Web Concepts

Posts Tagged ‘email’

A spokesman for the federal Opposition (the minority coalition under Australia’s parliamentary system) said the “electronic pigeon hole” would serve as a lifelong mailbox and storage service for communications between each citizen and the government.

Australians would likely get an account name using their names and dates of birth, hosted on the government’s Australia.gov.au domain, according to ComputerWorld Australia. Much like online bank statement setups in the U.S., the account would be free to anyone who wanted it, as long as the user agreed to stop receiving paper mail.

The government could save plenty of money by reducing paper, according to Malcolm Turnbull, a spokesman for the federal Opposition coalition. He made the comments as part of a larger discussion about Internet connectivity in the country.

Australia is one of a handful of nations debating major mail changes. In Sweden and Denmark, postage stamps are being replaced by text-message codes, and in Finland, officials are taking the dramatic step of opening and digitizing all paper mail (for people who opt-in). But these programs don’t address how the bureaucracy would continue to connect with the citizenry in the absence of mail carriers. Australia aims to keep those connections, and eliminate worries about fickle email users who change their addresses, by establishing a national system.

A federally hosted inbox would be problematic for poor populations or people living in rural areas without good broadband access, as ComputerWorld points out. But the government could conceivably address that by subsidizing broadband build-out and ensuring physical delivery remains an option for those people.

There are plenty of questions to be answered here, not the least of which is how to maintain privacy when all you'd need is someone's name and date of birth to access his or her mail. It's also based on the assumption that people would actively check their federal inboxes — yet another password to remember — when receiving physical mail is a much more passive activity. But it's an interesting idea, and one potentially worth considering as our own postal service struggles under a massive shortfall — the USPS stands to lose $7 billion this year. A few servers and some firewalls would conceivably be a lot less expensive.

[ComputerWorld]

And debate whether it even has a future at all

The PostalVision 2020 conference will highlight how social networks and electronic communications continue to reshape the role of mail. Participants include Vint Cerf, Google’s “chief Internet evangelist,” and Jeff Jarvis, a blogger and journalism educator who has asked whether the Postal Service is even necessary anymore. Plenty of postal advocates will also be on hand, including members of a panel who have suggested post offices start selling gift cards and other retail items.

The goal is to discuss how snail mail might be saved, through dramatic structural changes or methods like privatization.

The USPS is on track to lose about $7 billion during the current fiscal year, the Washington Post reports. With that hemorrhaging unlikely to stop anytime soon, it’s unlikely any investors would want to buy it.

John Callan, a mailing industry consultant who is organizing the meeting, told the Washington Post that the USPS is already working to address its current problems, but outsiders might have some useful ideas for its long-term future.

The meeting will also review what foreign postal services are doing — like forgoing stamps for digital codes sent via text, and scanning all mail into PDFs for digital delivery.

Eventually, postal services may be more useful for a much broader purpose than delivering coupons and J. Crew catalogs. The mail’s unparalleled ability to reach everyone, everywhere could be useful for a host of services — delivering drugs in case of a disease outbreak or bioterrorism, for instance. Or monitoring air quality and traffic in neighborhoods. Or playing a role in the delivery and maintenance of nationwide broadband services ... the list goes on. For those reasons, at least, it could be well worth saving.

[Washington Post]

Facebook can’t remind us enough that its new messaging service, announced today, isn’t an email killer. Instead, it’s an all-encompassing messaging system that works across Facebook chat, email, and text messages.

Now that we’ve seen the product, it’s clearly not the threat to email we previously thought. But the new messaging service could pose a problem for the hot mobile chat startup Kik, which we’ve covered extensively.

I’ve fallen head over heels for Kik over the past few weeks because it’s built specifically for mobile chat. I’ve always found standard texting technology to be too slow, and even on the iPhone you can feel the creakiness of the aging SMS protocol. Mobile instant messaging is faster, but relies on steady mobile Internet connections. It’s not unusual for me to lose a Google chat or AIM message because of iPhone reception issues.

Kik sits somewhere in between instant messaging and texting — it’s fast, but not reliant on a steady Internet connection. It’s no surprise that Kik’s creator used to work on RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger, a product that many BlackBerry users have grown addicted to because it’s much better than texting. Kik one-ups BlackBerry Messenger by being available on multiple platforms — including the iPhone and Android. (RIM just blocked the service on BlackBerry. Threatened much?)

The service has quickly become my preferred mobile chat method. And with 2.25 million registered users a couple of weeks after launch, it’s clear that Kik is taking off. But after Facebook’s new messaging announcement today, I’m now beginning to wonder if Kik’s days are numbered — or at the very least, if its growth will plateau.

Facebook’s revamped messaging interface lets us carry a conversation from multiple computers, to our phones, seamlessly. The company is betting that convenience will be compelling to its users — which is why Facebook is working so hard to make sure it integrates with existing modes of communication like email and texting. It won’t replace any other communication methods yet, but Facebook is definitely training its users to rely on its messaging service for all of their communication needs.

Facebook’s new messaging service will offer the same sort of instant mobile chat as Kik, but users will also have the option to receive texts or emails if they prefer. Facebook is aiming to get rid of the “BRB” (be right back) message we’ve grown used to leaving when we exit an IM conversation. Now we’ll never have to leave the conversation.

Kik doesn’t offer any sort of desktop component yet, and it also doesn’t integrate with email. It’s purely dedicated to mobile chat. While I still adore Kik for what it offers, the company will certainly need to add more compelling features if it wants to fight off Facebook’s new messaging play.

Tags: AIM, Blackberry, BlackBerry Messenger, chat, email, IM, mobile chat, sms, texting

Companies: Facebook, Kik

The newly launched Twezr iPhone app (free on the App Store) has an ambitious goal: To combine all of your communication with friends and close contacts, including email, Facebook and Twitter, in a single iPhone application.

But, as is usually the case when you try to juggle functionality for so many services, Twezr ends up not handling any of them particularly well.

Setting up Twezr is simple: Install the app on your iPhone or iPod Touch, then configure it with your email, Twitter and Facebook accounts. It will then take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes for the app to combine your contacts data. Once you’re past the setup process, the app presents you with a combined list of contacts across all of your services, and after a few minutes you’ll see updates from all of your connected social networks and email accounts.

Or at least, you should. After setting up the app and waiting more than 30 minutes, Twezr still failed to show any email or social network messages for me — even as I was receiving emails. I’ll chalk this error up to launch day woes. Still, Twezr should consider displaying the most recent messages users have received upon sign up, instead of forcing them to wait for new ones. This will allow users to jump right into using the app, instead of being forced to take a coffee break.

Eventually, I started to receive updates on Twezr, and the app worked as promised. I was able to see Twitter, Facebook, and email messages in a single feed, and Twezr even offers basic functionality for those services — like being able to post on a friend’s Facebook wall, or send a direct message on Twitter. It’s certainly no match for dedicated Twitter clients, or the Facebook iPhone app, but for users who don’t want to juggle multiple apps it may offer some relief.

Twezr also offers some nice features when it comes to contact management. The app combines your friends’ social network and email presence in a single contact, and it can even intelligently combine duplicate contacts from your address book. It will also recognize and prioritize the contacts you chat with the most.

There’s definitely room for improvement with Twezr, but I could see how some people who feel overloaded with multiple social networking apps may find it useful. After a few updates, Twezr has the potential to become the single place you go to deal with email and social networking.

Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., Twezr has 7 employees and is self-funded.

Check out a video interview below by tech personality Robert Scoble with Twezr CEO Dilep Andra:

Tags: apps, email, gmail, social networking

Companies: Facebook, Twezr, Twitter

Is online delivery a viable future for inconvenient old paper mail?

In the program, the volunteers will have images of all their letters viewable on a computer or phone, and then optionally physically delivered later on. The postman will still arrive twice a week to deliver the scanned letters, as well as any packages. Additionally, the postal service will filter out junk mail for the volunteers, essentially adding a spam filter to physical mail.

Itella, the state-owned company that operates Finland's postal service, has vowed that employees will not read the letters, that all sorting and opening will occur in specially secured facilities, and that employees will sign strict confidentiality agreements. 126 families and 20 businesses have already signed up for the service, which will begin on April 12th.

Itella stresses this program is only an experiment designed to discover what types of snail-mail the Finnish people feel comfortable receiving in this fashion. However, despite the small size, experimental nature, and high security of the program, some Finish citizens have already begun drawing comparisons between Itella and Communist-regime security services.

A similar service, Earth Class Mail, already operates commercially in the US, and claims to serve tens of thousands of users. Whether Itella can replicate Earth Class Mail's success remains to be seen. But given the high level of technical savvy amongst the Finnish population, as well that citizenry's more robust trust in the responsibility of their government, Itella's scanning program may very well be the future of mail.

[Samaa]