I managed my personal and business domain names. I bought some domains to market my IT Consulting Services e.g. http://www.computernetworksupport.com/ for example. This is a long domain name but directly defining what I can provide to a prospective customers.

Last Tuesday March 24, 2009 Telnic.org open the registration to the public. Yes everyone can register .TEL domain extension for under $10 per year. I hope I can get king.tel but Carol Bucca from NJ registered the domain during land-rush for 3 years for at least $300. According to the whois record, king.tel was registered last March 23 a day before the public launch.

Launch Information

• Sunrise - registrations reserved for trademark owners 3 December 2008 - 2 February 2009
• Landrush - registrations open to all at a premium price 3 February 2009 - 23 March 2009
• General Availability - registrations open to all 24 March 2009

So, it is really good to have your own .TEL domain name?
I can create my own emie.com or i.king.net to provide the same format if I want. So what is the benefit of getting your own .tel? I registered Filipino.Tel to test the management interface. I found out that you don't need a website to host .tel. You can input all the information you want to share in public .e.g to show the contact information your phone number (of course), website, instant messaging, sms, etc. So I don't really need to buy one for my personal use.

There is a friend interface that I haven't use yet. I will be looking to check it out.

The advantage of having .tel domain is you can easily update your information on the fly. No hosting or programming needed to manage your account. At this date, you can still register your firstname or lastname .tel domain name.

What about my business .Tel?
For securing your business or company brand, I highly recommended that you buy the .tel.
It is also an alternative ways to invest your money. Other than that, I can't think of good use of .Tel.

Additional information About .tel
"The value of a .tel domain lies with the ability to host personal (or corporate) contact information directly in the DNS, which can then be universally accessible. This stands in contrast to the typical use of the DNS for other TLDs, in which the DNS only provides a mapping between domain names and IP Addresses." (2009, Telnic.org)

Keep in mind, this is my humble opinion only. You might have different views or business approach, please post your comment here.

Thank you,
KING.NET