4 ms·

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

by frisco 18y ago

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 18y ago
so like an email?
- frisco 18y ago
  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 18y ago
    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?
    - frisco 18y ago
      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.
      - timrod 18y ago
        > Email just feels more fragmented. ...which is good. I want to be able to choose who I trust with my ID-related information.
  - jbert 18y ago
    > You don't usually want to give out your email address as a form of general ID, But why is that? Is it because people will abuse it and send you data you don't want (spam)? The same problem applies to twitter ids, except that not many people are spamming yet (I assume). I guess there's also a single-point to detect spammers, which might make detection easier, but I'd be surprised if that was enough to control the problem.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
dawson 18y ago
I agree with you 100% and use @dawson on almost all communications, the fact it's now recognised as a Twitter handle by the majority just shows how far the service has come.

by frisco 18y ago

ashot 18y ago

so like an email?

frisco 18y ago
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 18y ago
  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?
  - frisco 18y ago
    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.
    - timrod 18y ago
      > Email just feels more fragmented. ...which is good. I want to be able to choose who I trust with my ID-related information.
- jbert 18y ago
  > You don't usually want to give out your email address as a form of general ID, But why is that? Is it because people will abuse it and send you data you don't want (spam)? The same problem applies to twitter ids, except that not many people are spamming yet (I assume). I guess there's also a single-point to detect spammers, which might make detection easier, but I'd be surprised if that was enough to control the problem.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]

dawson 18y ago

I agree with you 100% and use @dawson on almost all communications, the fact it's now recognised as a Twitter handle by the majority just shows how far the service has come.