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The problem with having your own domain for email is the communication factor. When I tell someone my email is charles.lastname@gmail.com, there's no miscommuni
by mrcharles 15y ago
The problem with having your own domain for email is the communication factor. When I tell someone my email is charles.lastname@gmail.com, there's no miscommunication. Worst case I have to spell out my last name, but generally if someone's asking for email they already have my last name.
If you buy a domain, nowadays, you have few options with respect to getting an email that sounds legit, mature, and isn't long and/or uses easily misspelled words.
I have a bunch of domains, but none of them are particularly appropriate for an email address I would verbally communicate to someone. bluh.org is my main domain, but when you say 'bluh' out loud to someone, you inevitably have to spell it. I once owned thereisnocharles.com, which was a goofy thing and I used that as my main email address before gmail came along. But it's long, and it doesn't sound professional at all.
I guess we could all just use something like gmail as a simple forwarder service to our owned email addresses, but even then, it's not a foolproof solution.
- mrcharles 15y agoAlso, no, it's not a matrix reference, it's a ghostbusters reference.
- mikle 15y agoi@yourname.com Solves the problem you raised.
- mrcharles 15y agoExcept it's an impossible solution for a lot of people, including myself. My name as a domain name is taken, and was taken long ago.
- masklinn 15y agoOn all available tlds? Really?
- almightygod 15y agowell having me@lastname.ly would require you to explain "that's a .ly not .com" and therefore not solve this particular problem
- awj 15y agoFor a good portion of my people (in my experience, at least 50%) any domain but .com might as well not exist. With them, ".com" is four characters that must ritually be applied to all domains to appease the computer gods.
- josefresco 15y agoDoesn't pass the verbal test. Is that "I" or is that "eye" or is it "aye"?
- mike-cardwell 15y agoAs someone who has my own domain, I find it very rare that I actually have to tell someone my email address out loud using my voice. 99% of the time they get it from an online profile, or my website, or by receiving an email from me, or by me filling in a form, online or physical, or a business card, or by me writing it down. I don't see this as a valid issue to deter anyone from getting their own domain.
- X-Istence 15y agofirstname@lastname.[com|net|org]. Mine is bertjw@regeer.org for example.
- DrJ 15y agojohn@smith.com you want to see how bad it turn when you do chin, li, etc? soon we will run out of website names!
- darklajid 15y agoWhat about the .name TLD? I own (for now.. I'm not sure if that can be disputed if more people with my rather rare last name apply) lastname.name So - you can reach me, if I finally finish my migration and stop being a lazy bastard, at firstname@lastname.name - which is rather good imo. Sure, I've got other legacy addresses, but this could be a viable alternative to a gmail _identity_.
- akronim 15y agoActually the domain you own is almost certainly firstname.lastname.name, but the email is setup so firstname@lastname.name works. It's particular to the .name TLD.
- darklajid 15y agoNo, I certainly own (and the convention you talk about is why I'm not sure if it holds up forever) for now the domain mylastname.name. I found a registrar that sold this domain to me, anything you throw at it ends up on one of my machines.
- a_m0d 15y agoThere is also the .me TLD - not sure if it has the same intentions as .name, but it is less used so more widely available. I own my lastname.me domain, and so I can (if I ever set it up properly) send mail to firstname@lastname.me, which is slightly shorter but works just as well.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- sjs 15y ago.com is a ghetto, move on.
- spiffytech 15y agoPicking another TLD is tempting, but I find it confuses people, even tech-savvy people. Maybe not if you have something kinda common like a .tv, but take what I did: My username, across the Internet, is spiffytech. I registered http://spiffyte.ch http://spiffyte.ch. It's fun and a little clever, but since most people haven't heard of .ch domains I'm constantly saying "w-w-w dot spiffy t-e dot c-h. No, not .com. No, put the dot between the 'e' and the 'c'. Spiffytech. Like my username.". Even to tech-savvy friends. Sure, maybe that's an artifact of my particular domain, but I'd much prefer if I could get the .com and just tell people spiffytech.com and avoid the confusion.
- pwaring 15y agoI have a short domain (xk7.net), doesn't cause any problems over the phone (occasionally people comment on the fact that I have my own domain/mail) and doesn't sound immature. Although I was once told 'sorry, you must use a Hotmail, Yahoo! or Gmail address'...
- hackermom 15y agoThis is only true depending on how seasoned a netizen someone is. True story: I have a friend of mine whom I once verbally communicated a (now long-gone) gmail address to, with Swedish pronounciation. The result was him smirking a bit, and some time later asking me if I got the pictures he sent to my "gaymail.com address". This could just as well have ended up being "geemail.com" or "yeemail.com" had I gone with English pronounciation. He just didn't know what google or gmail was. He doesn't use the net in the same ways we do. But let's be realistic... it's not like the world of internet users suffered from a supposed problem with miscommunicated email addresses before "geemail.com" came around. We managed just fine.