The new way to communicate

The new way to communicate

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Who opens the Open Web...?

I definitely agree that the next stage of community is the open web as Steve Rubel highlights. But I'm much more a believer that the individual will be in control of the information that is shared rather than an aggregator such as Google or other entity and that technologies - such as .tel which provide the individual with a neutral hub in which to manage all of their interactions and subscriptions - along with APIs that enable communications to be run impartially across all service provides, will become the way in which people wish to share or withhold opinion, data and interaction.

Notes from a large continent...

So by now you'll have probably gathered that I'm out in the US having been speaking at a certain conference for six minutes (well, 5 minutes and a little extra, but who's counting?)

How photographers continuously manage to shoot my best side I will never know - I guess I'm just blessed that way.

However, having managed to avoid breaking both the still and TV cameras, it's been a very successful time indeed. We're off to a great start. Now the hard work begins.

Time marches on...

It's been a while since I talked about life in Percy Street and the development of launch plans for .tel. There's a good reason for that - we've been busy!

The momentum on registrars signing up to the agreements is really positive. We've got the number one registrar in a significant number of territories already and we're still relatively
in stealth mode and definitely well away from Sunrise period. This is a fantastic position and we're very pleased to be here.

We're now just about to emerge in September with a concerted communications campaign. I've been chatting to bloggers and commentators behind the scenes and in front of them, and there's a growing understanding of the fact that the .tel is a significantly different use of the domain name system and the DNS than anything that's gone before. As too are the registrars we're meeting with, who we're helping understand the USP of the .tel to different types of individuals and organisations.

But the really exciting piece is that we've been invited to DEMOfall to present alongside 71 different companies who are launching new products. We'll be announcing something at the event, but obviously people won't be able to apply for a .tel address until December 3rd (if they're trademark holders) and February 3rd (if they're not). But the point is is that we've been evaluated by a critical body with a leadership position in attracting sources of investment and have been invited into an impressive alumni who have all had a great impact on the adoption and use of technology over the past 19 years. So hopefully the question about why we're different from every other top level domain will be firmly placed in people's minds as they listen and watch the six-minute demo that Henri Asseily, our Chief Strategist, is putting together, either on the day or after on the DEMO website.

Pinky and the Brain...

"Same thing we do every morning, Pinky - try to take over the world..."

My Wordle

One month on...

So in all of this glorious Summer weather, things are definitely hotting up in 37 Percy Street, headquarters of the next big thing to hit the internet!

We've been signing up registrars like there's no tomorrow - we've had over 100 registrars signing up on our website in preparation for signing the agreements to sell the .tel and a very good proportion of those who have signed agreements already. We've got one of those big world maps (with the countries out of proportion!) where we're sticking pins to see how the sign-ups are going, and it's looking pleasingly busy already.

We've been fielding calls from excited VOIP companies eager to integrate their offerings with the .tel so that they can extend their reach through a perfect delivery platform that hides the complexity of using new services.

We briefed an analyst a couple of days ago who said that the .tel was 'game-changing'. I can't tell you who it was as there'll be an announcement in about a week's time which will give the 'game' away, as we've been offered a very exciting opportunity in a couple of months time to really widen our awareness.

We've been busy writing marketing materials for IP lawyers and brand protection specialists from Croatia through to Japan who've been in touch with us asking for proactive materials.

And we're just starting to plan another event to coincide with ICANN in Egypt in November - it's going to be as special as dinner in the Eiffel Tower and I've just seen the pictures of what it's going to look like; amazing.

We're not doing badly on unique visitors to the website either - www.telnic.org - given the fact that we're not in consumer awareness and education as yet, so this is a really positive thing.

It's still hard to get people to understand that the .tel bypasses the need for designing websites as it's using the DNS to store contact information (including website URLs) and publish it to any device, either to a proxy page which is tiny or, if you're using our clients, straight to the device. There's no easy way around this except to show them, but as soon as that happens, there's a very positive reaction.

Given the noise around new gTLDs and the .me, it looks like we're launching at the right time for mass interest. It's going to be an interesting nine months...

The final countdown

Well, as you can see on the right-hand side of this blog, the countdown has begun...