Ask HN: Would this phone-to-email idea be useful? Also, a meta question. | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Would this phone-to-email idea be useful? Also, a meta question.

1 pointjere3 comments

My wife commented this morning that she wanted to send a friend an email but she only had the friend's phone number. There's always SMS, but it is limited in various ways, especially if you want to send long messages, links, or attachments. On the other hand, sometimes you have someone's email address but not their phone number and you wish to, from your phone perhaps, send them a long voice message or just get their attention fast.

My idea is a website that associates phone & email. You would use the site directly to send messages or you could email an address in the form of, say, [phonenumber]@exampledomain.com

If the receiver is not using the site, they get a one time SMS (or automated voice message) with a preview of the message and instructions on how to access the site. They verify that they own both the email address and the phone number through a combination of a confirmation link and a PIN.

If the receiver is already using the site, they get the entire message without the sender being aware of their email address. I'll skip explaining how the reverse process would work unless you're curious.

Would this be useful to you or people you know?

[The meta question] I feel guilty even asking HN when there are supposed to be easier ways to validate ideas. But I have not had good success with landing pages; basically, I have no idea how you are supposed to market them: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5093633 Is there a better way to validate these things without: a) an already working product b) a huge marketing effort c) exhausting your social network by spamming all your friends for input/sign ups

I see a cost problem, an accuracy problem and an abuse problem.

* The cost problem is that the service would need to have a dedicated number that people would call and leave messages, and a rather sophisticated system to receive the calls, understand speech and manage the service.

* The accuracy problem is that the system would need to decode the sender's e-mail address, the recipient's e-mail address and the message itself, with no errors, otherwise the email would go to the wrong person or not be delivered at all, or it might contain the wrong message.

* The abuse problem is that anyone could call the access number and leave a message for anyone, but without any way to trace the sender or establish his identity.

My opinion is this is a non-starter, a cash hole. Sorry.

>My opinion is this is a non-starter, a cash hole. Sorry.

No, that's fine. I appreciate it and would rather know if it's a dumb idea. Some clarifications.

>The service would need to have a dedicated number that people would call and leave messages, and a rather sophisticated system to receive the calls, understand speech and manage the service.

I probably didn't explain it well, but that would only for apply to the email to phone use case (which is perhaps the less worthwhile case). Otherwise, you would send messages by going to the website or by emailing an address owned by the website. The routing from there is rather simple.

>* The abuse problem is that anyone could call the access number and leave a message for anyone

That isn't really a new problem (i.e. spam). Those same arguments apply to email. What I'm suggesting would be an additional filter that could work off of a combination of spam filters, white lists, and/or opt-outs.

>>* The abuse problem is that anyone could call the access number and leave a message for anyone

> That isn't really a new problem (i.e. spam).

But it is -- we can usually trace an e-mail by way of its headers, which often (not always) reveal its origin. But if the source for an e-mail is a phone call, there's no way to identify the sender.

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