What is the monetary value and future of the Nxt alias system? (by: utopianfuture)

source: https://nextcoin.org/index.php/topic,1411.msg11874.html#msg11874

Nxt alias system allows one piece of text to be substituted for another, so that keywords or keyphrases
can be used to represent other things – names, telephone numbers, physical addresses, web sites, account numbers, email addresses, product SKU codes... almost anything you can think of. (quote Nxt Wiki)

To me Nxt alias system can be used in a number of ways

Firstly, it could be used to name your account. So when a person want to send you Nxt, you may not need to tell him your full account number, you just need to let him know your cool alias for that account
This feature can be incorporated into the Nxt soft client when we have a full feature Nxt client.
Furthermore when the Nxt messaging system being implemented, you can send secure arbitrary text directly to other aliases.

Secondly, potentially more interesting use is that the Nxt alias system can act as a gateway to the Internet.
In the future instead of typing www.google.com into the browser, you can type nxt:google and it could lead you to the google search engine if the owner of google alias decides to point the destination of google alias to
google homepage. Being a gateway to Internet could bring a lot of value to the Nxt alias system.
Here are five 5 ways a Nxt alias can have a monetary value I can think of:

1. Nxt alias could be an easy gateway to a more obscure website in Internet. Good domain names in Internet
aren't cheap. If you want to own insure.com, it would cost you 16 millions. There are more than 50 domain names that cost more than 1 millions dollar and if you want a just decent domain for your business, expect to spend at least several thousand on it. Now you could have a very nice Nxt alias for 1 Nxt such as BeefJerky.
This Nxt alias could lead directly to your thebestbeefjerkyintheword.com. Furthermore, Nxt users searching
for beef jerky would be more likely to search and stumble upon your alias and going to your beefjerky website.

2. Nxt alias could have a value since you own the right to produce information for that particular alias.
For example, if you own the alias ObamaCare. You could auction that alias and there are at least two group
of people: supporters and distractors of ObamaCare who want to control that alias so they can produce different type of information for the destination of alias ObamaCare. Similarly if you own google alias, there is a non-zero chance google would like to buy that alias from you in the future because google don't want people to see all kind of bull you can put there when people type nxt:google in the browser.

3.  I believe nxt alias could have collectible value. People do hunting, trading for exotic stamp, baseball cards, magic gathering etc. Wouldn't it be nice to have an Batman alias ? I think so. I think people
would pay to have a nice and desirable aliases perhaps for a bragging right or for speculation. And again you control the right to put information into the alias, so the collectible value is definitely there.

4.  alias could be used to express personal identity or personal business. As to be used in naming your account or to point it to your personal picture, telephone. Some some simple aliases such as SweetJenny could have a value as such. Perhaps, it would not be 10000$ alias, but there is a value there.

5. a small case can be made to incorporate Nxt payment into some aliases. For example if you own
the alias Amazon, you can create a payment system so that if users who want to shop at Amazon and pay in Nxt could go to your nxt:amazon and do that. Similarly for ebay, target etc.,

So I definitely think Nxt alias system is very interesting feature and Nxt alias market will be booming
when the alias transfer function is implemented. At this time you cannot do much with your Nxt aliases. You can't really go to your browser typing nxt:news and expect to see something. It will come gradually. At first the alias destination will be accessed via Nxt client. Then plugins for popular browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer will be introduced so that you can type nxt:news directly there. At the last step, when Nxt network become popular. These browser could incorporate these plugins natively so even the least tech savvy person can still access Nxt alias system. At this point an nice Nxt alias could fetch a huge value. I would expect some of the most expensive ones reaching the range of 10000$.