
My name is not a URL  - azharcs
http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/03/21/my-name-is-not-a-url/
======
unalone
Great article. One thing to point out is that iChat allows you to integrate
with your Address Book, so that if you _want_ you're able to set things up to
use real names when you're talking. It makes vcards that much more useful.

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frisco
URL-names just hit me as the breakthrough of Twitter, actually. I hadn't
understood the power of Twitter at all until the other day I was reading a
blog where the author referred to someone as @handle. My name is not unique:
but, if we had a service that got enough adoption that gave everyone a
globally unique string identifier, you could unambiguously reference real
people across any medium. That's really powerful, and I think it's just
starting to dawn on us the different ways we could use that. I still don't see
an obvious monetization strategy; but people said the same thing about Google
in 2000, so I don't want to be one to talk on that.

~~~
ashot
so like an email?

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frisco
Yes but easier to control access. You don't usually want to give out your
email address as a form of general ID, and there are all kinds of clever
email-hiding methods used to keep from being crawled by spammers (i.e., foo at
bar dot com or foo at google's email service). And @handle just seems more
manageable (and more global) than foo@bar.com

~~~
decadentcactus
More global? I might be misunderstanding you but email is everywhere. It's one
of the things that is recognisable by your parents, maybe even grandparents.
Wouldn't it be simpler, instead of trying to build out @handle usage, to add
more control to emails? Everyone has one, they're much more open since only
twitter (I think) has @handle things, and much much much more accessible (and
global). Gmail has fantastic filters already, a bit of a pain to set up but
they work. Wouldn't an improvement on those be better?

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frisco
By more global I just meant that @foo would effectively put everyone under the
same domain. Email just feels more fragmented.

Edit: also email puts restrictions on your identity. You're foo at some
domain. @foo lets you pick a unique name that's valid online once you're old
enough to pick who you want to be, without the footnote of _domain_ attached.
Sort of how we all recognize Paul Graham as "pg", which fits his style.

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timrod
> Email just feels more fragmented.

...which is good. I want to be able to choose who I trust with my ID-related
information.

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petercooper
Interesting article but it's been a while since I've so strongly disagreed
with everything someone sensible has written down in such a delightful manner
;-)

Just to pick two examples:

 _success will find the designer who most nearly replicates the world offline
online_

No way! Microsoft Bob, anyone? Dragging offline metaphors online _can_ work
but it fails more often than it succeeds (it even goes deeper than that -
think of those who replicate desktop interfaces on the Web.. eugh!). The
online world is a new one, not one that should mirror the offline world. Heck,
even the newspaper industry is finally waking up to that one..

And with regards to Twitter URLs vs Facebook URLs, etc, I can use my Twitter
URL as a URL in all my OTHER social networking sites, on my business cards, in
my e-mails, etc.. but Facebook? I need a URL to be able to do that. Further,
I'll often use URLs as a direct scheme to find things I want.. example I
_know_ that I'll find some interesting Python stuff if I go to:
<http://del.icio.us/popular/python> .. or how about interesting "news"?
<http://del.icio.us/popular/news> .. these sorts of schemes are a big win
whether it's for people's handles, general tags, or whatever.

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intranation
Seems like all these arguments are stemming from the (newly resurfaced) debate
about "online personal brand", and creating an identity as such. I'm all for
diluting these namespaces with GUIDs or similar--who's to say I'm the most
important Joe Smith in the world?

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JacobAldridge
"Online Personal Brand" is certainly something I've considered - it's why I've
never cultivated a handle and just register as 'Jacob Aldridge' (or as close
as User ID formats allow) wherever I go.

There's the fear that this involves one part of my life (say, work) with
another (say, a weird fan film I did when I was at uni), but I actually enjoy
combining them - my business clients enjoy knowing about my Guinness World
Record, HN etc.

Five years ago it was much easier for me - probably 80% of the ego surf for my
name was me. There's been a glut of Jacob Aldridges reaching their teenage
years (and therefore Facebook, media etc) since then - much more diluted
Google / Brand results.

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chime
Actually, I don't mind my name being a URL at all. My first name's Chirag and
my site is <http://chir.ag> and I wouldn't mind getting facebook.com/chirag
either. Where's the option on Facebook where I can set that up?

~~~
DTrejo
Pay $50k.

