Yesterday I managed to pop into the Unified Communications Expo to see one of our technology partners, voipGATE, who were exhibiting their soft and hard VoIP services. I caught up with Jorge Marques, Chief Operations Officer, who showed me the latest versions (beta) of their softphone for Windows and now Mac, which integrate .tel into the core very nicely. You can lookup, dial and manage .tel domains through these applications if you’ve bought them via voipGATE or EuroDNS (I’m sure they’ll be able to enable other customers using voipGATE to manage their own .tel domains through their integrated management console soon).
Additionally, they’ve got a great mobile app built at http://voipgate.mobi for smartphones and iPhones which provide low- and no-cost call back if you’ve got an account, again providing direct integration of .tel into the apps.
There’s more exciting work going on behind the scenes which I’m sure we’ll be blogging about in the near future. Great work voipGATE! The software can be downloaded here: http://voipgate.com/site/en/softphone/view-category.html
Henri and I travelled to MacWorld to launch the new My.tel 2.0 app for the iPhone in February. Whilst Apple as an entity wasn’t at the show, there were plenty of representatives walking around and seeing what was on offer. We were in the Mobile Applications Showcase that was, for most of the show, buzzing with a good flow of people and we were joined at some points by representatives from Name.com as well as Hank Grebe from One San Francisco (who posted here), a new community for the region intending to replicate the success that One Vancouver has shown in Canada. We wish Hank well and if you’re in the area, please do contact him at http://hankgrebe.tel to find out more.
The show itself was pretty busy and we met with a vast range of people, from journalists right through to school kids. Interestingly, within the Mobile Applications Forum, there were very few companies showing tools and technologies for productivity, but those that were – including us – were given strong attention. The iPhone is increasingly being considered a tool for work and My.tel 2.0 as well as Superbook was well received.
There’s still a barrier we’ve recognized when talking to many people regarding their expectations and hang ups of what a domain name is and what it does, but we’re starting to see people actually focusing on what .tel does differently. Even technology media are starting to listen and take notice of the phrase ‘but it doesn’t host websites’! It’s this crucial bit that journalists have been missing in their continued high-pressure environment. Indeed, Jake Widman from ComputerWorld wrote a great piece after our meeting and we had a great discussion with him regarding how innovative yet ‘utility-like’ technologies are being missed in the echo-chamber of technology columns that seem to be filled with Google, Facebook and Twitter and the challenges and announcements they make on a daily basis. At the same time, we’ve been working hard to make the look and feel and experience of .tel useful to the end user who is not technical, hiding the complexity through applications like My.tel, enabling them to get the power of having a domain name with all of the discoverability that this entails, but also minimizing the effort it takes to get something up and running quickly that can be easily managed in a way they feel comfortable with.
Where I could, I asked people to comment on video about their thoughts about .tel – and yes, there were people there including Will Snow who already use .tel (Will is at http://willsnow.tel), and it’s always great to catch up with members of our community who are getting real benefit from it. Additionally, talking to people in their various careers – from architects through to those working for higher education institutions – and really seeing their eyes light up at the ease of use and functionality within a very low price is a great experience. What struck both Henri and myself was that many people are now increasingly looking at their personal brands online, whether they’re in a job or seeking new opportunities. People were walking away and coming back 30 minutes later with their .tel names purchased, set up and resolving with a real sense of excitement. Take a look at the video below for some of the comments we managed to capture.
