain
• Mobile; view or manage the site from a phone
• Expandable; use the same single domain for all your family members, or employees
• Sharable; links with social sites, creating a central “contact point” for you or your business
• Untapped; there are sooooo many .TEL domains still left, don’t miss out on your perfect vanity domain name!
• Monetize; use your Google Adsense account to display ads and make money
• Fast; get a professional looking website set up quickly and forget about it
• Convenient; a potential contact can download your details directly into their phone
• Customizable; change various settings to make it work the way you want, even add GMail for Domains to it!
• Safe; spam free, if you want it to be.  You can choose to list in the .TEL directory, display all your information publicly or even hide certain information from public view unless the person requests to be a “friend of yours“

A case-study:

So, let us say your last name is Babbaganoosh.  You have a big family run business, a butcher shop.  You’ve been quoted $1,500 to have a vanity website and email address with some pictures of your shop and a customer order + contact page, etc.  It’s just not in the budget in this economy.

So, cousin Vic says “I’ll bet you a porter-house I can make a website for the shop in 20min” – you take the bet, of course, because you want to see this joker sweat.

You set the timer and Vic pulls out his iPhone (of all things) to go to UseYour.Name and orders babbaganoosh.tel – after watching him fumble with his sausage-like fingers, you let him use the office PC and watch intently over his shoulder.

Some activation emails arrive and he confirms them and logs into the “control panel”.  He creates pages for “butchershop.babbaganoosh.tel” and “pappa.babbaganoosh.tel”, “mamma.babbaganoosh.tel” and “cousinvic.babbaganoosh.tel”

He fills in the info for the “butchershop” page and finishes with 4min to spare.  “I want it cooked properly too.” he says at you, your mouth ajar. How did your Aunt Bella’s idiot son pull this off?!  WTF?  He put a little blurb at the top, picked a different template and even put a Google map of the store’s location on there.

Sold!  Now what?

Good question.  Start by getting your own vanity domain name.  I’ll be posting all sorts of how-tos, videos and whatnot, so keep in touch (facebook, twitter, RSS, comment here, whatever).  My customers love me, you will too.  😉