You likely know that .TEL names are awarded on a first come first serve basis, so as the interest heats up, the chances of someone else pre-booking the name you want increases. Remember, .TEL is global, so it could be anyone, anywhere in the world.

Obviously, the sooner you pre-book, the higher your chances are of getting the name you want. But even if you book right now, it’s possible your name has already gone.

If that’s the case, you may want a second, less popular variation of your name. But what if that’s gone too? How many should you pre-book to make sure you get at least one good name?

The most popular names and simplest names are likely to go first. Your chances of getting a single name like john.tel or jessica.tel or smith.tel are low. Of course you can take a gamble. If you get it, you have the choice of keeping it and being the envy of every Jessica on the planet, or selling it in the aftermarket and making handsome profit.

It’s more likely that a first name, last name combination has a better chance of success. If your name is John Smith, you may want a long list of back up names, but chances are your name is a bit less popular than John Smith.

The main question then, is how popular is your name, and how likely are you to get it before someone else does?

To get an idea of how popular your name is on a global level, you need to find a global address book. This is where Yahoo, Gmail and Facebook come in.

Facebook claims to have more than 100 million active users and an article in USA Today gives the following numbers for web mail providers:

Microsoft — 256.2 million users
Yahoo — 254.6 million users
Google — 91.6 million users

The bad news is that the people that have these accounts are the target market for .TEL, so the competition is potentially very steep.

The good news is that each of the sign up processes for the mail providers offers a feature to check the availability of your account name. If you have a Facebook account, you can use the search feature to search for names and determine their popularity.

For the web mail providers, head over to each of the sites and use the Check Availability feature to see if anyone else is currently using your preferred .TEL name already. Just enter your preferred name and click “Check Availability”.

If it’s available, there’s a pretty good chance your .TEL name will be too.

In a surprising number of cases though, the name is not available. If this is the case, you may want to submit one or two alternatives.

Try using a combination of first and last names, initials and diminutive or shortened versions of your name. Were he alive, James Dean might discover that jamesdean was not available. He might try jimmydean, jdean, jimd jamesbdean (middle name Byron) or other variations and submit one or two of these as backups to jamesdean.tel

Many registrars charge a non-refundable pre-booking fee, but with Webnames.ca, you only pay for the names you get. If you pre-book five variations but don’t get them, you pay nothing. On the other hand, if you get them all, you have to pay for them all.

Finally, if you really want a popular name, Landrush Registration allows you to apply seven weeks earlier than everyone else. It’s considerably more expensive but greatly increases your chances of getting the name you want. Again, you only pay if you’re successful and you still have the chance to sell a premium name in the aftermarket.

Your .TEL is going to be something you use for life and getting the name you want requires a bit of strategic thinking and knowledge of the likely demand.

• Pre-book early to improve your chances
• Understand the competition for a given name by checking existing availability on popular sites & services
• If you want a popular name, consider less popular alternatives as a fall back
• Use a registrar like Webnames.ca that only charges for successful registrations
• Balance the risk of not getting the name you want with the potential costs
• The aftermarket that can help offset the risk of multiple successful registrations

Links
Facebook  — www.facebook.com
Yahoo Sign Up — http://www.yahoo.com/r/m7
Microsoft Live Sign Up — https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx
Gmail — http://www.gmail.com

Pre-booking and Registration
Pre-booking for General Registration and Landrush is available now — http://www.webnames.ca/tel
General Registration opens March 24, 2009.
Landrush Registration opens seven weeks earlier on February 3, 2009.

Reference Links

USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-04-15-google-gmail-webmail_N.htm