What I'd like: branded phone-numbers
I started a new job recently, at a financial trust. Part of my job is, for now, to learn about the financial structuring of companies setting up in Luxembourg and wanting to expand internationally. I’m also in charge of marketing (whatever there is to be done in a company that generates most of its customers from word of mouth), and to continue on selected strategic consulting projects (a continuation of my previous (freelance) activity).
A basic administrative requirement of my job is to, of course, have an email-address, containing the domain of the company in it. It’s basic PR, when you contact a potential customer, to use a common domain-name, also increasing brand-recognition. But what about phone-numbers? I get my email-address and business-cards for free, but have to pay for most of my phone-costs myself, the reason being that it’s not really something that has to be associated with the business.
That would be different if the identifier that I used would be a branded one, representing the company I work for.
Today, I had to deal with a payment issue with my Dutch bank, Rabobank. Via their website, you can call them for free, using the very clear “Rabolijn” username on Skype. I would love for something similar to exist on phone, which would instantly identify me as such whenever I call someone.
When you think about it, seeing a number for strangers calling you really seems like something from the 20th century. We use digital mobile phones which communicate across digital communication channels. Already, it is certain that the internet of the next decade will be dominated by mobile communications. So, how hard is it to send a name + a number to another person’s phone, when you are calling them?
My thought is: not very hard.
Vincent
Tags: branding
Consumer electronics, Design, Globalization, Internet, Technology, Telecommunications, innovation, marketing, mobile, wireless
That was a very contructive and nicely written piece. I think this is the first time that I’ve actually thought of this feature. One of the problems this branded phone numbers would solve is making easier to see bogus callers from the legit ones.
We get cold-called everytime here in the UK from banks, insurance companies and all sorts of companies. But if these features were in place, one could easily take appropriate action when those calls come through.
Awesome stuff!
Great blog
Nice post,
I’ve been thinking about similar thing, why there isn’t a DNS-like system for telephones. I’m pretty sure there’s some really good reason for it, because normaly phone companies love to sell all kinds of vanity add-on services.
Funnily enough, SMS has this functionality, so I hope that future advances in digitalization of phone calling, be it through Skype, Google Voice, Voip or whatever, might finally bring this feature to us.
Found some articles on mobile DNS here. One from IBM: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wireless/library/wi-domain/?ca=dgr-btw1DNS4Cells
And another summary article, making similar points to mine, linking to that IBM article: http://wirelesswatch.jp/2006/02/21/dns-as-mobile-phone-number/
Have a look at the .TEL TLD. We are getting closer to what the author explained in his post.
Interesting. Found some more links regarding .tel here: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/03/188241 and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tel
“In contrast to other top-level domains the .tel information is held directly within the Domain Name System (DNS), within the actual domain name record, as opposed to the DNS simply returning details (such as IP addresses) of the machines on which information can be found.”
Apparently you are able to register such a domain since March 6th of this year.
But I’m not sure if it works as simply as sending your name along with an number to another phone. I’m not technically qualified to make this assessment, in any case.
No, you have to provide your .tel FQDN, for example jmpnadeau.tel. The .tel compliant phone would then be able to retrieve all associated phones numbers (sales, tech support, representatives, etc.). Have tried it myself, but sounds pretty cool.
[...] Un article sur Tech IT Easy m’a fait sourire en parlant du branding des numéros de téléphone. Le .TEL est la première étape, quelle sera la prochaine? [...]
Yeah it does sound cool. So how farspread is this .tel compliance, do you know?
It’s still not the same thing as sending your name along with the phone-number to a stranger’s phone. It seems so simple, that really wonder why this hasn’t been implemented yet.
I’m no expert with the .TEL TLD. As far as I know it looks liks blackberrys support it. I have to agree with you, it’s not 100% easily brandable as you describe in your post, but I do believe it is the first step in the process. If people adopt the .TEL, maybe companies will see have an interest to develop something more “customisable”.