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I dont know if you're joking or not. But how is that going to generate revenue? I mean the site is cool and useful and all. But its just anoth http://mailinator

I dont know if you're joking or not. But how is that going to generate revenue? I mean the site is cool and useful and all. But its just anoth http://mailinator.com/ http://mailinator.com/ clone.

Kilimanjaro 16y ago
Yes it is a mailinator clone. I hope to provide a better service with more features like auto-forward, private inboxes and stuff like that. Ad revenue. Mailinator claims they get a million emails a day, that's a lot of money in ad revenue. My goal is to dethrone mailinator as the de facto temp email provider.
- pclark 16y ago
  aren't all those million emails almost by definition value-less? its the lowest value emails to send.
  - Kilimanjaro 16y ago
    Yes and no. It all depends on how many are spam and how many are welcome emails with registration info. People register in websites and go check their confirmation links. Then forget about it. Out of that, one percent of welcome emails means 10K real visits daily, and that is good enough for a steady ad revenue flow.
    - cullenking 16y ago
      If only 10% signup, then 10% of that purchase....These are dangerous ways to make a business, though we all do them while daydreaming...
- ams6110 16y ago
  most of those emails are probably never viewed... but I wish you luck regardless.
- zinxq 16y ago
  Paul from Mailinator here. We get, on average 15million emails a day with peaks much higher. Definitely don't confuse that with ad revenue. No one ever ever said we get millions of users a day. Alexa or Quantcast can show you real user traffic - please consider ad revenue to be more realistically based off those numbers. Simply emails. Pure spam. Once a user signs you up - you're getting spam for them - forever. If you think of a dead-simple feature Mailinator doesn't have - its because we've probably tried it and backed it out from abuse. With no exaggeration, we get one or more subpoena inquiries or subpoenas a month. On top of that, we have more code in anti-abuse systems than features. A sad reality but otherwise we'd be long gone. Despite claims of Mailinator being often banned, we go a long way to prevent people from using a feature like forwarding to automatically do an internet vote thousands of times. While that would be fun, we'd be banned in short order and that helps no one. The most interesting point to me is that you need very strong infrastructure, servers and bandwidth to handle the load if you become popular. In other words, there are many many Mailinator copycats and historically, once a copycat reaches a certain level of popularity, the owners need to make a decision. Paying for all that isn't easy. As far as I know - this is exactly what happened to the now defunct disposable email sites Pookmail, 2prong, and dodgeit. Death by popularity without revenue.
  - Kilimanjaro 16y ago
    Hi Paul, thanks for your insight. Wise words I'll always remember when facing adversity. This project is just to get a couple of bucks a month, nothing else. Running on top of google infrastructure I'll try to see how much it can handle without breaking apart, I'll be reporting on any scaling issues. This will be a great learning experience for sure.
    - haploid 16y ago
      "My goal is to dethrone mailinator as the de facto temp email provider." "This project is just to get a couple of bucks a month, nothing else." Which is it ?
      - chad_oliver 16y ago
run4yourlives 16y ago
And Pepsi is just a coke clone...
- schindyguy 16y ago
  if pepsi could have bought coke's recipe for $99, that analogy would make sense: http://www.alstrasoft.com/disposable-email-script.htm http://www.alstrasoft.com/disposable-email-script.htm
  - run4yourlives 16y ago
    You're missing the point: Business ideas do not need to be either unique or non-trivial to succeed when the goal is so small; he's not building an empire here.

I dont know if you're joking or not. But how is that going to generate revenue? I mean the site is cool and useful and all. But its just anoth http://mailinator.com/ http://mailinator.com/ clone.

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

Yes it is a mailinator clone. I hope to provide a better service with more features like auto-forward, private inboxes and stuff like that. Ad revenue. Mailinator claims they get a million emails a day, that's a lot of money in ad revenue. My goal is to dethrone mailinator as the de facto temp email provider.

pclark 16y ago
aren't all those million emails almost by definition value-less? its the lowest value emails to send.
- Kilimanjaro 16y ago
  Yes and no. It all depends on how many are spam and how many are welcome emails with registration info. People register in websites and go check their confirmation links. Then forget about it. Out of that, one percent of welcome emails means 10K real visits daily, and that is good enough for a steady ad revenue flow.
  - cullenking 16y ago
    If only 10% signup, then 10% of that purchase....These are dangerous ways to make a business, though we all do them while daydreaming...
ams6110 16y ago
most of those emails are probably never viewed... but I wish you luck regardless.
zinxq 16y ago
Paul from Mailinator here. We get, on average 15million emails a day with peaks much higher. Definitely don't confuse that with ad revenue. No one ever ever said we get millions of users a day. Alexa or Quantcast can show you real user traffic - please consider ad revenue to be more realistically based off those numbers. Simply emails. Pure spam. Once a user signs you up - you're getting spam for them - forever. If you think of a dead-simple feature Mailinator doesn't have - its because we've probably tried it and backed it out from abuse. With no exaggeration, we get one or more subpoena inquiries or subpoenas a month. On top of that, we have more code in anti-abuse systems than features. A sad reality but otherwise we'd be long gone. Despite claims of Mailinator being often banned, we go a long way to prevent people from using a feature like forwarding to automatically do an internet vote thousands of times. While that would be fun, we'd be banned in short order and that helps no one. The most interesting point to me is that you need very strong infrastructure, servers and bandwidth to handle the load if you become popular. In other words, there are many many Mailinator copycats and historically, once a copycat reaches a certain level of popularity, the owners need to make a decision. Paying for all that isn't easy. As far as I know - this is exactly what happened to the now defunct disposable email sites Pookmail, 2prong, and dodgeit. Death by popularity without revenue.
- Kilimanjaro 16y ago
  Hi Paul, thanks for your insight. Wise words I'll always remember when facing adversity. This project is just to get a couple of bucks a month, nothing else. Running on top of google infrastructure I'll try to see how much it can handle without breaking apart, I'll be reporting on any scaling issues. This will be a great learning experience for sure.
  - haploid 16y ago
    "My goal is to dethrone mailinator as the de facto temp email provider." "This project is just to get a couple of bucks a month, nothing else." Which is it ?
    - chad_oliver 16y ago

run4yourlives 16y ago

And Pepsi is just a coke clone...

schindyguy 16y ago
if pepsi could have bought coke's recipe for $99, that analogy would make sense: http://www.alstrasoft.com/disposable-email-script.htm http://www.alstrasoft.com/disposable-email-script.htm
- run4yourlives 16y ago
  You're missing the point: Business ideas do not need to be either unique or non-trivial to succeed when the goal is so small; he's not building an empire here.