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Show HN: Shortwhale – Get fewer, shorter, and better emails

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Show HN: Shortwhale – Get fewer, shorter, and better emails

#1

Post by dominikgro »

Dan Ariely and I are looking for ways to help people with high email load. One idea was Shortwhale, which we've tested for a few months now. The idea is super simple: It's a place to tell people how you prefer email and it offers a simple contact form that adds the necessary structure to email. Although technically trivial, it works extremely well for Dan. We have ideas on how to expand this but first we'd like to know if someone else might find this useful too (we know that this is only a solution for people who get tons of (unsolicited) email).

Underlying to all of this is the idea to put more demands on the sender (there are things to pick from a drop-down and people can create multiple-choice emails, which allows the receiver to answer with one click). However, what we found is that it can also make it easier for people to write Dan because it actually removes some demands from them: they know that he doesn't expect any formalities and the structure helps them too. And, above all, senders are more likely to get a response (and quicker).

Please have a look:

http://shortwhale.com

As an example, here's Dan's Shortwhale page (he links to it from his website and in his email signature):

http://shortwhale.com/danariely

HN, we'd love to hear what you think.

Many thanks, Dan Ariely and Dominik Grolimund

PS: If you're interested, Lifehacker published an interview with Dan where he talks about "how he works": lifehacker.com/im-dan-ariely-author-and-professor-and-this-is-how-i-1615748781

Re: Show HN: Shortwhale – Get fewer, shorter, and better emails

#4

Post by lnanek2 »

Looked through the web site and form and whatnot. I don't think people would go through an extra form to contact me, but I can see how it could be useful for people of note like that.

When I clicked in I was expecting this to be some sort of email filter that rewrote emails to be shorter (either by humans or by new summarizing algorithms) or a human virtual assistant to help follow some more complex rules than filters allow to help pare down inboxes. Seems like those would have a broader market.

Re: Show HN: Shortwhale – Get fewer, shorter, and better emails

#5

Post by api_or_ipa »

Your biggest challenge will be with users. Just imagine if you tell someone "Just email me using shortwhale.com/danariely". My mom and most non-hn friends would enter that in the "To:" section of their email client.

Users are stupid, and email is unfortunately an overdeveloped idea from an age long past. Attempts to replace it invariably face resistance from the multitudes of users who wouldn't react well with change.

I like the idea and recognize the need for a service like this, however.

Re: Show HN: Shortwhale – Get fewer, shorter, and better emails

#6

Post by dominikgro »

api_or_ipa wrote: post #5

Your biggest challenge will be with users. Just imagine if you tell someone "Just email me using shortwhale.com/danariely". My mom and most non-hn friends would enter that in the "To:" section of their email client. Users are stupid, and email is unfortunately an overdeveloped idea from an age long past. Attempts to replace it invariably face resistance from the multitudes of users who wouldn't react well with change…

Thanks for the feedback. Agree, if you say it in a conversation, but it works well for Dan because he links to it from his website: http://danariely.com/about-dan/

Re: Show HN: Shortwhale – Get fewer, shorter, and better emails

#7

Post by dominikgro »

lnanek2 wrote: post #4

Looked through the web site and form and whatnot. I don't think people would go through an extra form to contact me, but I can see how it could be useful for people of note like that. When I clicked in I was expecting this to be some sort of email filter that rewrote emails to be shorter (either by humans or by new summarizing algorithms) or a human virtual assistant to help follow some more complex rules than filter…

Yes, maybe. The main idea was to influence behavior (on the sender's end) somehow. This is along the lines of a lot of Dan's research. It goes a long way to tell people how you prefer email, what topics you're interested in, etc.

Re: Show HN: Shortwhale – Get fewer, shorter, and better emails

#8

Post by jasonshen »

I love this idea and the videos where Dan agrees or disagrees with you are hilarious. Email overload is real and I think the form is a fairly unobtrusive way to filter contact.

Edit: It's also up on ProductHunt now: http://www.producthunt.com/posts/shortwhale

Re: Show HN: Shortwhale – Get fewer, shorter, and better emails

#10

Post by politician »

dominikgro wrote: post #6
api_or_ipa wrote: post #5

Your biggest challenge will be with users. Just imagine if you tell someone "Just email me using shortwhale.com/danariely". My mom and most non-hn friends would enter that in the "To:" section of their email client. Users are stupid, and email is unfortunately an overdeveloped idea from an age long past. Attempts to replace it invariably face resistance from the multitudes of users who wouldn't react well with change…

Thanks for the feedback. Agree, if you say it in a conversation, but it works well for Dan because he links to it from his website: http://danariely.com/about-dan/

You could easily extend this to support email forwarding.

e.g. danariely@inbound.shortwhale.com -> danariely@gmail.com

Messages sent to the inbound email address receive automatic replies with a link to the site, or for bonus points, an HTML form (for email clients that aren't ancient and terrible).

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