According to Gartner Research, cell phones utilizing the Mac OS had growth of over 245.7% in 2008. The BlackBerry platform had the second best growth at 96.7%. This is pretty powerful, as more and more efforts will go toward continuing the growth of these numbers and the greater their success, the greater the opportunity for businesses to have their information, products and services at the users (buyers) fingertips.
Today, more than 25% of all cell phone traffic in the world is via smart-phones and in 2008 over 139 million smart-phones were sold.
Anyone think this number is going to decrease?
The more robust the phone and networks capabilities, the more powerfully the phone user may interact with a well prepared website.
Minimally, the intelligent leveraging of new .tel domains will be one of the most powerful and innovative ways for businesses to get their contact information in front of buyers.
Granted this is a brand new TLD and its potential is yet to be seen, but at its core it simply offers many wonderful opportunities for a business to get what a prospective buyer needs on their mobile device the moment they need it.
In no way does it replace the need for a company to have an effective and quantifiable website, but there is still something to be said for simply having contact information easily accessible and .tel seems perfect for that.
In today’s business environment things have a tendency to change rather quickly. With that change items such as business cards, letterhead, directory listings and advertisements must be changed as well, and all at a cost.
The new .tel seems to offer some cost effective ways to handle the changes that a business may face with great control, while potentially minimizing the loss factor of outdated material confusing a prospective client.
As it is spider-able content, it also allows for another level of SEO not available before.
A lot is yet to be seen as to where this will go, but now is the time to begin thinking about, and testing, how this can positively impact your company.
I have been monitoring sites that talk about .tel, and I believe you are one of the first that has concentrated on what it means to business. Most tech people talk about tech. This was refreshing.