For late joiners THREAD SUMMARY We need a way to identify people across a federated microblogging / messaging platform (e.g across Twitter, Identica, etc.) @name convention is too limiting - only works in a single platform / truncates messages in SMS Why not use aliases? They are user friendly and assignable by the user Aliases doesn't take care of new people trying to send you messages @name convention is not the limitation, SMS protocol is (140 characters) Well what about tracking people across a federated environment? Can't do that with aliases! <insert tangential conversations about using icons + attempt to bring conversation back to original question> SMS number could be used but painful for users to memorize; also given expense of assigning SMS number for every userID - not viable No - the real problem is being able to do replies to the correct thread. It would be nice to have the something user friendly [EMAIL PROTECTED] is a good way to identify people @[EMAIL PROTECTED] is ugly Can you use SMS headers to identify replies? No. Okay, thanks! @name convention doesn't belong to Twitter, but they started using it so we're stuck with it (are we?) SMS limit is 160 characters in Latin SMS messages can actually be up to 800 characters and broken across 5 messages SMS limit is 140 for all practical purposes unless everyone wants to speak in latin There is an SMS gateway that can assign an SMS per JID - not a technology limitation Use [EMAIL PROTECTED] under the covers to identify and let the local service handle translations to aliases, shorter names, etc.
Did I miss anything? Aren't email threads great?
