Dot Tel Domains and Viral Video
By Bill Rutherfurd

Dot Tel technology utilizes the Domain Name System of the internet to provide fast, and accurate contact information in the form of directory web sites, individual web sites, and business web sites. In the one year that it has been available, it has been adopted slowly. This article examines possible strategies in the viral video medium for bringing Dot Tel to broader public and business attention.

Dot Tel is useful, but its adoption appears to be slow and this is because it has failed to capture the attention of a broad cross-section of the public and of business entities. A viral video appeals to people sufficiently that they forward it on to other people. Those people in turn forward it to their people and so on until a single video can be seen by literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of people.

There have been some attempts by Dot Tel registrars and owners to create viral videos of Dot Tel technology but these attempts have largely failed to attract attention on YouTube.com, the best place for videos. The promoter of the technology, Telnic of the UK, has produced some video content as well and viewings have reached a few thousand, and in the best case 13,000. It seems that none of the videos released to date have any kind of hook, or reason for people to send the video to other people.

A good example of a successful viral video is the Britain's Got Talent video of Paul Potts, the now well known tenor. In the video he arrives on stage looking rather motley and by the time he leaves he has the audience in the palms of his hands and he has impressed the judges tremendously. His video was viewed by millions of people on YouTube.com. This type of video appeals emotionally but it is much harder to register emotionally when creating a video for a business.

One attempt at emotional appeal in a business was that of the ice cream company, Haagen Dazs. It developed a campaign about the reasonably well-known disappearance of honey bees. This consisted of humans dressed as bees performing a rap song about the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder. This had an emotional appeal centered around the fact that our food supply depends to a significant degree on bees. People are also naturally inclined to worry about animals (insects) and the environment. The video got some traction on YouTube.com going over one million viewings.

With Dot Tel the situation may be a little more difficult. The only emotional content in the technology concerns the environment. Dot Tel, unlike its competitors - Yellow Pages and White Pages among others - does not require any paper for users to get to its directory information. This hook has not been utilized correctly yet and is a significant advantage. It is one possibility for getting the broader public interested in the technology. This green issue should be employed heavily in bringing Dot Tel further into the public consciousness.

Another example of the possibilities of viral video could involve the construction industry. Dot Tel has a real advantage in projects for making project contacts available immediately, and project wide. A video which could potentially go viral within the building and construction industries would be a 'before and after' clip on a construction project.

The before scene could contain builders, sub-contractors, and other project partners fishing around for bits of paper containing contact information about the project. Some of them would find their bits of paper out of date. They could be falling down ladders and queuing to get to the sole computer on their level of the project. The after video would picture a calmer scene with the builders and project partners just reaching for their cellphones and connecting to the project Dot Tel web site. With a couple of button presses they reach the person that they want.

I think this approach could be good for Dot Tel because it shows a genuine and demonstrable value in the technology itself. It does not just leave it up to the viewer to figure out why they need a Dot Tel. People do not want to think too hard when viewing video, but a real point of value will be watched and passed on within a commercial sector.

In summary, there are opportunities to use viral video to improve the penetration of Dot Tel technology into the public consciousness. They should be used as soon as possible to develop this domain technology's reach quickly.

Bill Rutherfurd is an early Dot Tel adopter. He thinks it is great for providing a cheap web presence with fast access to contact data and information especially on mobile phones. To find information about his Taupo, New Zealand Dot Tel directory please go to http://www.squidoo.com/Taupodottel. His dottel blog can also be found at http://www.dottel.blogspot.com.

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