That's a phone book! We've solved the problem already.

DNS is an automated phonebook, yes. I type a name, it figures out the number, 'dials' it for me, lets the network route my 'call' and poof I connect.

It's all about the automation.

Yes, but DNS also assumes there is exactly one match for a given text string.

In RL, there are a lot of "John Smiths", and it would be non-trivial for a system to figure out which one you wanted to call without some serious hinting (like access to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, G+, etc. accounts), and it might even have to access a private list of names/numbers to figure out that you probably want the John Smith who works with Alice Bell (an entry in your phonebook)...

We made it work for emails. And guessing an email of someone (which is hard to do) something that stopped us to adopt emails.

if its someone you have him in your friendcircle->app

I believe we need a proper open identity system in general but this could be a start.

The solution wont be facebook.com/nickname nor vox.io/nickname

It will be providerOrContextOrWorkplaces.com/name maybe

I trust a verbal number exchange far more than a verbal email/id exchange.

why?

How do you spell that no wait did you say M is that upper or lower case how do I type an underscore into this thing oh the word underscore was that .net or .biz too late I typed .com automatically.

The places I've seen that give automatic email addresses have used a formula like first initial, last name, autoincrementing number. I think this is a pretty good system, but if you go worldwide you're going to get nice big numbers - entering name and number almost exactly like you do already. But if you misspell something based on a verbal communication it breaks harder.

realy [email protected] is unique looking up some one by name in a countrys phone book is not!

How may John Smith's are there in your country ?

Why not use the same system any web service in existence already uses - nicknames? Any text string is still easier to remember than an arbitrary number.

I've been using the nick 'brk' for maybe 20 years, but I still frequently come across random places where it has already been taken.

So, you'd need a nick registry, like domain names, and you'd run into issues with your friends that have "common" nicks having to register and use a different name. I think this merely trades one well-known set of limitations for a much different and less understood set of limitations without actually truly solving anything.

How is that any simpler or faster than typing a number? One of the things I still miss to this day when switching to an iPhone was how quickly I could make a call on my old Motorola. I didn't even need to look at the phone. I've since switched to an Android device with a physical keyboard, and that's made typing a lot easier. But I really wouldn't want to have to type in some fully qualified name every time I wanted to make a call.

I guess you'd work around that by having a local address book on the phone, but now I've barely gained anything from that, given I already have a local address book on my phone.

Spot on! This is exactly my problem with this.

I have a Nokia 6303. I press a couple of buttons and I'm calling the person I want. It's so unbelievably solved.

I have a Nokia E65. I press one button and say the person's name, and the call is made.

Buttons? Bah ;)

My 6303 does that but I look like an idiot doing it ;-)

An etc/host file is easy to use when you got it set up. Thrn its just a few clicks.

Thw fundamental problem is the same Numbers are a techincal layer i as a user dont zo know about

An /etc/hosts file is something you set up locally. How is that different than an address book then? I feel like I must be missing something.