Startup idea: short, paid email • Hacker News Board

Re: Startup idea: short, paid email

#51

Post by soulashell » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 4:10 AM UTC

nollidge wrote: post #47

diego wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I wonder why it hasn't taken off. Perhaps lack of word of mouth, or the fact that it's lacking the "paid" component. I would feel bad about telling people to email me at shortmail.com, but a VC who receives tons of unsolicited pitches wouldn't. Some would love charging a fee to get pitched over email. If it takes 30 seconds and they pay you 20 bucks, why not.

Probably because that landing page doesn't tell me much about how it works. It's "limited to 500 characters"... for the sender? What happens if it's more than 500 characters or has an attachment? Or wait, is this a walled garden thing? I can't tell. So I check the "Why shortmail" page (which 99% of visitors will not do), and I'm still not sure what happens if incoming e-mails are longer than 500 chars.

The sender gets a notification that you only receive messaged shorter than 500 characters, and you have the option to forward larger messaged to another email address.

Re: Startup idea: short, paid email

#52

Post by shalintj » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 4:50 AM UTC

Hi Diego... Yes, heavy inflow of emails is a great problem to solve... Also because this problem gives birth to another bigger problem - the problem of managing email inboxes effectively and locating and retrieving information from email. Though a raw thought and suggested by the likes of Michael Arrington and many other known Silicon Valley faces, I don't think charging senders for emails will ever gonna work. I wrote a pretty long post on the same last month when I started out to work on MetisMe... http://j.mp/problemwithemail

Re: Startup idea: short, paid email

#53

Post by mikle » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 10:59 AM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #15

mikle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he means you replace your email with this, just have this as a public email. You will still give coworkers or collaborators your regular address and they could send you long code and messages, but strangers wouldn't be able to. And obviously if you are in a position where strangers should send you random unsolicited code or long messages you should just not use this.

The problem is that it's difficult to know if a stranger might send you a long unsolicited email. Perhaps one of your friends meets somebody who might have a job for you and gives out your email address or whatever. The majority of the spam I receive is under 500 chars anyway so it wouldn't really help in that regard.

I think the point is that that stranger should introduce himself first in less then 300 chars and then you can decide whether it is important enough to hear him out fully.

Your last sentence makes me feel like you didn't understand the idea at all - it is not to fight spam, but to help you manage communication with real people that you don't know. The basic example is a VC flooded with long copy pasted pitches instead of a poignant and succinct pitch.

Re: Startup idea: short, paid email

#54

Post by nollidge » Wed, Sep 12, 2012, 6:44 PM UTC

soulashell wrote: post #51

nollidge wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because that landing page doesn't tell me much about how it works. It's "limited to 500 characters"... for the sender? What happens if it's more than 500 characters or has an attachment? Or wait, is this a walled garden thing? I can't tell. So I check the "Why shortmail" page (which 99% of visitors will not do), and I'm still not sure what happens if incoming e-mails are longer than 500 chars.

The sender gets a notification that you only receive messaged shorter than 500 characters, and you have the option to forward larger messaged to another email address.

My point (probably didn't make that clear) is that might be a reason it's not more popular - because it's not really obvious how it's supposed to work.