NORMALLY,immediacy is the key to successful e-mail delivery.But when you log onto forbes.com ‘s e-mail capsule
(at forbes.codefix.net/capsule),the longer the better.
Until Nov.30,you can write yourself an e-mail and pick a delivery time for it to be sent to you – one,,three, five,10 or 20 years in the future.
Through a partnership between forbes.com,Yahoo and Codefix Consulting,the e-mails will be stored on three separate server databases and locked away until it ‘s time for them to be sent,creating a mass digital time capsule.
“I ‘m not sure how it stands up to the traditional idea of a time capsule,” says Garrison Hoffman, president of the Sleepy Hollow-based Codefix and the man behind the e-mail application and database.
“The nice thing about this is that anybody can use it.It can be simply a novelty or something more serious,an introspective tool.”
Hoffman says that he ‘s already sent himself one – for delivery in five years – about his thoughts on recently moving to Sleepy Hollow,N.Y.,from Brooklyn (he likes his new digs). You can send yourself any kind of message you want –
steamy mash note,weight, office crush – because no one ‘s going to read it. The service has been available for a couple week and already more than 15,000 e-mails are queued up.The only catch is that you ‘ll have to use an e-mail address you ‘ll be able to check years from now,when you want the e-mail sent to you.(Planning on changing
jobs?Key in your personal e-mail rather than your work address.)
“That ‘s a potential fly in the ointment:Who knows what the situation ‘s going to be like in 20 years?” says Hoffman.
“[But ] it ‘s going to be sealed,we ‘re not going to do any updates to the database, it ‘s going to be read-only
and the only thing it ‘s going to do is send messages [when it ‘s time ].”
That means people won ‘t have to worry about spam or their message getting lost. “There are a bunch of guys working hard to make sure that nobody else gets your e-mail addresses and that the e-mails will go out when they ‘re supposed to go out,” Hoffman says.
So start thinking up those deep thoughts (or what you had for breakfast),and e-mail away.Your future self will thank you – or at the very least,you ‘ll make yourself laugh.