Posts Tagged ‘internet’

Hyvää päivää (hello*) and Hoşgeldiniz (welcome) to Finnish and Turkish .tel pages

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

In line with recent partnerships and developments, we’re pleased to say that we updated the .tel service today so that Finnish and Turkish are now both supported on the proxy page.  This brings the number of languages that will automatically translate key information such as headers and actions (i.e. all information that is systematically chosen rather than free text or user-defined content) to 15.

With customers in 181 countries, from Aruba to Yemen, .tel is a truly international service, and we’ll continue to add further language support as usage increases around the world.  However, with all of the top 10 most-used languages covered off, accounting for over 1.6 billion internet users, there shouldn’t be a problem of information getting lost in translation when visiting a .tel today.

*Andrew Kolchoogin informs us that Hyvää päivää is actually closer to ‘good afternoon’ than ‘hello’ – thanks for the information, I guess someone needs to update Wikipedia

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Curation: The key to online reputation

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

Those ‘embedded’ within the social media ecosystem have long talked of curation as the killer application that will provide the disruptive force to shift old-school industries into submission or ‘pivot’.  Recently, prolific naughties blogger Steve Rubel of Micropersuasion fame and now consultant at Edelman Public Relations refreshed the debate by moving it into the applications space from the social web.  His argument was that, with the ease and access to apps, whilst the likes of the music industry have already been disrupted through free-to-stream music services that enable people to listen to curated pick lists, now traditional media outlets are being faced by a dilution of their brand through the curation of content from them through new apps for tablets and smart phones.

An Ancient Skill

The fundamental fact is that this type of curation is not new.  In 1996, a small research project that then turned into a search engine called Google, provided an algorithmic curation of web pages presented to the user when searching for ‘relevant’ information (or simply one result if they were ‘feeling lucky’!).  Whilst the format has stayed the same substantially since then, with automation and algorithms at the heart of the service, it’s a poorly-kept secret that Google employs thousands to make sure that the results expected to be delivered are maintained.

In the late 1990s, TiVo started enabling this type of curation of content on television, based on programmes watched, and enabling people to cut out or fast-forward through adverts.  Television did not die; instead, new technology providers sprang up to provide different types of channels based on genres, with services like Virgin Media and Sky in the UK providing ‘on demand’ television.

In music, radio stations for years have been curating music choices, picked by DJs.  Themed channels have also been around for a long time.

Curation, Distributed

What has changed is the ability for anyone to curate some form of content or culture easily.  In the same way that blogging on free platform enabled anyone to start curating information on the web and providing opinion on it, now the medium has changed to enable people to more easily (but yet not simply) create applications that can be downloaded to devices and share that curated content.

Curation in and of itself is not the creation of social media.  Those with access to cheap and standardized technology – pamphleteers in the 1640s for example – were able to curate and present information.  What has changed is the ability to reach a broad audience and, by association, be discovered by like-minded individuals, opposing factions (whether trolls or Governments) or potential customers.

The act of curation and the ability to curate is open to all, and that is the fundamental point.  The scarcity value of information and content – whether it be music, opinion or indeed contact information – has been unlocked, never to be placed back into the box.  Each and every individual with access to an internet connection and a device has the power to begin curation and stands every chance of being ‘liked’, +1’d or shared so that the message is distributed virally far and wide (or indeed to a small, confined community).

Marketing by Curation

No small business or individual professional today should consider themselves to be marketing themselves appropriately if they leave curation of their brand or online reputation to a third party.

Where once the purpose of a press release was to engage and inform the media (which at the time were the only channel which had the power and the reach to influence the people you wanted to communicate with), now it stands as a tool for search engine optimization to be directly discoverable as a piece of editorial by potential employers, partners or customers.

Equally important is the curation of the ways in which people can contact you.  It’s critically important to make sure that your contact information is (securely) up-to-date in the distributed nature of the global business environment.  Curation is potentially the most important tool of any individual or small business today.  Make it work for you.

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Innovation and .tel in China

Friday, September 17th, 2010

It’s been a little quiet on this blog over the past few months as we work on a number of initiatives, but the fruits of that labour are now starting to come to fruition and, as promised, we’re now in a position to start talking about some of that work. 

Here at Telnic over the past few months we’ve been working hard helping our newest partner Tong Ji Ming Lian (Beijing) Technology Ltd (TJML) get ready to launch their .tel services in China.  China is a quietly innovative country, building on centuries of ground-breaking invention. Culturally, China is on a fast-track to being the largest economy in the world, and naturally, international organizations are becoming increasingly focused on working to develop in this market. 

It is often the case that localization, which is difficult for large or global companies coming in to China to achieve without the benefit of significant local understanding, is the main cause of a quick or inevitable exit.  This results in a vacuum in which local companies can take the learnings from the solution, learn from its success in other countries, and deliver something that gains popularity within China through use of micro-innovation.

 This is exactly what .tel-only partner TJML is doing with the .tel platform in China.  TJML have taken the platform and are offering .tel services and registrations in Chinese, including enabling verification of ownership services and adding additional elements that will enable them to promote .tel widely.  They’ve already forged partnerships with media and telecommunications companies which, as far as we understand, will enable people to utilize their .tel domains as OpenID’s and log in to some of the more popular online services.

The team behind TJML are experts in the local market and we’re delighted that they’ve spent time really understanding the benefits of .tel and what’s required to make it a success in their local territory, from personalization aspects through to marketing and promotional activity and, importantly, those partnerships. 

The launch, in conjunction with TJML and the China TMT Business Association, is being held in Beijing on Monday 20th September will be attended by our CEO, Khashayar Mahdavi, who will provide a short speech of thanks to all involved as well as provide Telnic’s view of what benefits .tel can bring to China, its residents and its climate of micro-innovation.  We’re delighted to be bringing .tel to China and providing the platform for its curious and talented developers to create new value around for the benefit of the Chinese people.

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Developments in OAuth and OpenID

Friday, June 4th, 2010

Two of the things we’re working on at present to enhance .tel services are integrating OAuth (Open Authentication) and OpenID into .tel.  I’m personally excited about this as I think that this will bring huge benefits to many people and realize a vision for .tel that encourages people to see it, not as a traditional domain name, but as more of a communications solution.

Moving from a web-view to a multi-modal view

The majority of the work done to date is with the traditional web and mobile web in mind.  To an extent, this has been driven by a requirement that .tel is still being perceived, purchased and utilized as a traditional domain.  This may be due to its relative ease of set-up and its pure functionality – that of providing information online in a basic format for easy discovery and access.  It can be set up in minutes, is accessible from mobile devices ‘out of the box’ and now, with the support of AdSense and TelAds, can provide a revenue stream in addition to the contact information displayed that many find easy and simple to action.

But this is not the ultimate vision of .tel.  The above functionality will be enhanced, tweaked and supported as we move forward of course.  However, the use of DNS for storing of that information is the power behind the vision for .tel.  As it’s stored as data, it can be accessed, manipulated and utilized by many means.  As can be seen from the applications we’ve developed for the iPhone and Android, .tel is the first domain that can be managed completely from mobile devices.  With the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Outlook applications, one can lookup contact information from the DNS without leaving your address book, and import it there and then also.  And through third party soft phone applications, the same can be done, enabling the global directory to serve really fast contact information that is updated in real time.

Moving from online to offline access

All of this is done with an internet connection.  We must remember however that there are instances where we may be without internet connectivity (my iPhone service drops out even at major London train stations) and many in other countries with either no or low access to the internet, either through coverage, government regulation or poverty.

This is where it becomes interesting.  With OAuth support, services can be linked together without having to share usernames and passwords, creating a strong bond which will then allow .tel and other services to interact.  This we know will help those in the community who are developing management solutions for .tel to provide a trusted online service and we hope deliver them much success.  But at the same time, it will enable ‘offline’ services to interact with .tel.

What do I mean by this?  There is a proof of concept running on Twitter (see http://twitter.com/2tel) at present which shows Henri Asseily and my .tel names being managed by Twitter, and the both of us looking up information from other .tel names.  OK, fine, Twitter is an online service.  But what we’re actually doing is managing our .tel names and looking up .tel information via the Twitter SMS gateway.  We’re simply using the Twitter service as a bridge at present to enable us to utilize their SMS gateway to do this.  It could quite easily be a stand-alone SMS gateway.  OAuth will therefore enable .tel owners who don’t have continuous access to the internet to manage their names, and enable those with no internet access at all to access real-time updates from .tel names via SMS.  The first top level domain you can access and update without an internet connection.

This is what excites me.  I have to admit, I’m excited because I came up with the idea.  But if I can come up with that idea (and I’m not a real technologist, I just like and talk about technology) then what can the real technologists come up with?  The future of OAuth and binding .tel names to SMS I think provides a significant opportunity to telecommunications companies to begin to offer these to their customers, and a compelling business model for them to embed these into their offerings.  There is a huge market out there of people who wish to be found online but don’t have access to the internet all the time; India is just one of those markets and virtually all communication is done by SMS or mobile.

Moving towards a single uniform identity that you can own

At the same time, OpenID will also provide a compelling case for .tel to start to become used as an identifier for people online.  Many people don’t have the skills or desire to build a website of their own.  They use free services – Blogger, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook – to communicate with people when they want to (as well as still SMS, which remains the biggest surprise to mobile companies who never expected it to be successful as a communications tool).  But at the same time, we increasingly see that individuals need a place they can ‘own’ online – the ‘go to’ resource so that, if they leave one or more social networks, they won’t lose their ‘social graph’ (or, in non-jargon, the friends they really want to keep in touch with whom they re-discovered through the social network).  Additionally, the pervasiveness of these services and networks is leading to complexities in remembering usernames and passwords for all of these services (especially if security is front of mind).  OpenID makes a .tel domain the username that people can utilize to sign in to other services.  It then provides one place to bind all services together, and also an increase in the ability for people to utilize their .tel names more than just as a web address to give to people.  Sure, you can get a free OpenID from third-party service providers, but you’re back to the same problem; how long can they continue to provide this as a free service, or as a service at all, without a revenue stream?  With .tel becoming an OpenID provider, you own your domain – it’s not yourname.openidprovider.com, it’s simply yourname.tel.

So I believe the next six months will open up the ability for existing owners to re-engage and potential owners to re-evaluate .tel as more than just a web-based service, and I’m looking forward to seeing the developments that existing members of the community and new participants will develop.

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2009: The Birth of a New Platform

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Looking back at 2009, a seismic shift has occurred in internet usage, both for businesses and individuals, one that it is very hard to imagine will be reversed. With more smart phones, mobile applications and services establishing themselves as the points of access and services of choice for those wishing to communicate or interact with each other, the line between traditional web services and mobile-based widgets is blurring.

The pace of change and development is often unnerving as the media hype up the ‘next big thing’ in technology. Yet the speed of adoption also seems to be accelerating, with the older generation and those on Main Street, traditionally more conservative in their adoption of technology, embracing new services more rapidly, leading to the conclusion that technology, finally, is becoming mainstream and more accessible.

It’s hard to remember however that all of this has been developed over a long period of time. 2009 saw the 40th anniversary of the development of the internet, as well as the 20th anniversary of the development of the World Wide Web. The first generation mobile telephone from Motorola was demonstrated in 1973. And the first domain name was sold commercially in 1985.

Everything today has been made possible by the long-term development in infrastructure and devices that have taken decades to refine, re-engineer and be made robust. The products, services and applications that sit on top have been brought to market through a process of incremental innovation, using development tools and languages that are bringing standardization, essential for different services to talk to each other better, to enable a more consistent experience.

And yet, there is still a huge amount to be achieved, as meaningful services that contextualize and understand people’s business and social life begin to emerge. Location-based services, that are aware where you are and where your friends or potential destinations may be; augmented reality applications that provide further, layered information over real-time visual data, helping you get to where you want to be or provide a new and fresh learning experience; and new, low-cost and more user-friendly communications solutions that enable you to communicate with people how they and you want to communicate.

It is within this context that .tel was born. Until 2009, .tel was very much a theoretical ‘what if?’. What if people could use names instead of numbers to connect with others? What if people could simply and securely publish all of the ways that others could reach them under one universal point of contact? What if you didn’t need to learn how to build a website simply in order to be found online? What if you could access this point of contact from any device – PC or smartphone – with a browser and automatically see it in the right format? And what if all of this could be done using the system behind the web, storing the information as data, so that it was cheap to access, quick to download and simple to update?

2009 realized Telnic’s vision in bringing this incremental innovation, built on standards and using proven technology, to anyone who wished to be found, no matter where they were and what services others were using. Internally we refer to .tel as ‘Web 0.0’ as it uses the system behind the web – the DNS – to provide a personal, fully-owned platform from which an individual can share all of their traditional and Web 2.0 communications methods. But at the same time, we have stripped away and simplified the ability for people to have a place online from which not only can they be discovered but also, as more developers see the power of one single place under a users own control, a place where in the future individuals can better manage their own personal web experience.

.tel has been alive for nine months and we’re proud to have an extended family that spans the globe. Individuals and small businesses from all walks of life and professions are telling us their stories of how they use and benefit from .tel, simply either as a point of contact or in a more complex manner. Some of these uses are already saving lives, such as clamptime.tel, which provides medical professionals with essential information regarding organ donation.

.tel is still very young but Telnic is committed to helping it develop and grow into a strong, vibrant and helpful service. As the proud parent, we are not too internally focused to know that we have all of the understanding required to bring a socially-aware new entrant to an ever-changing community. We have been listening over the past nine months to opinions, advice and concerns from you, and we continue to be grateful for this, as we help .tel develop. In the next few issues of .telegraph, we’ll be talking further about how .tel will change in its looks, become friendlier and begin playing well with others.

We’ve learnt that it’s important to make sure that .tel can walk before it can run. However, we’re confident that it is learning quickly and its speed of development will accelerate. We’re looking forward to 2010 and the challenges and opportunities that it will bring, and we hope that you are too. Once again, thank you for your support and we hope that you will be proud of the development you see next year.

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