CLICK HERE TO WATCH THIS VIDEO

It shows the utility of having all your contact data in one place and apparently the added benefit of using it to pick up your local health practitioner.

My line is always – “dot tel – it’s useful, not sexy” – maybe I’m going to have to change that to “it’s useful and sexy”.

From Discovery Education's Clip Art Gallery. Mark A. Hicks, illustrator.

Once again, I can’t believe these have not been taken:

Rainy.tel
Puddle.tel
Brolly.tel
Scattered.tel
Isolated.tel
Rainfall.tel
CatsAndDogs.tel
Pouring.tel
Teeming.tel
Precipitation.tel
Downppour.tel
Drizzle.tel
Lashing.tel
Torrential.tel
Deluge.tel

Hop to it and register one of these before the monsoons hit!

According to One Vancouver  the community portal for .TEL in Vancouver, BC activity levels around .TEL have increased dramatically over the past few weeks. One Vancouver seeks to create a focal point for different parties interested in .TEL. Partners currently involved include mobility stores, a business network, search engine specialist and even an national coffee chain.

The group’s activity is centred on getting the word out to people in the local community – raising awareness about .tel and what it means to local business. There are speaking engagements, exhibits, broad based advertising including billboards, television and radio, organised meet ups and highly targeted advertising based at specific industries in the area.

By joining forces, the One Vancouver partners have managed to reach a large local audience and get people talking about .TEL. The group have a number of programs already underway and a long list of activities planned for the coming months to keep the dialogue continuing within the local business community.

Read the full article at One Vancouver.

Farce
Interlude
Playbill
CurtainCall
Ovation
Understudy
Swordfight
Kabuki
Libretto
StandingOvation
LeadingLady
LeadingMan
Macbeth
LadyMacbeth
Soliliquy
Troupe
OffBroadway
Masque
Hiss
Ballad
Disguise
FringeFestival
ComedyFestival
KingLear
Sandbag
Prologue
Rake
Repertory
Offstage
Pantomime

On with the show, this is it!

You are running late (as usual) and then you spy an ex-colleague across the room. He’s actually a co-worker that you liked and want to stay in touch with.

You do the “Bob it’s great to see you, where are you working, let’s do lunch this week” thing. Now comes the tricky part. You’ve got to go but you need to swap contact info.

Do you:
A: Allow Bob to slip his card into you back pocket thereby looking like an early morning lothario?
B: Put down your phone and coffee to scrabble around in your bag for your card, making you even later?
C: Hunt around for a pen because you have both left your cards at the office?
D: Tell Bob your dot tel name that he inputs into his Blackberry while you input his into your iPhone?

Your phone was made to work with one hand, as was your coffee cup. .Tel recognizes that mobile phone users tend to be coffee drinkers and has worked closely with both industries to make sure that you never need to grow a third hand.

Hornet is available for Blackberry smart phones that operate OS 4.2 and higher. A separate version for the Blackberry Storm supports landscape/portrait viewing and special functions to control the popup keyboard.

Limited testing has been undertaken in the US, Canada and the UK with great results, but we are now looking for a broader group of alpha testers to provide feedback, especially about carrier compatibility.

In addition to minor tweaks (dialog text, minor UI changes), we’re putting together the launch site which will include download pages, detailed app description, support pages and comprehensive user guide.

In the meantime, both the OS 4.2+ and Storm versions can be downloaded over the air direct to your Blackberry at http://hornet.tel/

Please send your candid feedback and comments to bbapp@webnames.ca and if possible, include your location, carrier, device and OS.

Thanks for your help! We look forward to your feedback.

Most phone companies offer this service, which gives you a tracking phone number that you put into .tel.

Here is a description of remote call forwarding as provided by my Canadian phone company, as well as a description of market expansion line from a major American phone company.

When somebody uses that number, the call is forwarded to your actual line, but call duration and the total number of calls is tracked by the phone company. You then get a report with all the data to demonstrate how your .tel phone line is working.

If your phone company does not provide the service you need, you can also set up a tracking line forwarded to a toll-free number. This should provide you with similar data. While most phone companies will charge for the tracking number service, it’s typically a small fee.

We hope that using these tools will provide you a clearer picture of the volume of calls coming from your .TEL name.

If you want to be found, follow the steps below. 

If you don’t want to be found – eg. your .TEL is for personal use only with contacts, friends and family – ignore the rest of this post

To get your .tel domain picked up by search engines, you can submit it on official websites, such as:

• Google http://www.google.com/addurl.html
• Microsoft Live Search http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
• Yahoo! http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

Indexation will take time (up to 8 weeks sometimes) depending on the search engine and other external factors, but it’s expected to help search engines pick up your .tel quicker.

Of course spreading your .TEL name around, linking to it from your primary website, publishing it in directories, plastering it on signage and business cards, etc. etc., will  help it gain traction too.

This .TEL specific application will read any of your contacts who have a .TEL name and make them instantly accessible to you. Superbook searches all your contacts and tells you where they are on a map. Contact the closest ones at the touch of a button. Cool features include the ability to sort your contacts by distance to you (do this under “settings”).

Superbook is available off of Apple’s app store, or you can download it/learn more about it at http://superbook.tel/.