Is anyting really gained by a .tel domain?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Two objections, based on proposed uses of .tel: First, Mr. Griswold says that .tel allow a company "to enable dedicated communications solutions (i.e. call centers) to respond to its customers' needs". I'm not seeing any significant difference in ease of use between "www.example.tel", "tel.example.com", or even "www.example.com/tel" (except maybe that typing a "/" is pain on most most phones"). All three options work equally well in a hyperlink, and all three can be communicated to users verbally. The only significant advantage offered would seem to by the "type-in value" -- training users to assume that the Example Corporation has an "example.tel". Given that every significant company uses telephones, training phone users to make that assumption becomes a way to bully corporations into defensive registrations, lest someone else start receiving their call center enquiries. Second, the "Individual Lookup" example at http://www.telnic.com/ offers the example of a looking-up the contact information for "Adam Smith" by using "adamsmith.tel" as the entry key for him in a directory. The sounds like you're using domain names where you should/could be using URNs. I can't see any reason to do that, other than the fact that domain names can be reassigned to new users, which (when it comes to directories) is a bug, not a feature. If you want URNs, why not develop a URN-based system? It seems to be that domain-name-based approach is in serious danger of being outflanked and outmoded by non-domain-based directory services. And a bonus objection, I have to agree with Dan Tobias in that "TLDs by medium" could become really annoying in the long run. I don't want to have to keep track of "example.tel", "example.web", "example.mail", "example.tv", for every possible company. (There is no way, of course, that every company on Earth will get a matching set with the current TLD managment practices, which makes the practice even more problematic for users trying to contact domain registrants.) I don't see any feature in this proposal that really *needs* to be domain-name-based, and I'm pretty sure that the directory lookups are actually *hurt* by being domain-name-based. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (MingW32) - GPGshell v3.01 iD8DBQFAkLLqcpuEJT2bpHsRAtnXAKCNQW5DyIMPzNsBUWjRU3p+Jf9qMwCgxwl+ 4b1oLzj7On2laFnySQOBLnM= =l4F5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |