ICANN Considers Adding .TEL TLD to Help People Manage Contact Info

[mandy]

Reaching out and touching someone used to be as simple as dialing a string of numbers. But now there are home, cell and work phone numbers from which to choose, and sometimes work extensions to remember.

There are also e-mail addresses — at home and at work — and instant messaging handles, perhaps separate ones for the various services, some of which now do voice and video besides text. Some people even have Web pages — through their employer or Internet service provider, or perhaps a profile or two on MySpace.

To help people manage all their contact information online, the Internet's key oversight agency is considering a ".tel" domain name...

full article: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12318552/

[jezebel]

This quote from the article sums up my feelings, "critics wonder why new Internet domain is needed, or if it'd be used".  .tel would add an additional layer of complexity and would be another piece of contact information to juggle. 

[mandy]

Update: ICANN approved the new .tel TLD at its 10 May 2006 meeting.

Voting transcript of ICANN's 10 May meeting with the vote to approve .tel and deny the .xxx TLD:
http://www.icann.org/minutes/voting-tran...0may06.htm

[jezebel]

When do they go on sale?