tel Story of Anthony Richardson

Anthony Richardson is one of the UK's leading commercial voiceover artists. After leaving school at 17, he trained as a sound technician at The Royal National Theatre in London, and on a few occasions was asked to do small vocal parts for sound effects in the various shows that were "in rep" at the time. Having always been interested in acting and recording so it seemed like a logical step, to combine the two, and become a voiceover. He is the proud (and profitable) owner of overvoice.tel as well as a Qualified Google Advertising Professional.

"I have been lucky enough to have been chosen for a number of high profile gigs in the industry and have recorded commercials for the likes of Pepsi and McCoys, introduced Bill Gates on stage for his Microsoft "farewell" tour, voiced a number of animation characters for various US and UK-based studios. And I am also the voice of the "talking signs" for hospitals and Police Forces across the UK - but my favorite gig is always paying a visit to Stephen Fry's charity, Listening Books where I record audiobooks for blind and partially sighted kids. Great fun, and my kids generally get to keep the actual paper copies of the books I read. I have to say though, I did enjoy having to sing Auld Lang Sine as a "comedy Elvis" for next year's New Years greeting cards recently.

"Being discovered on the Internet is essential for me - it's the only way potential new clients can see me and hear what I do. Even when I am recommended by someone, it's much easier for them to just say: "click on OverVoice.tel" rather than have to remember all my details. I would say that most of my business now comes from the Internet in some shape or form. Nearly everyone sits down in front of a PC, at some point in the day, and there I am!

"I first heard about the .tel domain in an email from my domain hosting company SimplyNames.com and was intrigued to find out more. There was definitely a "buzz" about the new .tel extension - people were saying that it was the biggest thing to happen to domains since the creation of the mighty .com! So I had to have a look.

"I found out that the .tel domain name is slightly different to your run-of-the-mill domain name. You can't just "map" your shiny new .tel over any old IP address, in fact, when you buy your .tel, all you get for your money is a username and password for a website where you simply enter your business or personal details.

"Not very exciting. Until you realise that you are actually entering your information into the actual DNS (Domain Name System) rather than just mapping your .tel domain over an IP address (as with every other domain extension).

"So what? Well, that means that the information you enter into your .tel template is universally available - in the same format. So mobile phones, PDAs, netbooks, VOIP services and specific software applications, for use on websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and Ecademy can have access to all this contact information - in the same format!

"As a Qualified Google Advertising Professional I was particularly pleased that the .tel domain is very search engine friendly. All the necessary keywords and phrases could be added to my public-facing page and within a few days Google had indexed my domain and I was out on the Internet, ready to be discovered. Within the first week, I was contacted by a voice producer who was actually trying to buy "OverVoice" for himself but instead found me and gave me some work. Probably the best �15 I have ever spent.

"I can certainly see how it would be massively advantageous for businesses and radio stations and broadcasters to use their .tel domain to promote competitions and requests - but definitely in advertisements. It is so much easier to just remember one word or phrase and immediately have access to a company's contact data (and any other data they would like you to have) rather than trying to remember phone numbers, email addresses and websites.

"If audio producers or businesses want to hire me, they just have to remember one word: 'OverVoice.tel' (OK two words made into one and .tel) and all my information is there!"