Qwista – http://www.qwista.com/eng – it indexes all the DNS entries. It has a mobile version that worked well on the Blackberry. You can choose to search for business or individuals.

DotTelFinder.com – http://www.dottelfinder.com/directory/ – it is an opt in directory that has a basic listing that is free and a premium listing that is $2.55 one time. Dottelfinder aggregates tweets about .tel and also aggregates news coming from Telnic and some prominent .tel blogs (including this one!).

Jepaa – http://www.jepaa.com/ – it too indexes the DNS. It’s a bit slower than the other two.

Telnic will be launching TelPages – http://www.telpages.com/ – soon.

Dottelcentral.com – http://www.dottelcentral.com – is a yahoo style browseable directory that is opt-in. The nice thing about this directory is that all the .tel names included in it, are fleshed out.

In these directories you may stumble across a company or person who is doing something you are interested in – just like a Google search – but drilled down to their essential contact details.

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.

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/.

• Common dictionary words and place names have been registered.
• All 3 letter combinations are likely gone
• Numbers have been snapped up
• Trademarks are safeguarded

So what does that leave?  Lot’s apparently!

Popular phrases and word combinations come to mind. Family names.  And surprisingly, lot’s of cool, single words are also still available.  After finding out that 171,476 words are currently in use according to the Oxford English Dictionary , we figured plenty of good ones must be left.

A colleague and I rambled off 25 words each in rapid succession, then entered them into a .TEL domain search and got the following results (as of 2:21 pm PST on Friday, May 22nd):

Crows.tel  Available    
Punch.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Cardboard.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Fixate.tel  Available 
Impressive.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Rationale.tel  Available    
Vitality.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Operational.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Glamorous.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Impossibility.tel  Available    
Fabricate.tel  Available    
Sleuth.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Sneakers.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Ciao.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Arriba.tel  Available    
Bonbons.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Folksong.tel  Available 
Immediacy.tel  Available    
Cuddles.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Template.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Tackle.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Wandering.tel  Available    
Stinger.tel  Available    
Reaction.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Swollen.tel  Available    
Irritant.tel  Available    
Refreshing.tel  Taken 
Breezy.tel  Available    
Tender.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Touching.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Engaging.tel  Available    
Decisive.tel  Available 
Burnt.tel  Available    
Limerick.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Siamese.tel  Available    
Ocean.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Trapeze.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Parachute.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Olivertwist.tel  Available    
Artisan.tel  Taken   Whois | Make Offer
Ample.tel  Available
Taxonomy.tel Available

Now go search for your own, or snag yourself one of the above names.

Attention all realtors, while I paint you a picture …

Shirley and Bill are in the market to buy a house.  On their Sunday drive they stumble upon a house that appeals to them.

Sadly, by the time they get home – after picking up groceries, going through the car wash and visiting aunt Mable – they have forgotten the address of the house for sale and the real estate agency it is listed with.

Dear realtors – if you all would break down and get yourname.tel and plop it on your “for sale” signs, people like Shirley and Bill would actually stand a chance at getting in touch with you.

Now there is no guarantee that a handy dandy .tel name will induce Shirley and Bill to purchase the house, but it probably help them contact you for more information. And remember your name.  And refer you to their friends.

Perhaps the best thing about .tel for realtors, and other relationship based professions (hairdressers, massage therapists and car salespeople come to mind) is that you can move, change employers, open up your own business and still be found 5 years later because your .tel remains the same.

That’s the great thing about tel – the game may change but the name remains the same.

More Information for Realtors

Watch a short video designed for realtors about how .TEL works and its benefits.

The  .TEL  4  Realtors blog also does a nice job of showing how to add real estate listings to your .TEL

The .tel for Outlook application allows users to easily look up a .tel domain and save .tel data to their Outlook contacts, making their Outlook address book dynamic and filled with live data. The application also allows users to quickly accept friend requests and switch profiles all without ever leaving Outlook.

You can download the Outlook plugin on the .tel Community website: http://telnic.org/community-applications-outlook.html. Let us know what you think!

Good .TEL names are still available, search for yours today. Email is also now available for .TEL names

Here’s three big developments from the past couple days:

.TEL Search Engine – Jepaa Delivers Contact Information Fast

A .TEL search engine launched this week. It’s called Jepaa and it’s TEL specific, searching only .TEL sites. When somebody searches for contact information on Google they typically have to (A) sort through pages of search results that don’t relate to what they are looking for; or (B) dig through multiple pages to find contact information. Jepaa simplifies things by delivering you contact information in the form of .TEL sites. Jepaa’s other cool features include mobile compatibility, support of multiple languages and the ability to provide results that take both keywords and locations into consideration. Another nice-to-have:  it’s compatible with Adsense.

Read more about Jepaa.  Try Jepaa out for yourself .

.TEL Blackberry App available for Download

Telnic announced yesterday that the final release of its free BlackBerry(TM) plug-in is available for download. The application enables BlackBerry users to do the following things:

• Directly lookup a .TEL domain inside the address book, including private information from friends
• Search for a .TEL domain inside the address book
• Add any .TEL domain as a new contact or associate it with an existing contact
• Send ‘friending’ requests and accept or decline them depending on your TelFriends status
• Quickly change your .TEL profile to make sure your contacts reach you the way you want

Navigating by BlackBerry, the app is available at http://telnic.org/community-applications.html or http://bb.apps.telnic.tel

Read the Telnic press release

My.tel – .TEL  iPhone App Now Available

And to complete the trifecta, just today Telnic announced the availability of My.tel . The free, open source iPhone application allows .TEL owners with iPhones to manage .TEL domains without having to log on to a computer.  The app makes it easy to do the following :

• Publish a location through an embedded map linked with the iPhone’s GPS
• Update their status using profiles depending on how they want to be contacted at that time
• Add new, remove, hide or show items of contact information
• Manage, add or remove folders and profiles which group contact information together
• Manage privacy settings for friends and colleagues
• Add or remove keywords that help people searching for .TEL  owners contact information.

My.tel can be downloaded for free from the App Store or via the iPhone usingthe App Store application.

Read the Telnic press release

Email also launched for .TEL names this week, at least at one registrar. Read our previous post for more information.

And it you’re in the market for a .TEL name, there are still lot’s  of great ones available. Click here to search for yours.

A few registrars have replied that they are waiting on Telnic, among other things.
In Telnic’s Q&A on this topic, they advise .TEL owners to check with their service provider, stating:

Yes, .tel domains enable using email but don’t come with a ready email solution yet. Please contact with your .tel service provider to check whether an email offering is available and to have the relevant domain settings (i.e. MX records) configured on your behalf. Please note that over the coming months Telnic will also be providing direct support within the TelHosting application for users to connect their own choice of email to .tel domains.

.TEL registrar Webnames.ca   is already offering email for .TEL domains registered with them. If you’re tech savvy enough, there are some instructions available on the Telsters forum about how to use a free version of SoapUI to set up your MX record (see page two of the thread).

I haven’t heard any other registrars announcing  email for .TEL  yet, but drop us a line if you know of any.

Besides the usual aftermarket sites, over the past few weeks I have seen a number of blogs, and even some Google Adword campaigns (vet.tel comes to mind), advertising premium .TEL names for sale.

Although .TEL aftermarket activity is on the increase, it’s important to note that a lot of great names are still available in the primary market. Before you fork over more than $30 for an aftermarket .TEL, make sure you search out variants and related word combinations at a .TEL registrar, you might be surprised at what is still available.

Happy .TEL hunting!

Three .TEL domains have been profiled so far:

• esb.tel  – ESB, business school in Germany  
• representative.tel  – US House of Representatives Directory  
• removals.tel  –  Nice example of a small business .tel 

Telnic is selecting examples submitted by the public. In terms of criteria, Telnic has stated it is primarily interested in “.TEL names that are helpful, well-populated and discover innovative ways to keep in touch.”

If you want to nominate your .TEL to be featured on Telnic’s website, send them an email at community@telnic.org.

I’m thinking of nominating bowser.tel. This dog has done a better job setting up his .TEL than I have  – it includes links to a Flickr album, various dog websites and even his email address (I’m thinking of emailing Bowser just for kicks).

Despite .TEL names being splashed all over the aftermarket already, many great .TEL names are still available. Search for your .TEL name today and join the growing global directory.