Hey, Beautiful, What's Your Number?

How Long Until Phone Numbers Are A Historical Relic? | Techdirt. If, as this author opines, phone numbers are anachronistic and bound for the scrap heap, what will happen to pick up lines? While I believe that phone numbers are in some sense irrelevant in an Internet age, they are just as valid an identifier as a web address or email address. I think there will be more consolidation of numbers, just as I now am consolidating on my Google Voice number: 727-537-9235. If you call that number, you will ring several phones, and it is a good bet that I am in range of one of them. Of course, getting a ring tone is a whole different matter from getting me to pick up the phone. Since most of my phones now have caller id, there is a good chance I know who you are before I pick up. And, if you block your number, or have an 800 or 866 prefix, the odds are slim that I will pick up the phone. If you are a sales person, and I answer the phone, I am just doing it because I am bored, and am messing with you. I am really not going to buy anything. So, in an email, Twitter, and Facebook age, maybe phone numbers are on the way out. But, there is still a place for the human voice, and for video calls. It is just one more way to communicate.