15 ms·

Wholeheartedly agree with the article. I have absolute control of my inbox with filters, labels, and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjec

by jabelk 12y ago

Wholeheartedly agree with the article. I have absolute control of my inbox with filters, labels, and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjects. There is no way a centralized end-to-end service is going to eclipse email for me, unless they radically change their business models. The value proposition is just really bad in all the services I've seen so far. "Oh, you want me to sign up for your service so that I can look at the content you think I should see alongside the ads you're making money off of? And what exactly is in it for me?" Something I would pay for: a rolodex social network. No centralized feed. No useless info. Your profile is 2-3 sentences and your current city (with some sort of maps integration for when you travel, to see who's near you). Two buttons, one to request to view resume, and another to request to view email. That's it. With the idea being, you use the site to enable you to keep up with people. You add people you know or have worked with to your network, and you can easily get their current email and catch up when you're in the same city. Simple, no obnoxious ads, no slimy tactics to increase time on the site. Probably will never come to pass, but I can dream...

spullara 12y ago
That was called Plaxo.
- silverlake 12y ago
  It's still around and does exactly what this thread is asking for. http://plaxo.com http://plaxo.com
verisimilidude 12y ago
I recently gave serious thought to building something similar to a rolodex social network, but eventually poked too many holes in it to follow through. I'd just come back from a conference at which I'd been asked for business cards by lots of people, maybe a hundred. Of all those people, I only really cared to hear back from a few. Though it's nice to have my name out there and be cordial in the industry, I wanted to place some kind of filter on all the vendor spam that inevitably followed. If...I could easily provide "redacted" or "enriched" contact info, maybe via QR on a smartphone screen, for instance, it would be possible to meter who gets which contact info without hurting any future networking opportunities. If any of you can figure out how to make this work, I'd definitely pay for it.
- DanBC 12y ago
  > If any of you can figure out how to make this work, I'd definitely pay for it. You have two versions of your business card. One goes to anyone and has a junk email. The other goes to wanted contacts, and has an email that you pay attention to.
  - verisimilidude 12y ago
    Exactly. For most people, that's probably enough. I couldn't see the business case for creating a whole social network out of the concept. For myself though, I could easily see creating 9 or 10 cards for different situations. It'd be nice to have an easy way to manage all that.
    - joering2 12y ago
      What you need is an "premium" email at a "premium e-mail provider". :) You signed up as Joe Doe and plug your basic info: website url, physical address, your real email address, phone number cell phone, etc. All this can be in multitude quantity, like your email: office job 1, office job 2, personal. All this info is confidential and only seen to you. Then your conference comes in. You click "create addresses" and system is randomly generating your email addresses, like this: joe-doe-349522@email.com joe-doe-153212@email.com joe-doe-145621@email.com joe-doe-675427@email.com Then for each email you can setup few options, like: - forward this email to office job 1 - forward this email to office job 2 - forward this email to my personal email - if someone emails me at this email, send them autoreply with short profile: my homepage url, my pshysical address, my office phone, but no cell phone. - if someone emails me at this email, send them autoreply with my personal cellphone. When forwarding your email you can have optional header, such as extra info you added initially: "this is my Word Expo 2014". Then when 2016 comes in and you receive an email, header tells you the origin of it. You can setup any email to hold on mail and not forward it at all and just notify you once a week/month/once there is X emails awaiting. At any point you can dispose an email or simply set it to auto-expire. Or change its settings for that matter. You have two options when it comes to your presentatione. You can go high tech and print (or request print) of business cards with QR code where each code is your CRF card with different email of course. In this scenario you could have different color of qr code representing different email setup and just memorize: green qr code - potential investors, yellow qr code - potential employees, blue qr code - cute blonde that i think likes me! Or even simplier solution: order yourself a few thousand business cards with your email address like this: "joe-doe_______@email.com" and then just write down the email number after the pre-printed part of your email address that will match particular premium email #. And if someone asks about it, just tell them a perfect excuse: "oh yeah i get so much spam that once a year i have to create a new email for myself". Someone building such a system could call it similar to gmail so your emails look normal, like maybe pmail.com (for "premium" mail) or something like it. I think the problem is that this is very niche market. I am sure for a right solution you would pay even $99 per year, but again it would be hard to market and even harder to make some money long-term off of it :)
SapphireSun 12y ago
Isn't this basically the same as your email contacts list with a free text field?
- jabelk 12y ago
  No, because people have too damn many email addresses. I typically have multiple email addresses at all times, with one constant (my gmail) and the others revolving around my employer, my school, and other affiliations. And which email I give you depends on how I know you (I'll give classmates and potential employers the university one, etc). So even though I might have someone's corporate address, if they change companies, I'm SOL. With this service, I can click your "request email" button, and you tell me the most convenient address to reach you at.
kasey_junk 12y ago
I actually figured out a domain for this idea before I gave up. The problem is I can't figure out how it scales correctly. It ideally would A) have strong network effects B) you would get contact data through your interfaces of choice (iphone, email address book, gmail, android, etc) and would rarely if ever interact with a web gui for the service. It should also have a circles concept so that I can give different people different details. those all seem to rule out the various business models. hope someone smarter than me figures it out.
- simpixelated 12y ago
  subscription?
  - kasey_junk 12y ago
    Limits the network effect dramatically. Best I could come up with was some sort of power user tools or something.
- jlees 12y ago
  You need to find a set of people who are connected and connectors, and who have this kind of problem in spades. Then build in sufficient virality so they all start using it, and as you point out, multi-platform presence. Many folks have tried to replace the business card and failed, but I've seen cards with custom URLs rather than contact details on them; maybe that's one way to go. (QR codes require too much friction.)
lepht 12y ago
Cobook sort of seemed to be going in this direction, but they got acquired by FullContact: https://cobook.co/pete https://cobook.co/pete
jlees 12y ago
This (and sister comments to mine) are super interesting, we're working on this problem space - with a professional focus - and there are a bunch of folks in the consumer side too. Happy to chat to anyone interested in solving this sort of problem.
timjahn 12y ago
"Something I would pay for: a rolodex social network. No centralized feed. No useless info. Your profile is 2-3 sentences and your current city (with some sort of maps integration for when you travel, to see who's near you). Two buttons, one to request to view resume, and another to request to view email. That's it. With the idea being, you use the site to enable you to keep up with people. You add people you know or have worked with to your network, and you can easily get their current email and catch up when you're in the same city. Simple, no obnoxious ads, no slimy tactics to increase time on the site." I really want this too. I need some sort of simple contact rolodex that simply shows who I know, why I know them, and why they're important (where do they work, how do I know them, who are they connected to, etc.). Just a simple UI, something that I would use most of the time simply to search.
- bfung 12y ago
  the UI is a bit off, but doesn't Google+ circles provide this functionality? Or the "Notes" section in the Contacts app on iPhone? Or LinkedIn even? What is missing or wrong with the current social network/address book things?
- lotharbot 12y ago
  "why I know them" is a crucial feature missing from many services (along with "what name or alias I know them under"). I have hundreds of contacts from church, school, work, video games, etc.
  - Pxtl 12y ago
    Sounds like google's circles. The problem is that most folks treat their Gmail account as their "real" account and don't give it out willy-nilly. Also, that the circles thing is one-way - I can use circles to control how I see others, but can't use them to control how they see me.
    - notatoad 12y ago
      which is good. i don't want some guy i met at a work thing once adding himself to my best friends circle.
nslamberth 12y ago
A social network used explicitly for exchanging contact information would fill a perfect niche for me. That idea is fantastic.
drdeadringer 12y ago
> a rolodex social network As someone who recently came across an actual rolodex, with both typed and hand-written notations throughout, this idea sounds like something I'd seriously consider signing up for.
eitally 12y ago
I had high hopes that http://about.me http://about.me would shape up to be this, but ... nope. http://about.me/eitally http://about.me/eitally
- Cederfjard 12y ago
  Why isn't it? Simply too little adoption, or are they doing something wrong?
pwelch 12y ago
Agreed. I actually enjoy email but would really like a great App/SaaS that would be a good rolodex.
krapp 12y ago
Are microformats still a thing? Because business cards as a social network sounds like a great idea.
state 12y ago
We'll build it. Don't worry.
qq66 12y ago
You can use Facebook to accomplish everything you can do with your social network. Make your profile 2-3 sentences and your current city, allow people to request to see email, and just ignore the feed. The advantage of course is that there's about a billion people already on it.
arebop 12y ago
https://code.google.com/p/webfinger/ https://code.google.com/p/webfinger/?
smegel 12y ago
> and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjects I still think RSS trumps email for this...
- jabelk 12y ago
  Agree, but I like having everything in one place. I don't get a lot of email, so that may change, but I have a filter and separate inbox[1] set up for stuff I read, including RSS. [1]http://klinger.io/post/71640845938/dont-drown-in-email-how-to-use-gmail-more http://klinger.io/post/71640845938/dont-drown-in-email-how-t...
rplnt 12y ago
> I have absolute control of my inbox with filters, labels, and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjects. I see you are not using gmail.
sp332 12y ago
Something like the .tel domain? http://telnic.org/ http://telnic.org/ You don't get to run your own server, all .tel domains are run by the same company. You just set up yourname.tel with your contact info. Example: http://mark.tel/ http://mark.tel/
- jarek 12y ago
  http://mark.tel http://mark.tel (and about.me mentioned in another comment) is a prime example of a problem with using given names/last names to form URLs to share contact information. Say you get http://smith.tel http://smith.tel - this is great for you but bad for every other Smith out there. http://mark.smith.tel http://mark.smith.tel doesn't solve it either. OTOH using some sort of central-issued IDs (NI, kennitala, PESEL, SSN, INSEE, passport number) like http://87120402424.pl.tel http://87120402424.pl.tel feels a bit dystopian...
  - yutah 12y ago
    everyone should be issued an IPv6 address at birth
minikites 12y ago
Didn't tent.io try this?

by jabelk 12y ago

spullara 12y ago

That was called Plaxo.

silverlake 12y ago
It's still around and does exactly what this thread is asking for. http://plaxo.com http://plaxo.com

verisimilidude 12y ago

I recently gave serious thought to building something similar to a rolodex social network, but eventually poked too many holes in it to follow through. I'd just come back from a conference at which I'd been asked for business cards by lots of people, maybe a hundred. Of all those people, I only really cared to hear back from a few. Though it's nice to have my name out there and be cordial in the industry, I wanted to place some kind of filter on all the vendor spam that inevitably followed. If...I could easily provide "redacted" or "enriched" contact info, maybe via QR on a smartphone screen, for instance, it would be possible to meter who gets which contact info without hurting any future networking opportunities. If any of you can figure out how to make this work, I'd definitely pay for it.

DanBC 12y ago
> If any of you can figure out how to make this work, I'd definitely pay for it. You have two versions of your business card. One goes to anyone and has a junk email. The other goes to wanted contacts, and has an email that you pay attention to.
- verisimilidude 12y ago
  Exactly. For most people, that's probably enough. I couldn't see the business case for creating a whole social network out of the concept. For myself though, I could easily see creating 9 or 10 cards for different situations. It'd be nice to have an easy way to manage all that.
  - joering2 12y ago
    What you need is an "premium" email at a "premium e-mail provider". :) You signed up as Joe Doe and plug your basic info: website url, physical address, your real email address, phone number cell phone, etc. All this can be in multitude quantity, like your email: office job 1, office job 2, personal. All this info is confidential and only seen to you. Then your conference comes in. You click "create addresses" and system is randomly generating your email addresses, like this: joe-doe-349522@email.com joe-doe-153212@email.com joe-doe-145621@email.com joe-doe-675427@email.com Then for each email you can setup few options, like: - forward this email to office job 1 - forward this email to office job 2 - forward this email to my personal email - if someone emails me at this email, send them autoreply with short profile: my homepage url, my pshysical address, my office phone, but no cell phone. - if someone emails me at this email, send them autoreply with my personal cellphone. When forwarding your email you can have optional header, such as extra info you added initially: "this is my Word Expo 2014". Then when 2016 comes in and you receive an email, header tells you the origin of it. You can setup any email to hold on mail and not forward it at all and just notify you once a week/month/once there is X emails awaiting. At any point you can dispose an email or simply set it to auto-expire. Or change its settings for that matter. You have two options when it comes to your presentatione. You can go high tech and print (or request print) of business cards with QR code where each code is your CRF card with different email of course. In this scenario you could have different color of qr code representing different email setup and just memorize: green qr code - potential investors, yellow qr code - potential employees, blue qr code - cute blonde that i think likes me! Or even simplier solution: order yourself a few thousand business cards with your email address like this: "joe-doe_______@email.com" and then just write down the email number after the pre-printed part of your email address that will match particular premium email #. And if someone asks about it, just tell them a perfect excuse: "oh yeah i get so much spam that once a year i have to create a new email for myself". Someone building such a system could call it similar to gmail so your emails look normal, like maybe pmail.com (for "premium" mail) or something like it. I think the problem is that this is very niche market. I am sure for a right solution you would pay even $99 per year, but again it would be hard to market and even harder to make some money long-term off of it :)

SapphireSun 12y ago

Isn't this basically the same as your email contacts list with a free text field?

jabelk 12y ago
No, because people have too damn many email addresses. I typically have multiple email addresses at all times, with one constant (my gmail) and the others revolving around my employer, my school, and other affiliations. And which email I give you depends on how I know you (I'll give classmates and potential employers the university one, etc). So even though I might have someone's corporate address, if they change companies, I'm SOL. With this service, I can click your "request email" button, and you tell me the most convenient address to reach you at.

kasey_junk 12y ago

I actually figured out a domain for this idea before I gave up. The problem is I can't figure out how it scales correctly. It ideally would A) have strong network effects B) you would get contact data through your interfaces of choice (iphone, email address book, gmail, android, etc) and would rarely if ever interact with a web gui for the service. It should also have a circles concept so that I can give different people different details. those all seem to rule out the various business models. hope someone smarter than me figures it out.

simpixelated 12y ago
subscription?
- kasey_junk 12y ago
  Limits the network effect dramatically. Best I could come up with was some sort of power user tools or something.
jlees 12y ago
You need to find a set of people who are connected and connectors, and who have this kind of problem in spades. Then build in sufficient virality so they all start using it, and as you point out, multi-platform presence. Many folks have tried to replace the business card and failed, but I've seen cards with custom URLs rather than contact details on them; maybe that's one way to go. (QR codes require too much friction.)

lepht 12y ago

Cobook sort of seemed to be going in this direction, but they got acquired by FullContact: https://cobook.co/pete https://cobook.co/pete

jlees 12y ago

This (and sister comments to mine) are super interesting, we're working on this problem space - with a professional focus - and there are a bunch of folks in the consumer side too. Happy to chat to anyone interested in solving this sort of problem.

timjahn 12y ago

"Something I would pay for: a rolodex social network. No centralized feed. No useless info. Your profile is 2-3 sentences and your current city (with some sort of maps integration for when you travel, to see who's near you). Two buttons, one to request to view resume, and another to request to view email. That's it. With the idea being, you use the site to enable you to keep up with people. You add people you know or have worked with to your network, and you can easily get their current email and catch up when you're in the same city. Simple, no obnoxious ads, no slimy tactics to increase time on the site." I really want this too. I need some sort of simple contact rolodex that simply shows who I know, why I know them, and why they're important (where do they work, how do I know them, who are they connected to, etc.). Just a simple UI, something that I would use most of the time simply to search.

bfung 12y ago
the UI is a bit off, but doesn't Google+ circles provide this functionality? Or the "Notes" section in the Contacts app on iPhone? Or LinkedIn even? What is missing or wrong with the current social network/address book things?
lotharbot 12y ago
"why I know them" is a crucial feature missing from many services (along with "what name or alias I know them under"). I have hundreds of contacts from church, school, work, video games, etc.
- Pxtl 12y ago
  Sounds like google's circles. The problem is that most folks treat their Gmail account as their "real" account and don't give it out willy-nilly. Also, that the circles thing is one-way - I can use circles to control how I see others, but can't use them to control how they see me.
  - notatoad 12y ago
    which is good. i don't want some guy i met at a work thing once adding himself to my best friends circle.

nslamberth 12y ago

A social network used explicitly for exchanging contact information would fill a perfect niche for me. That idea is fantastic.

drdeadringer 12y ago

> a rolodex social network As someone who recently came across an actual rolodex, with both typed and hand-written notations throughout, this idea sounds like something I'd seriously consider signing up for.

eitally 12y ago

I had high hopes that http://about.me http://about.me would shape up to be this, but ... nope. http://about.me/eitally http://about.me/eitally

Cederfjard 12y ago
Why isn't it? Simply too little adoption, or are they doing something wrong?

pwelch 12y ago

Agreed. I actually enjoy email but would really like a great App/SaaS that would be a good rolodex.

krapp 12y ago

Are microformats still a thing? Because business cards as a social network sounds like a great idea.

state 12y ago

We'll build it. Don't worry.

qq66 12y ago

You can use Facebook to accomplish everything you can do with your social network. Make your profile 2-3 sentences and your current city, allow people to request to see email, and just ignore the feed. The advantage of course is that there's about a billion people already on it.

arebop 12y ago

https://code.google.com/p/webfinger/ https://code.google.com/p/webfinger/?

smegel 12y ago

> and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjects I still think RSS trumps email for this...

jabelk 12y ago
Agree, but I like having everything in one place. I don't get a lot of email, so that may change, but I have a filter and separate inbox[1] set up for stuff I read, including RSS. [1]http://klinger.io/post/71640845938/dont-drown-in-email-how-to-use-gmail-more http://klinger.io/post/71640845938/dont-drown-in-email-how-t...

rplnt 12y ago

> I have absolute control of my inbox with filters, labels, and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjects. I see you are not using gmail.

sp332 12y ago

Something like the .tel domain? http://telnic.org/ http://telnic.org/ You don't get to run your own server, all .tel domains are run by the same company. You just set up yourname.tel with your contact info. Example: http://mark.tel/ http://mark.tel/

jarek 12y ago
http://mark.tel http://mark.tel (and about.me mentioned in another comment) is a prime example of a problem with using given names/last names to form URLs to share contact information. Say you get http://smith.tel http://smith.tel - this is great for you but bad for every other Smith out there. http://mark.smith.tel http://mark.smith.tel doesn't solve it either. OTOH using some sort of central-issued IDs (NI, kennitala, PESEL, SSN, INSEE, passport number) like http://87120402424.pl.tel http://87120402424.pl.tel feels a bit dystopian...
- yutah 12y ago
  everyone should be issued an IPv6 address at birth

minikites 12y ago

Didn't tent.io try this?