The first thing I thought of when I read this title was Paul Graham's essay about startup ideas. I'm glad the title succeeded in that sense, as it's relevant to this article.
More to the point, I like this idea. I like that it focuses on the perspective of those who send you emails. I feel that many people trying to solve this idea would look to changing how inboxes handle messages or look to changing the user interface of email systems.
But instead, this solution actually helps reduce email by responding to senders. That's a unique approach. Very out of the box.
But it's true that it's "frighteningly ambitious" to try and tackle this problem on the sender's side. I could see this failing if the majority of senders are the type to simply send off an email and not check for a while, which would ignore the automated message query. However, if a majority of users do pay attention to it, they can edit their email options and hopefully make life easier for the receiver.
Excellent idea. I hope it develops into a full startup.
More to the point, I like this idea. I like that it focuses on the perspective of those who send you emails. I feel that many people trying to solve this idea would look to changing how inboxes handle messages or look to changing the user interface of email systems.
But instead, this solution actually helps reduce email by responding to senders. That's a unique approach. Very out of the box.
But it's true that it's "frighteningly ambitious" to try and tackle this problem on the sender's side. I could see this failing if the majority of senders are the type to simply send off an email and not check for a while, which would ignore the automated message query. However, if a majority of users do pay attention to it, they can edit their email options and hopefully make life easier for the receiver.
Excellent idea. I hope it develops into a full startup.