We first wrote about virtual worlds meet email inbox provider 3D Mailbox in July when I called it the worst app ever. Subscribing to the adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity, the folks from 3D Mailbox have submitted their latest version for review by TechCrunch.
Have you ever wanted to see you email rendered as an aircraft at LAX? Perhaps you want to use a surface to air missile on Spam Air? Introducing 3D Mail Box 2:
“Email meets flight sim. In Level 2 of 3D Mailbox, each of your emails is represented by a jumbo jet. Based on the country of origin/destination, over 80 national airlines are employed, along with thousands of real pilot-controller conversations. Cargo jets haul your attachments, and the integrated SpamBayes spam filter sends your junk to the airport boneyard.”
It’s not politically correct to repeat this (so don’t read on if you find certain words offensive), but someone described the new version of 3D Mailbox to me today as being “soooo retarded,” which I can’t help but think is an apt description.
Agreed. This is monumentally dumb.
Retarded is an understatement Duncan! I would be baffled to hear these guys are backed by some funds.
Whatever happened to ideas that bring value? soooo retarded
hey, it’s definitely more exciting than podtech that’s for sure.
The website sells the program as “have fun destroying spam”.
I don’t want to have any fun destroying spam. I just do not want it to ever arrive in my mailbox.
this company is definitely a front for some money laundering operation…they’re just blowing money as a front…they don’t actually want users.
Ouch, I laughed so hard my abs are cramping.
The model itself has done well before. In Japan there was this app called PostPets that did well. But that was in an era ago and I think it was a passing fad.
The metaphor chosen by 3D must have fell down the three steps of the shortbus. The kicker is that they needed a team of 40 to churn this out. The CEO should be acting out ‘dumb and dumber’ instead of shakespeare (check out the about section on their site).
I hope this is all just some kind of gag site like that getafirstlife site.
Soooooo retarded… but you still wrote a post about it.
Earth to Duncan: 95% of the sites/services/startups you blog about are no less useful.
You remind me of those news anchors that moan about the coverage given to celebrities.. as the same tired footage of them gets played endlessly in the background.
Why?!
I take that back. This was the most hilarious thing that happened to me all day.
Bravo!
What a waste of good Engineering talent…
I bet they have a better bet at converting this into a game and making money that way.
“Come journey to a land where dreams become real, come journey to the next dimension of email, come journey to 3D MAILBOX”
Oh my GOD —> I CANT WAIT!
I actually thought this was a “cool” product. This should be embedded with some fad I’ve been hearing about called social networking platforms.
Someone today mentioned to me a company by the name of Facebook. Maybe Techcrunch should do a story on them:)
What’s Facebook
Maybe their real strategy is this:
Make a product so strange, so fantastic and bizarre, that people will pay just to try it out.
Or maybe it’s just stupid.
Jazzy Jeff
some people have no sense of humor, or in this case that person is you
Get enough cargo in your SpamBayes and an overly compressed Samuel L. Jackson sound bite fires: “I’m sick of this m**** f****** SPAM in my m***** f****** email!”
Duncan
Normally I agree with your summaries and the first time you reviewed it I thought 3dmailbox was daft. But with “level 2″ I am starting to see some potential with the application.
Forget the stupid graphics they have opted for but instead consider the potential of creating a visual email application with more relevant and less infantile graphics. Think “Disclosure” – the Michael Douglas/Demi Moore movie.
It needs to be hosted though. The days of email residing on your PC are numbered.
hey there, the video is no longer available…
Michael (#16)
lol.
Simos
available for me on a reload. Odd.
Wait, what the hell was that?
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?!?!
It’s just a bit of fun
I can just see people at work uninstalling Outlook or LotusNotes and checking mail with this… And I can see their managers asking them to pack up for good…
But hey, maybe there is a market for this somewhere… Nowadays, it seems like there is a market for everything!
Simos,
You need to pay your broadband bill:)
Duncan,
That a boy start throwing swings (@Jazzy)…. You’re witty. I enjoy reading your posts.
BUT, PLEASE tell someone to stop writing about Facebook or at least scale back some. Facebook is mentioned in 5 of the 7 stories on the home page. We all realize they are growing and have potential to become a large company, but, they are doing something like $150M in revenue which probably ranks them 100th in the valley well behing CSCO @ $35 Billion or GOOG @ $11B or AAPL @ $20B or HPQ @ $90B or ORCL $20B………
This is great
The only possible clients I see there are childs, who just get into the world of internet.
(I also laughed at the ad)
It seems that they can’t give up: if this stuff fails, they will surely buid an “FPS inbox” built on Quake 3 engine
Hmmm, just goes to show the old adage that any press is good press!
They must have made a nice profit from all the summer hoopla to continue development!
I hardly think most of us are going to implement such feature though its look entertaining.
Careful now, this company seems to get offended easily. Their interview with Download Squad was particularly humorous.
@Jason – do you work for the company?
what a waste of unnecessary graphics! plus its stupid, nobody even likes planes! i’m going to make my own program………………………with fish! muahahahahah
I really had to laugh while watching the video but this idea is so ‘off-everything’, it’s amazing. I wish those guys good luck none the less, doin’ something unconventional is always great.
Alex (#22)
I think the only Facebook posts Ive written in the last 2-3 months were related to the court case and one on a story about MySpace numbers slipping while Facebook is surging, but I fully take your point. I’m still on a self imposed won’t write about Facebook platform releases ban which I have no intention of lifting…if only because I get lynched in the comments every time I do write a post on the topic
jason (#24)
Also I’m tempted to have a fake Steve Jobs moment with your comments: maybe we don’t want you reading TC either if you seriously think this email client is good 
(that last bits a joke btw, I think most ppl will understand a joke but I’m not so sure Jason 
)
Like your mate Jazzy: lighten up. If you think 95% of the posts on TC are crap stop reading it. Some of our competitors write 30+ posts a day and cover the opening of a door, read them, you might get more crap but you might find more that you like
Jason: “This program is a moment of fresh air don’t you think???”
Right. I inhaled plenty of fresh air whilst laughing hysterically.
I just want to read email. What problem does this app solve?
An elaborate spoof is my guess. . . I’m just saying. . .
If 3D Virtual Worlds become more pervasive, I think its not a great leap to think that normal desktop activities will be translated into that 3D environment.
Speculating now: instead of your flat windows GUI environment, you’ll have your own 3d place, and if you were a bit, erm, enthusiastic, you could have your emails arrive as jumbo jets, or maybe as little birds that sung from the trees, which sounds nicer to me!
…. Coming soon! 3D MailBirds!
Proper shit.
OK, this really IS stupid or maybe even a joke.
But if I put it into the context of Second Life, WoW and the experiments with 3D desktops (which, admittedly, seem to remain in experimental state forever) I get the feeling that some time in the future we might look back to this news item and think “well, it was a joke at the time, but the guy was on to something”.
–
http://viibee.com, online dating is fun again
I’m assuming this is an elaborate joke… shirley?
Actually, I didnt see any email stuff in the video. Seems like someone just took a random flight video and layered in the 3d mailbox stuff.
Next up: Take clips from 300, and do the same. Spam? This is Sparta!! Kick spam down the well.
It’d be rad if they scrambled fighters to shoot down spam. Like Iron Eagle but orders of magnitude more boring.
If only it had guns and/or full nudity it’d be perfect.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve had some of the most frustrating experiences of my life at LAX. Why would I want to be reminded of embarrassing security check moments, flight delays, lost luggage, and screaming babies when I’m checking my email?
um, all the people that are saying this is fake/spoof, have you tried downloading and setting it up?
I’m not about to, but I’d be happy to read about someone else’s experience.
I’m surprised they haven’t tried to incoporate a “Snakes on a Plane” plotline into the simulation.
I actually like my e-mails being a beautiful bikini-girl walking up to me!
I used to sell affiliate tracking software (in 2000), and in that capacity I spoke with dozens of startups every week.. each explaining their respective business in detail. Every once in a while, we would get the totally hrumph eccentric entrepreneur. Who was reallllly out there, trying something far fetched and believe it or not SOME of them (like 1 in 10) were actually visionaries. I saved the craziest ones and still check in on them once in a while.
When I see this type of thing it reminds me of those days
someone actually wasted time on this?
The video explains nothing! NOTHING! Actually, I like the video – it’s a bunch of captures from Flight Simulator 98 and grandiose, over-the-top movie trailer narration.
I want my FPS spreadsheet and my strategy word processor (gather 500 a’s before you can format the title?).
Oh, this is SOOO ripe for parody. YouTubians! Start your cameras! And maybe you too can get $100M in funding…
Great!!! now I can use the “I did not get your email due to weather delays” excuse.
This is amazing! Go back to your spreadsheets, boring people. Too bad there’s no OS X version!
What a horrible concept. Its sad that they obviously have talent and sophistication in programming to only turn around and waste those resources on such a bad implementation of what visual email could be.
Can we add it to the Deadpool already??