Re: Square's new payee identifier: cashtags

I agree, I don't think it is a good replacement for the @ symbol but I
thought it would make for an interesting discussion.

If the email-style identifier is too burdened with history perhaps the only
answer is a completely new format.

I think forcing users to have something like a protocol prefix is ugly
which is partly why I think URL's are not great.
As you say, the email-style format works partly because the '@' symbol says
what it means a 'user' at a 'domain'.

I guess one could argue other prepositions could be replacements like "in"
or "from" and we could then adopt a symbol that implies that relation.
Could adrian<hopebailie.com be pronounced "adrian from hopebailie.com"?

On 26 March 2015 at 15:34, Erik Ros <mail@erikros.me> wrote:

>  adrian->hopebailie.com
> adrian>hopebailie.com
> adrian-hopebailie.com
> adrian@hopebaillie.com
> hopebaillie.com/+adrian
>
> The $ sign is a sub - delimiter according to what I've been reading about
> the URI specs..
> (the characters I used above are either reserved characters or considered
> unsave).
>
> The @ symbol works so well because people say: 'at' when they see it. I
> think that is, in the end, why it is a winner. How are the other ones
> pronounceable? (not a rhetorical question)
>
>
>
>
> On 26-03-15 12:56, Adrian Hope-Bailie wrote:
>
> "cashtags" have been used on Twitter for some time to denote stock ticker
> symbols.
> Example: $MSFT for Microsoft.
>
>  Now Square have adopted the concept for their p2p payments platform
> cash.me
> https://cash.me/
>
>  They are, very cleverly, telling users to:
>
>    1. "claim their cashtag" (Example: https://cash.me/$wikipedia)
>     2. tell other people to "cash me with my cashtag"
>
> So they are promoting a whole new vocabulary which may never take on but
> what might is the idea of a payee identifier in the form of a "cashtag".
>
>  In the same way that the identifier @ahopebailie is normally understood
> to mean https://twitter.com/ahopebailie I assume they are hoping the
> world starts to associate $wikipedia with https://cash.me/$wikipedia
>
>  i.e. Here's another namespace specific identifier (tied to cash.me) that
> has potentially taken ownership of the symbol "$" as a prefix which implies
> a namespace.
>
>  It does make me think that an identifier like adrian$hopebailie.com
> could be a cool standard though and would imply that my IdP is at
> hopebailie.com and my identity key is "adrian".
>
>  Would this solve the endless debate around using email style addresses?
> I doubt it
>
>
> --
> =========================
> --  Erik Ros           --
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> --  mail@erikros.me    --
> --  http://erikros.me  --
> --  @erikros_me        --
> --  +ErikRos_ejfrme    --
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>
>