DomainTools Blog

ICANN just announced today that .TEL is live. Congratulations Telnic! On the official website http://www.nic.tel/ they state that they will be announcing plans in the next few weeks to start selling .Tel through your local registrar. With all the hype around .Mobi I predict a slow down in pricing around .Mobi. It seems that .Tel is a more intuitive name than .Mobi so MTLD has a big problem on its hands. Dot Tel sounds like it could be used on any telephone while .mobi is offically only for whaling. Oops, I mean is only for the Sopranos. Oops, I mean is for mobile devices.

Dot Mobi has announced support by some large industry leaders but it has the worst name. In the long run the better name should win. I think the smart money will be on .Tel domains. If you do a grandmother test and ask her to combine a domain name with telephone number I think her first answer will be 1-800-example. Looks like it will take some advertising dollars to get both brands in people’s minds.

We are all conditioned to think 1-800 right now. But numbers don’t pull up websites. In the future as I listen to TV and radio I see can see one brand sticking out. People will remember Tel over Mobi when it comes to TV and Radio spots. Dot Tel is three characters like .Com and Dot Tel is a powerful brand name.

If you had to buy flowers right now, what would you do?

• A) Open the Yellow Pages and look up Flowers.
• B) Go to Google and type in “Flowers MyCity“.
• C) Call 1-800-Flowers.
• D) Type in Flowers.mobi.
• E) Type in Flowers.Tel.