| Ari Silversteinn 2005-08-11, 8:46 pm |
| On 27 Jul 2005 20:27:53 -0700, Ben Livengood wrote:
> general purpose is to get some sort of seal of approval for your idea,
> but without any modifications that might change the "business plan"
> side of things. It almost sounds like your job (considering the
> excessive amount of time spent posting on usenet replying to trolls) is
> to simply validate the design with *someone*, who will be represented
> as endorsing the product. Probably the endorsement won't even be
> public, and thus unverifiable. If I sound cynical and got it all wrong,
> I apologize in advance.
The idea was to create discussion of barcoded email and the reasons are
many, some of which have been served including finding interested parties
to pursue this technology, to see what new ideas come about, to learn
myself, you get the idea. As to seal of approval, no, this was an internal
decision to pursue barcoded email and the only seal I needed was the one
that the boss gave me 
> Of course, it's possible that you really believe barcodes are the most
> effective way to get people to send email.
Actually, I don't but taking the bus downtown isn't as efficient ( time
wise) as taking a helicopter but some people like busses.
> Did you consider that the
> general perception of barcodes is that they are annoying,
> big-brotherish, time consuming, "technical", and generally related to
> buying something or getting something with a big label from FedEx/UPS?
Sure and the flip side is that they are data storage devices that
"mysteriously" can be read to produce useful data in our everyday lives,
such as the checkout at any retail establishment. We all have very
positive, daily experiences of barcodes.
> Who is actually going to want to change their words into a form that
> the recipient will not even recognize as an email? The whole point of
> secrecy is lost if every email bar code sent is accompanied by detailed
> instructions for finding your software and decoding it.
Who? People who think it is "neat" people who like to be different, people
who don;t want their email messages read over their shoulder when they pop
up on the screen.....Detailed instructions like "Download The viewer at
www.xxx.com" or if the recipient has the program and it automatically
decodes? Nothing difficult there.
> You will not have the luxery of becoming well known fast enough for
> your method to become common knowledge, and if you did you would fall
> prey to the fact that every 10 through 15 year old on the planet would
> be IMing his or her friends about how to spy on their parent's and
> teacher's email.
Being well known has little to do with it, niche markets thrive in relative
anonymity such as Cotse.
>Essentially, you are looking for a niche that just
> isn't there. The "just smart enough to know they need to send secret
> email to someone else who is just smart enough to know about your
> product at the same time" niche doesn't exist and never will.
We would differ on that.
> Perhaps something you should suggest to your VCs or higher-ups is to
> trademark some symbol that you can use to represent email security, and
> then heavily market that symbol in connection with some truly secure
> products. People don't know what they need until you tell them,
That's how some niches are born.
> isn't
> that pretty much the marketers creed? I think people would be slightly
> more convinced by a pretty logo and a guarantee than they would be by a
> barcode that looks like a FedEx mailing label.
Some, like you, it turns them off, others, many others we have run this by
think it's rather unique and special. There are billions of people and
zillions of tastes out there.
> Most likely they'll ask
> "What's the point? The email already knows who it's supposed to go it,
> so no one else can read it anyway!" If they're any smarter than that,
> they'll realize that a barcode is just a silly way of encoding an
> email.
Asked and answered.
> Everyone knows coded things are supposed to look all Matrixy and
> random with funny characters. In fact, I bet some random characters in
> the green matrix font would make a fine logo for whatever software you
> eventually try to market. With a big shiny thing in front of them, of
> course.
That's a rather excellent idea in fact!
> In fact, you could probably just ROT13 people's email and they'd be
> none the wiser. They'd see those funny random letters everywhere and
> know that they were secure. You'd save a lot on R&D and wouldn't have
> to deal with usenet trolls.
>
> Ben
The R&D is done, this is off shelf tech, Usenet trolls are part of the
kiddie baggage of Usenet and can be useful if properly prodded and diapers
changed, and I would not agree about ROT13.
--
Drop the alphabet for email
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