Delivery Failure Notification
based on a true story.
Ever got an e-mail with the subject “Delivery Failure Notification”? If so, you’re not alone. I wonder how many e-mails get sent every day around the world with the message: dude, they’ve changed their e-mail address and you did not get notified.
Last week, all companies @ minc got a nice little tip about free office space in saltimporten, a new creative office hotel in Malmö. I have no idea how the guy got all of our e-mail addresses but I guess that he just grabbed it from http://www.minc.se/allcompanies.aspx. There, you can find the official contact info to all the companies.
I found the approach quite amusing. I took a moment to think about the phenomena; someone want to reach out to a specific group of people, collect all addresses manually and send the humble e-mail about an offer.
The first reply is a short ‘I’m very satisfied with my office @ Minc!’ and shortly after I reply ‘thanks for the tip, and now we’ve got an email list to all of Minc, hurray!
What do we get back? A flood of responses from Mail Delivery Subsystem saying that this list is crap.Take a look at it. At least 30 addresses is no longer valid. Great. So how do we find out what the correct contact info is?
Someone has to sit and type all those lists manually, then publish them, then correct them, then correct them again.
Let’s imagine a system where you have your profile with your contact info, and the second you change anything all those list where you appear – they get updated, and you don’t even have to log in to each of those sites where you’re registered. That would make Mail Delivery Subsystem unnecessary. Good thing we’re working on that.
mind your own…
based on a true story.
The summer two years ago I moved back to Malmö from Madrid, where I’d been living for a year and a half working as an architect. I was quite eager to move on with something new and I had a job offer in Copenhagen / Dubai. It wasn’t my dream job but it was exciting enough to give it a go. I had no better plans. Not when I applied.
Free time
For the first time in a long time I had three weeks in between doings. Three weeks. I can’t remember when I had so much time doing ‘nothing’. I decided to catch up with friends, and suddenly I realized that my address book was completely out-of-date.
I decided to, since I had so much time, to update it! Not many seconds later I realize that it’s completely insane. Even after emailing, texting, calling everyone asking for their correct details, going from A to Z, completing the list – it would be a never-ending-job.
It was first when I came to my own card (as you have in Address Book) the light struck me. My card was complete, it was up-to-date, with photo, all phone numbers, emails, IMs, websites & addresses. So, why is it that I should fill everyone else contact cards, instead of just my own – the one I know better than anyone else.
Mind your own…
In Sweden there’s a saying, ‘sköt dig själv och skit i andra’ which roughly translates into ‘mind your own business, leave others to theirs‘. Well, it’s a really bad attitude, and a world I wouldn’t like to live in – but here in the case of an address book it makes perfect sense.
As it is now, in mine, and most probably your phone/address book, we all, edit everybody else info. I insert, edit & update all info about you, and all my other friends, and you do the same with me, and all of your friends. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if it was the other way around?
If everybody just took care of their own info, and nothing else, all our address books would all of a sudden be both correct & up-to-date. And the best part about it, it’s one card, instead of hundreds or thousands.
Main Story
This is the core idea of ambadoo. You take care of your contact info, I take care of mine – and when we update it, it will get pushed to everyone else. That way we never need to be out-of-date, ever again.
To Realize a Dream
I couldn’t let go of the vision that pretty much everyone on this planet would benefit from this system and always stay in touch with their friends & family, always up-to-date, in a system that does it all for you. So I decided to quite that job and take on the mission to realize the dream of a global & universal, self-updating address book and here we are, working on edit profile, this weeks story.