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Cellphones

Sprint Now Offering Vanity Phone Numbers Aliases With **Me Service 85

Posted by samzenpus from the 1-800-annoy-me dept.
MojoKid writes "Sprint has announced a new vanity phone number alias service called **Me. In a nutshell, **Me lets you create a custom name that people can use to call you if they don't have your actual number programmed into their phone. For example, if your name is Jerry, you can use **Jerry as your handle. Or perhaps if your nickname is "Mad Dog", you can opt for **MadDog. Monikers must be at least 5 characters in length but no more than 9, not counting the two stars. The service costs $2.99 per month, but there are no additional usage charges beyond your normal Sprint plan. Currently, **Me will only accept calls from Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, and other Sprint customers, and doesn't accept text messages yet."
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Sprint Now Offering Vanity Phone Numbers Aliases With **Me Service More

Sprint Now Offering Vanity Phone Numbers Aliases With **Me Service

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  • I know the one I want... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Frosty Piss ( 770223 ) * on Monday October 08, 2012 @04:54PM (#41590815)

    I have Verizon (the service which during a recent trip to Travis Air Force Base really sucked big time), I think Iâ(TM)ll ask for âoeFuckMeRawâ.

    • I guess that none of Sprint, Verizon and Slashdot support Unicode.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        No, it's a Slashdot issue.

    • >I have Verizon (the service which during a recent trip to Travis Air Force Base really sucked big time), I think Iâ(TM)ll ask for âoeFuckMeRawâ.

      Did you type this on a phone? What's up with the funky encoding?

  • Anyone else read that as f*** me? (Score:5, Funny)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Monday October 08, 2012 @04:58PM (#41590861)

    >> Some new phone service called **Me

    Anyone else read that as "F*** Me"? Better question - did anyone NOT see that?

  • Want to see the reaction of the HR department looking at **MadDog as a phone number on a job application.

  • As a long time Sprint customer (Score:4, Funny)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Monday October 08, 2012 @05:06PM (#41590941) Homepage Journal

    I can safely say they will fuck this up and by the way it's sure evidence that Sprint is on the ropes and dying a horrible and inevitable death. I can't WAIT to hear about the thousands of requests they 'lost' or flat out denied or better yet, changed to something else w.o. your knowledge.

    Here's my suggestion

    F-U-C-K-S-P-R-I-N-T (382) 577-7468

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebh ( 116526 )

      It's not a Sprint thing; they just happen to be the first carrier offering it to consumers. Check out www.startstar.co.

  • this is ridiculous (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    heres my phone number to call me from your cell phone, and here's my other number for when you want to call me from a landline or send me a text

  • Star-star-me? Asterisk-asterisk-me? Just "me"?

  • Is it innovation to create a half-assed version of centralized single-provider DNS for phones?

    Why do we not have phones in DNS yet?

    • It would make too much sense. The registrar marketing droids hadn't figured out who to bribe to force the change to the DNS standards. Or maybe they're thinking that it will be easier to do with the gradual acceptance of IPV6.

    • Re:Innovation? (Score:4, Funny)

      by drcheap ( 1897540 ) on Monday October 08, 2012 @11:40PM (#41593477) Journal

      Why do we not have phones in DNS yet?

      Because it stands for Domain Name System. Often pronounced "dee niss" by people who think 3 syllables of "dee inn ess" is too many.

      What you are thinking of is a very similar parallel technology, the Phone Number System, or PNS. And I can imagine that "pee inn ess" is too much, so people will pronounce it "pee niss" instead.

  • Star Star Me? (Score:4, Funny)

    by SixArmedJesus ( 513025 ) on Monday October 08, 2012 @05:14PM (#41591035) Homepage

    I think Sprint missed a real opportunity using "star" instead of "pound".

    ##Mom

  • More phone calls from strangers? Yes please! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bill, Shooter of Bul ( 629286 ) on Monday October 08, 2012 @05:15PM (#41591045) Journal

    Let me pay for the oppretunity to be easily reached by any and all marketing companies with scketchy products and willingness to violate the do not call list? Where do I sign up? Can I have two for three times the price? Is sprint really charging enough money for this? Can they possibly sell these lists to such marketing companies that will promise to offer me worthless crap with a robotic message recorded by a non native english speaker, to make up for the low, low price for such awesomeness?

  • LOL... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Soon you will get some really weird "**ME" handlers because all the sane names and acronyms or abbreviations will be taken...

    Whats your handler?

    eekkkbrr1 ...

  • Look out Sprint, for Darl Mcbride's lawyers, whom are likely filing court papers this very minute. He will probably try to sue your pants off for Billieans, for using the two letters "Me" as found in his "Me Inc.".

    Me Inc
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darl_McBride [wikipedia.org]
    http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2010090209355689 [groklaw.net]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Aryden ( 1872756 )
      Or apple shows up with trademark paperwork that was meant for MobileMe and shows their ownership of anything related to **Me
  • Phone numbers are a relic from the early 20th century, when it was incredibly difficult to transmit information in a machine-readable format across wires. 10 digits was about the extent of the "character set" you could use while keeping pulse dialing [wikipedia.org] times relatively short.

    We need a system like DNS which will automatically convert an easier-to-remember text string to your phone number, much like domain names are converted to IP addresses. Smartphone phone books automatically do this to some extent, lin
    • ugh, and I suppose you want SSN's to be like DNS, and invoice numbers to be like DNS too...complete with tinyurl's to shortcut around the very thing you think is great about DNS...

      sometimes numbers are just easier

    • Why "something like DNS" instead of simply DNS itself? Pretending smartphones aren't Internet hosts (or causing them not to be) is just creating another layer of complication and expense over everything.

      Cell providers: just let me buy bytes from you. Maybe it's a "server" in the form of a cellphone receiving a VOIP call. Maybe not. It's not your concern.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by drkim ( 1559875 )

      We need a system like DNS which will automatically convert an easier-to-remember text string to your phone number...

      That's a great idea! Perhaps there could be groups of 3 letters associated with each number so you could have a easy mnemonic for at least the first couple of digits, perhaps representing the local exchange, like:
      MUrray Hill 5-9975 --- would be for 685-9975
      -or-
      BALdwin 6828 --- would be for 225-6828

      That way you wouldn't have to remember so many numbers...

  • Would Louis C.K be able to get "**ck"?

  • Namegrab 2012 Edition (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've already registered 50 common names. I'll sell you the rights to one for $5/mo.
  • I really don't get **ME as being "vanity" numbers...

    as long as phones still use a 0-9#* dialpad for dialing, vanity numbers will be numbers that are easy to remember AND dial, like 111-1111. Having to dial **ME XYZ is hardly an easy thing to dial, particularly if you are doing it by touch (no seeing) and with one hand. And worse, its not your real number, just an alternative alias. Texting, etc still comes under your real number.

    finally, I think speed dialing combined with contact lists pulling up the cal

    • It's not **me xyz, it would just be **xyz in that instance. No, it's really not hard to dial that.

      The whole purpose aside from pure vanity is to ease situations where it is easier to give an alphanumeric name opposed to digits of numbers. Obviously there are going to be situations where this does not really help anything, but people can more easily digest this type of information than numbers. It's not as though it's replacing the old number system.

      The whole concept of "vanity numbers" is not extremely easy

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PRMan ( 959735 )

      Having to dial **ME XYZ

      I think it would just be **XYZ, if I am reading the summary correctly.

  • The service costs $2.99 per month... Currently, **Me will only accept calls from Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, and other Sprint customers, and doesn't accept text messages yet.

    So, it's almost useless and costs just $2.99/mo, PLUS the confusion of explaining to people that they need to dial with ACTUAL letters and not the letters that overlay the numbers that we've been using for decades? SIGN ME UP!

    Seriously, what moron thought this up? When I get someone's number, I dial it ONCE. If I don't create a new contact right away, I press the little '>' next to their number in "recents" and save it later. Usually you can depend on companies to snatch up a few good names in schemes li

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tomhath ( 637240 )
      I suppose people can use their twitter handle. But $36/yr for essentially nothing? The moron isn't the one who thought it up, the moron is the twit who buys it.

  • ick (Score:2)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 )

    Nothing more needs to be said. its stupid.

  • Even more than why anyone would pay for this I wonder why all the tech sites are running this. Slow news day I guess?

  • Other person: **# .....this doesn't work
    Me: that's OK, try my other line STAR STAR STAR STAR
    Other person: **** ...wtf?
    Me: No, press the star button twice, then spell STAR twice. It's like 1111 or 0000 only much easier!
    Other person: Tell you what, why don't you call me instead?
    Me: OK, what's your **ME number?
    Other person: **POUNDSAND
  • I'll take **MeKitten, please.
  • I'm waiting for the first lawsuit by someone famous or some corp for a normal user utilizing a name like **Apple or **Microsoft or **Google.
  • Thanks for providing an effective content that offers complete synchronization between creativity and information. The website meets all the requirements of the readers and is user friendly and answers all queries of the clients.

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