
Case in point: I thought of spending $60/year to set up a regular phone number in Korea that rings on my Skype, wherever I happen to be located, and on whatever computer I happen to have it turned on for at the moment. A little more for voicemail, in case I’m absent. But what’s the point? My brother over there has Skype, and he’ll just call me free through Skype. So, the only people who would need to use such a phone number are people who must call me on the go (from their cell) or who aren’t necessarily skype-savvy. Clients, in other words. And I don’t want clients reaching me instantly. And neither do you – it’s pretty hard to multi-task (to get much real work done) if someone always wants virtual face-time on demand. Customer service lines are overrated – they mostly give you feel-good buddies, at a premium cost. I have most business lines set to go straight to voicemail and e-mail me the wav file.

This whole phone number system is predicated on the land-line model, which is more or less predicated on a postal address model. It’s like that company that’s trying to virtualize mail by assigning an e-address that exactly matches the physical address of every site in the US. What’s the point of that? They tell you it’s so businesses can sign on w. them and send statements etc. to a virtual address. Sounds like e-mail. You won’t send statements through e-mail, but you’ll send it to some virtualized street address on the internet? I’m still trying to get various banks and utilities to stop sending me their darned paper – so who knows – they’re still in the Jackie Gleason era – they probably dial the operator to ring up a customer.