.TEL your cloud contact card

From December 3rd companies with registered trademarks can buy a new .tel domain name from Telnic. Now this is a new domain name with a slight difference. The idea is designed to be used for contact details. The idea is that devices can then use this URL for a person’s contact details, checking this domain will always return their latest details. This will save problem related to not updating details and syncing not working.

The best devices for this will be mobile phones/PDA’s that can access the internet to retrieve the latest contact details for people in the contact directory.

Kash Mahdavi, head of Telnic which runs the .tel registry has said:

All other top level domains like .com use the net’s domain name system in the same way. They all store IP address and they are all about websites. A .tel domain, said Mr Mahdavi, could feature phone numbers, e-mail addresses, GPS data or buttons that kick off a Skype call

You might be thinking if/when you can get yours since you can only get a .tel domain if you have a registered trademark. Well there are several phases for different companies/people need to wait for.

Phase 1
Trademark owners can get domains for their brands.

Phase 2
From the February 3rd 2009 domains will be on sale at a premium. This will probably mean that high powered/rich celebrities and businessmen can get their domains before someone else tries to get them. I also assume there will be some sort of approval service

Phase 3
March 24th 2009 is when the doors open to all customers. There will probably be a fee and an approval process. Mr Mahdavi would not be drawn on the final price for a .tel domain but said it would be in line with that charged for other domains.

Check out this video demo:

You can go to the Telnic developer site where you can get developer information and access to sample code, live examples and further details about integrating the service into your application/device. Also take a look at an example site ben.tel.

The whole idea for this I think is great. It will be a way of storing your contact details in the cloud where you can allow access to your details. I am interested to know about the methods and process used to allow specific people more detailed access to your details. What authentication will be in place? OpenID? Google Friend Connect? I am looking forward to seeing how this all pans out. What do you think about the idea?

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