I actually created an email alias for myself that looks like 5553423123@hotmail.com (555-... is my real phone number). My logic is: whenever I need to say my email over the phone, it's much less error prone to tell a string of numbers followed by the common domain name than spelling my real (custom) name and domain name.
The phone has more to do in other ways with why digit urls in China than the article mentions. Most Chinese internet users who are visiting websites use their phone, and the 12-key digits pad is a lot easily to type into than the 30-key letters pad. The people who use netbars or home computers in China are playing online games, not visiting websites.
