.tel is yet another top level domain to go with all those other highly profitablepopular ones. You know, like .biz, .museum, .info, etc.

This domain is different – this domain is single purpose. .tel’s raison d’être is to abolish the business card. No more handing over little cardboard oblongs, in the glorious future, we’ll just say

“Visit aitch-tee-tee-pee colon slash-slash edent dot tell… No… Tell. It’s spelled TEA-EE-EL. Yes. Just one EL. No, I don’t know why. Here, let me write it down for you on a little cardboard oblong…”

So, as you’ve guessed, I’m not the world’s biggest fan. But I was “lucky” enough to win a free domain courtesy of TelReg. As I’m a freebie customer, I don’t think it’s fair of me to critique them in any way – but I’m sure going to critique the whole .tel idea.

First of all, why not take a look at the site. edent.tel. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Yeuch! What a dull looking site. There is, at the moment, no way to customise the look and feel, I can’t even add my picture (not that it would make the site look much better…). I can, however, add some very limited information.

Now, I’m not a professional usability expert – but even I can point out the dull text, the huge dead space, the reliance on scrolling. Yeuch.

To make matters worse, there is a mobile version of this page. Seeing as most of the people to whom I’d give a business card will have a mobile phone, this makes sense. Let’s take a look at it in two popular phones.

iPhone 3G.

BlackBerry Bold (9000).

Yeuch! Again, no panache, no style. Just dull dull dull text. You’d think that the .VCARD link would be the top link, wouldn’t you? That would be a basic usability feature. But no.

As an aside, the iPhone can’t even download the .VCARD. This is the fault of Apple.

But the .tel people shouldn’t even offer a link to a phone they know can’t support it.

Anyway. As I’ve said, I’ve got this free for a year. A few hours in and I can’t see myself renewing it. If .tel can improve some of their basic flaws and improve their customer perception, I might reconsider.

I sort of like the idea. But I prefer SyncML sites. Take ZYB – (owned by Vodafone, who own me. Yes, I am biased) – if I give you my ZYB address, and we connect, whenever I change my address or telephone number it is automatically updated on your phone. Smart. And also pretty. Two things that .tel is not.