Would you trust your postal mail with a company called Zumbox?
I ask, because startup Zumbox enters public beta today with a fairly interesting (but not entirely new) alternative to traditional snail mail. Here’s how it works: instead of sending bills, statements, advertisements, postcards and the likes to a street address, a business can now send those to a digitized street address, without the need for actual paper or stamps.
Let me try again: Zumbox basically created a digital mailbox for every street address in the US it could find (150 million), which can be used to receive mail that was sent to a physical location instead of an e-mail address. This approach is based on the fact that while not everyone has an e-mail address, everyone supposedly has a unique street address, and that businesses tend to have street addresses for their customers more often than they have e-mail addresses.
With Zumbox, these businesses as well as individuals can send documents and custom mailings to one’s physical street address, and by entering their address on Zumbox.com, recipients can consult what was sent. That’s an entirely different approach than Earth Class Mail, which scans all the postal mail it receives on a custom address created by a user, and then posts it to the customer’s digital account. Sending and receiving with Zumbox is free to consumers, and businesses are charged 2 cents postage per address.
I have a couple of observations. First of all, going back to my initial question: why would anyone trust their personal mail, which often includes sensitive information, with a young company they’ve never heard of? The company goes to greath lengths to explain the service is secure, and how they’re compliant with the security standards of the financial, healthcare, and banking industries, but that remains a significant hurdle.
I was also wondering if Zumbox doesn’t make it easier for companies to electronically spam people, but the startup gave me a number of reasons why this isn’t the case: it’s a closed system where Zumbox controls the entire flow of mail, the identities of senders and receivers are verified in advance, users get some control over the mail they receive, and finally the 2 cents charge should provide a barrier to senders with malicious intentions.
Another question that I had was how Zumbox notifies a user the first time he receives his mail to a digital account instead of his physical mailbox. Apparently, the startup has 3 ways of doing this: by getting consumers to sign up via e-mail, an iGoogle widget, or a desktop application (the latter two coming this January). Developers of third-party application are invited to use the company’s API to work on other ways too.
Not a flaw, but still noteworthy: the solution won’t help you a bit if you don’t have an internet connection. The number of people without internet access may be decreasing, but it’s nowhere close to zero just yet.
I’m still not sure whether I think this idea will stick or not, but for what it’s worth, Zumbox realizes it will take several years for postal mail to transition into a digital system. The company has raised $3 million in Series A funding in Q1 2008 from a number of private angel investors to finance the public beta release, but there’s no doubt they’ll need way more capital to provide a runway to success.
So my Playboy magazine would come digitized? -mt
Yes, and you can ‘click through’ immediately.
only it seems if playboy SEND through zumbox
haha…I think Playboy would have to have an account set up to do that, but think of all the trees they would save. Now all we need is a digital alternative to kleenex. :0
Congratulations Zumbox crew! It is exciting to see that you are getting noticed so quickly. I can’t wait to check out the desktop app!
I think it’s a decent idea, but I do not see my parents adapting it, but maybe with the younger generations. I can’t even remember the last time I mailed a letter though. Switching to paper-less billing has left me with an empty mailbox these days.
Zumbox says over 15 billion pieces of paper mail are sent each month in the United States alone.
Yeah catalogs and credit card offers, if I do get mail, it’s all junk.
The thing that I think I’m really missing here is that if a company doesn’t have an e-mail address for a person it needs to contact, what are the chances that the company can provide a targeted experience via the street address?
Furthermore, will companies pay to send digital mail (it’s e-mail, ‘cmon) to non-targetted addresses at a cost?
Valid point, but there’s a good chance companies know a hell of a lot more about their customers than just the street address, even if they lack an e-mail address. They can target based on their purchasing history, full profile, etc.
Hi everyone, this is Yarone Goren, co-founder and EVP at Zumbox.
Pete – that’s a good question. People are reluctant to give out their e-mail address. And, when you “opt-in” to receive invoices, statements, etc. via e-mail, what you usually get is a LINK to a invoice or statement via e-mail, after which you’ve got to sign up to a web site with a username and password. One username and password and a different web site for each of companies you do business with.
This is because e-mail is not a secure channel, has no id-check built in, and other reasons.
With Zumbox, businesses will continue to send paper mail via the USPS and also send paperless mail via Zumbox. Over time, as their customers use Zumbox, they will have the option of turning-off paper mail to those customers.
Important to note is that with Zumbox, businesses benefit from each others paperless campaigns.
Isn’t this the same model as EARTH CLASS MAIL out of Seattle?
Please read the article.
@Yarone, but I still have to go to your zumbox site and use username and password to sign in with. Still not saving any steps.
Dear Yarone Goren,
you state “This is because e-mail is not a secure channel, has no id-check built in, and other reasons.”
I think your incorrect
first of all there is TLS (so its like saying https is insecure because http is)
second of all there is S/MIME built into all modern email clients
thirdly technology such as DKIM, SPF are maturing and add to that thing like PGP and such that are far more established
its a nice concept but please be factual about how you market your product lies do not help you
regards
John Jones
I just signed up and look forward to receiving my PIN via normal paper mail. I am excited to try Zumbox, and will make sure that I post comments/concerns, etc. somewhere. Has a user message board been set up yet? I didn’t see it in the nav of the beta Zumbox.
I’m looking forward to introducing my company to this if I think it’s good.
12. Do Not Paper Mail Program
12.1 While a subscriber of the Services, you agree to support the Do Not Paper Mail program promoted by us and will assist us in encouraging your mail senders to send billing statements, correspondence and other media to you through http://www.Zumbox.com .
12.2 You agree to permit us to identify you in a listing to vendors and other commercial, governmental and non-profit senders (collectively, “Senders”) as a “Do Not Send Paper Mail” subscriber.
12.3 You agree that we are permitted to send to Senders, as and when applicable, your change of address information.
You want to talk about options or forcing me to agree to this bs?
Assuming they allow people to send messages to people not using their service… doesn’t this become like all those annoying facebook apps or classmates.com? “Bobby Tables has sent you a santa-gram, click here to sign-up to view it!”
And what happens when another company does the same thing? Now you have to check multiple places for your mail?
IMO, my physical address should have nothing to do with my digital messages.
Hi Daniel – Before any person can send mail via Zumbox, we verify their identity. We’re a closed system, like Google Adwords or eBay, and we’re very focused on making sure the experience is great for mail recipients.
True, another company could provide a similar service, and we think that there will naturally be one or two prominent players in this space.
You better sign up!
How do they handle multiple people on one address?
How does it prevent parents to “open up” mail that was sent to one of the kids?
Or 10 students living in one house?
At present time, all of the mail for a household appears in the same mailbox – just like your front yard mailbox.
But in my front yard mailbox there is an envelope with my name around the real mail.
@Arno – Zumbox works the same way. You see an envelope on the screen. Click on an envelope to see a replica of the printed page.
Still have to wait to see how this comes into plays but the idea of saving tree definitely wins my support
Assuming most people have a spam email account and an account used for valid purposes.. why wouldn’t I just sign up with these companies using my valid email address, and going paperless .. vs .. signing up for another email account
Unless I’m not understanding this correctly, it seems that Zumbox is creating it’s own proprietary mail system on top of physical street addresses. I thus could go create Yumbox which does the exact same thing and mail sent to my physical address on Zumbox would be different than mail sent to the same physical address on Yumbox.
I see how this system is useful (though I quite happily use Earth Class Mail), but I don’t see how it is a long term sustainable business. If it proves its value then the Postal Service will have to get involved so that there isn’t a privately run online postal service. It also seems as if Zumbox is focused on letting businesses send mail targeted to certain geographical regions; why would I want to make it easier for businesses to send me online junk mail?
Sorry for being a hater.
David – True, we’ve creating our own mail system on top of physical street addresses.
The fact is that businesses like The Gas Company, The Water Company, The Plumbing Supply outfit still send paper invoices and statements to most of their customers. These businesses spend millions of dollars each year in postage alone (not counting paper, printing, labor, etc.).
The question is: when is this going to change? and how?
We think that by mirroring the experience of traditional postal mail with a digital platform, we provide a practical alternative for both sender and recipient.
I do think, eventually, that the USPS needs to consider such a model.
RE: Geographic regions, don’t forget that we 1) charge postage. Our research indicates that this is a forcing function for quality. 2) We give mail recipients full control of their box. You can choose to “block” a mail sender, for example.
So why would this be any better than getting statements via standard email? Seems like a bit of overhead to set up initially, and then is a seperate site to have to log into and check for mail. I’m slightly failing to see the added value over just using regular email.
And even if I could…I’m not sure whether I’d really want to. A lot of my existing bills have options for receiving bill online, but when given a choice I prefer a paper bill that I can put on my desk as a reminder to pay, even if I’m going to pay it online.
I just took a look at your the service, and I have to say that it looks promising.
However, I’m pretty sure the USPS will start something similar (or something close that’ll prevent an ‘open market’ such thing). Because for the longest time, the USPS will not allow competition and I think they are the only ones that can handle some types of mail still.
Rants aside, I still think this service will benefit people with permanent addresses but may bring a new reign to identity theft if sensitive info is being transferred. Especially sensitive information for people that move a lot.
Many people move around frequently. Do my existing contacts get notified when I move? When I request a new pin, do I inherit the previous renters mail, if he/she forgets to notify you of moving?
Hi Josh – When you move, we transfer all of your mail, your folders, your address book, etc. to your new address. If you choose, we notify your existing contacts that you’ve moved.
RE: your “previous renter” question – you will not inherit the previous renters mail.
So what about people oustide US sending mails to US addresses. Do you have this in consideration
The platform is designed to handle international addressing. At present time, we are only focused on U.S. to U.S. mail.
It sounds like a great idea, but I will still prefer to receive some of my business mails via a US mail. But only time will tell.
I receive my bank and cell phone bills via email because I have an account with them and I gave them my email. Why insert a startup in the middle of that process?
While at first the idea sounds neat, after a little bit of thinking I just really don’t see it. Perhaps for the middle class mother in Kansas that survives on coupons this will provide a better way to organize her junk mail.
Regardless… good luck.
Great, just what I needed… yet another proprietary mailbox to check.
Does this company allow you to opt out of junk mail? Credit card offers, coupon books, offers for crappy pizza?
I get the whole idea. I can see a reason for some of the resistance for this kind of service. But I like the idea of not having to log into many different sites to get my online statements.
This is an intriguing idea…I am excited for the green benefits. Plus I have to admit that while I pay my bills online I still have the bills sent to my house. If I knew all of my bills were in one account waiting for me to see them then I wouldn’t be as hesitant to go completely paperless. My personal email account is just too flooded with wanted and unwanted emails to trust I will see any notices sent to it.
Kendra- THAT is what I am all about. The potential environmental benefit is HUGE.
why dont you ask the billing companies to digitally sign their emails ?
they use email already simply ask them to improve and go paperless
(mine all do or are whitelisted and I simply get the PDF delivered or login to view the bill)
this way they are green
regards
John Jones
BTW…check out the Unofficial Flenvelope Gallery!!
http://www.flenvelope.com
It’s sort of my tribute to zumbox and their logo…I am really excited to finally see public discussion about zumbox…keep it up!
Wow, what a horrible fanboy site.
I like the concept and done right, I think it has good potential. But my first reaction after looking at the site, is that it’s not quite being “done right”, especially the marketing message.
It’s a system built for anyone in the US with a street address. It’s also being targeted to businesses for billing and other such biz mail. Without even going international, that’s a huge market! So basically they’re saying, “it’s for almost anybody.” That’s all fine that the system works for a huge chunk of the US populace but that’s not a “market” in terms of business. Yet they seem to be treating it as such.
I don’t know WHO this is for. They don’t market to anyone in particular. They don’t talk about solving problems. They just explain how it works and leaves it up to the viewer to determine if it’s for them.
I think for a concept like this to reach people, they need to be told exactly how this will help them. How will it help two friends keep in touch? How will it help the grandkids send things to grandma? How will it help small businesses reach their customers? How will it help invoicing? Etc…
Yarone, I saw that you’re reading this stuff. I think your marketing message is not only off, but barely existent. The varied responses from this blog post prove that a lot of people just don’t see how this is beneficial or even ‘better than’ regular email. I don’t see it because you’re not telling me.
Give specific examples. Don’t treat your target customers like an address. Talk to them like people. Tell them why.
Whoa! This idea takes me back to 1999! Dumb idea funded by over eager VCs. (Hey, Madoff wasn’t an initial investor was he? This would explain where some of that $50 billion went.) Well, you know what 1999 was followed by…2000 and the dot com bomb. So take my advice…use your money and party like it’s 1999 cause this idea won’t be around 12 months from now.
I don’t get it. I don’t get it at all. So, you sign up for zumbox. What happens next? All your mail is still physically delivered to your regular snail mailbox in your front yard, right? Or does zumbox physically take your mail out of your mailbox and digitize it? How else do they know what’s in your mail?
and when you want to send snail mail through zumbox, surely zumbox doesn’t print your message, put it in an envelope, and post it? It would just be sent electronically, right?
So this is basically some kind of closed e-mail network, only the e-mail isn’t sent in plain text but in pdfs with a nice stamped envelope around them. What’s the point in that???
You are not alone. I don’t get it either :S – What is the point on having “electronic mail”…. oh wait… it was invented last century and it is call e-mail.
Okay… seriously now: I don’t get it.
“… compliant with the security standards of the financial, health care, and banking industries…”
–this is ‘nice’ and, of course, very important.
The question asked above, ‘why would I trust my private, personal mail –or cell phone statement’ to a new, unknown private company? Who are these guys?
The answer could be, the same reason most people would not trust strangers with their personal medical records… BTW, this is [duh!] the reason why Microsoft Vault and Google Health are colossal failures.
It is just common sense, plus something that I mentioned on an earlier comment: innovation is great, but throwing money and digital “solutions” to “perceived” problems is lame at best… Preserving our privacy is not a “problem.”
The [repeated] “we will save trees” statement has some appeal, but if the service does it, it will take many, many years to be of some value. And, most probably, this company would not exist by then.
I find kind of peculiar that the company’s founder is repeatedly trying to explain the concept here. That is ominous. Successful ideas/concepts do not need extensive, repeated explanations…
Zumbox.com is very cool…but I have moved around a lot in my life. (For the past few years, I have been unemployed and staying with friends.) A remailing service would work best for me: I need a permanent, lifetime P.O. Box that my mail is sent to…and then sent to where I am.
But then you wouldn’t be willing to pay for the double postage plus the service of re-sending everything, correct?
My father lives in a 5th wheel trailer and travels all over the country. He always thought such a service would be great for him too, but they cost way too much.
The concept sounds like a mash between Paytrust(http://www.paytrust.com/) and Earthclass. It is definitely an interesting idea, but I think the biggest hurdle as someone else mentioned is being able to have sub accounts with uniqueid/passwords for the mail to each person at an address. The other concern is stability of the business model and what happens if they close-up shop (hopefully they won’t and have great success), but one needs to consider this in looking at the risk. Could someone hijack your address/account? What about renters who move how will they switch and could someone get their mail after they are gone?
I do think whoever gets this and also allows one to send electronically from digital to real-world (USPS has that now) will have a nice niche market. I wish them success with this.
I know one thing for sure. Today’s USPS model is hard to consider as the permanent solution. A solution like Zumbox is the most logical next step and while it comes with challenges, the opportunity is tremendous and with proper execution can save a considerable amount of trees, money, time, and frustration. Best of luck – I’m signing up….if for no other reason, I lost my damn mailbox key and I’ve been shoving my hand in the mailbox and fumbling around for months. Either Zumbox has to save me or I need a locksmith.
“I lost my damn mailbox key and I’ve been shoving my hand in the mailbox and fumbling around for months.”
Last reason why Zumbox would have wanted you to use their service
LOL!!
The end of snail mail is coming. We got word from zumbox that there is an iPhone app on the way. There is plenty more info and services coming from the company. We will be updated with more news. http://www.morn...postal-service/
I agree with ZingerSteve. I don’t really get who this is for, and Zumbox doesn’t make it apparent. I get that there’s money and resources wasted in shipping physical mail.
What I don’t know is this: Is this a real problem that people are looking for a solution? I think it’s a pain in the ass to go through all my mail, but to check it in two places is a double pain in the ass. It would probably end up like my facebook email. Neglected.
So will Zumbox try to get the government to go along with this; people will still receive mail via Federal, State, County or City Governments etc.
As for the US to US mail is that 48 states or all 50 and does that include the US territories such as Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, American Somao, etc.
Lets do this for them stupid phonebooks too. If you need a hard copy, print it out
I’d like to be able to see all my snail mail and decide whether I want a hard copy or not. Or let me store my statements and other things that I want to not leave with the originating company in some sort of secure third party web service.
I also think it would be useful when you delete mail that you can specify why you don’t want it (giving companies more incentive to use the service).
We would be interested to use to send post to our leads and customers in the US from the UK.
There is a significant cost advantage for businesses.
Thus looking forward when Zumbox service becomes available for sending mail to the US.
Hmm, what if a company will move to another physical address. Would it be automatically updated on Zumbox? If yes (I guess, it’s imposible, though, How and on what basis? How can I be sure, that if I send my “digitalized information” to the old physical address and the company has moved, it will be forwarded to the right mailbox?
I don’t get this, either. Maybe I missed something in the article, but if I sign up and claim my digital mailbox, how do I get companies that still send me non-junk, paper mail to start sending it to my Zumbox? And if I send someone a letter using zumbox, how do they know I sent it to them? If I have to email them or call them to tell them that I sent them a letter, what’s the point? I could have just emailed them the letter to begin with.
The main problem I see with this service is that, while your ‘mail’ is securely delivered to via SSL, there is nothing to prevent Zumbox from reading it. When you mail thru the USPS, it is in a sealed envelope that only the recipient opens.
Without some kind of private/public key system (like PGP or the like) you have to trust Zumbox not to read your stuff. I like the concept of the service and it would definitely work in certain markets, but for the average guy receiving private info like medical reports and such, no thanks.
I LOVE THIS IDEA. I think some of you are right in your critique, but you guys (and gals) are not the average user. You are on tech crunch for gods sake!
I think my parents will be able to understand and trust this much easier than email, and I think if adopted by many businesses, this could be great.
My business wanted to do a paperless statement system but could not afford to. We only send out about 1000 statements a month. Now I can gather a few more locals and we can all benefit together at no cost. I like it.
I’ll right back again after I receive my PIN and get to REALLY test the site.
Cool – This offers more than my online banking options. I have been hoping something like this would be created.
From TFA: “With Zumbox, these businesses as well as individuals can send documents and custom mailings to one’s physical street address, and by entering their address on Zumbox.com”
Does this mean paper is still being generated? If so, where are the environmental benefits? This is a little confusing.
And, “This approach is based on the fact that while not everyone has an e-mail address, everyone supposedly has a unique street address”
If someone has internet(as required by this service), would it not be easier to just have them sign up with their email addresses than go through this app, which is kind of an email address.
What am I missing?
FRAUD ALERT! As the son of a career USPS postal carrier I have grave concerns about a system like this. Hear me out. According to the Zumbox website the way it works is you register with your home mail address and they send you, via USPS, a PIN number for your Zumbox account, to that PHYSICAL mailbox. Not much of an “ID check.” In fact, it merely facilitates fraud. Check this out…
So all I need to do if I want to steal innocent peoples’ identities is to wait until they are on vacation and sign up as them with Zumbox, using their physical address. I can see entire vacation home communities being attacked by identity thieves. My dad is always telling me about how people leave on vacation without placing a vacation hold with the USPS and their mailboxes explode with mail, a signal to mailbox thieves that these people are gone for a good while.
Zumbox will essentially enable mail fraud on a massive scale. USPS already has massive problems with criminals using the change of address system to steal unsuspecting victims’ mail. The difference here is that the thief only has to use Zumbox and grab that PIN number once from their victims’ mailboxes – and after that they will be able to steal all their postal mail from the comfort of Starbucks using just their laptops. The only good news is that all you’re ever likely to get in a Zumbox account is spam because now major bank or utility company is ever going to be comfortable with the lack of security and this tiny barely-capitalized startup as a means of sending actual confidential documents like bank statements. Most already have a system for that anyway; it’s called online bill presentment and payment.
The USPS postal inspector should shut these guys down fast. What a nightmare. The postal inspector service is already too busy with regular mailbox theft to ever respond to complaints (I’ve filed two reports in the past two years and they never responded with anything more than a form letter); this will keep them even busier!
I wouldn’t be worried about Zumbox reading my mail, I’d be worried about some criminal stealing all my mail without lifting a finger. I travel a lot and have come home several times to an empty mailbox (my dad tells me I should get one of those boxes with a key but i’ve been too busy) so I’m pretty sure I’ve already had my mail stolen and that’s how I got hit with ID theft and credit theft twice. I must be targeted by meth addicts because I’m gone so often on business trips. This Zumbox concept, while somewhat cool, sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, IMHO. I went to sign up just to check it out and couldn’t bring myself to click on that “you agree with the terms and conditions” box which i’m sure indemnifies Zumbox if anyone uses their system to steal their mail, or if i use their system to steal someone else’s mail.
I like this idea if everyone were to adopt it (and I mean everyone), but I don’t see that happening. And I fail to see how this is helpful unless everyone is using it.
What I don’t get is this: What happens when I send a zumbox letter to someone via zumbox? It goes into their zumbox mailbox I am guessing. But how in the world does the recipient have any idea that they have this new box with mail in it?
It just seems like this ends up being just one more thing to check when I would rather just send and receive my mail via email.
Zumbox Snail Mail Intro Postcard, **ad-supported** – by local ads – like classifieds?
What’s so bad with that. Telephonic “search engine” services even deliver fat, printed “yellow pages” updated annually, full of ads, and make money from that too. You can use a postcard with classifieds of local services.
Or am i missing something obvious?
For the actual content of the emails, SMSes can help solve some percentage of the problem. For the others –
- voicemail
- TTS-enabled VOIP phone call to landline
Basically you have to do a lot of piggybacking for the non-techie types. Maybe you cant do piggybacking to cover everyone today itself, maybe tomorrow, when you have more cash in the bank. But mobile and piggybacking on postal services/classifieds is probably unavoidable.
I thought of Google’s Pigeon Rank Expert pigeons too
text -> TTS/VOIP -> voicemail ?
Call up people to pick up their mail from local post office – the call or SMS can be ad-supported.
For people without a landline, mobile or quick access to a post office, you should better skip that market segment.
Piggybacking and multi-tier logistics is the key, IMO.
Just my 2 cents,
Good luck!
finally techcrunch delivers news that worth reading !!! this is great concept !!! now, if you set a side all these techie questions, you should ask your self, what did you do today to :
1. Reduce paper printing and its related industries
2. Reduce government spending
3. Reduce your time sorting though paper mail.
4. how about, no more “back to sender”
great implementation…. good luck !!
Great comment! This is an awesome idea that is worth getting to know better! Im sure this will be mainstream in the future! Best of Luck!
As someone who tested ZUMBOX (no, I’m not an employee and never have been an employee of ZUMBOX) I can tell you a couple of things… First, it’s quite easy and has come a LONG way. Second, there’s a definite need for this type of service.
Point number one. I remember checking this out a few months ago when a friend of mine at ZUMBOX told me about the service. Back then, everyone paid to send mail and the verification process was quite different. In addition, the user interface was kludgy at best. Now, it’s streamlined and efficient. Don’t believe me? Head over and create a login. It’s easy. Once you’re in, navigating the site is painless and sending postcards to friends is also simple (and free.) Yes, I know, they won’t get the post cards since they don’t have a login… But, who’s the early adopter now? I happen to hang with a techie crowd who will appreciate the fact that I was “first.” Major Geek Cred, yo!
To address the second point. Right now I juggle emails I’m setup for bill pay on across three different email addresses I’ve had over the past five years. I know, I should move them all onto one address but I just haven’t done it yet. It would be great if everything went to my ZUMBOX. I look forward to the day when this is possible. How about my DirecTV, Electric and broadband bills ZUMBOX? Help us out!
To summarize, no, I’m not on the board, an investor,an employee or have any stock options in ZUMBOX. I just like the product and understand it.
Did someone ask you a few years ago why you’re on Facebook, MySpace or Linked In? Is that same person now on the network? That’s what will happen with ZUMBOX. You’ll get a lot of “why bother?” questions for the next year or so. After that it will turn into, “why aren’t you on it? You’re missing out.”
Warm Regards,
Scott Hardy
President and CEO of Top Class Actions LLC
“What settlements can YOU claim? Find out for free at TopClassActions.com”
http://www.TopClassActions.com
Is there a reason that the positive comments on Zumbox seem to be coming mostly out of the Los Angeles area, from employees, or from people who say they are friends of the company? At least Scott Hardy is up front about it, even if to better promote his own site (on the slimy end of the marketing scale, if you ask me – perhaps this is why you’re a fan of Zumbox? Seems like a great way to advertise your frivolous class action suits on the cheap). It seems kind of transparent to me.
I’ve been reading through the hype on http://www.zumbox.com. They talk about being a “postal alternative” yet there isn’t a single person on the management team or board who seems to have any background whatsoever in the postal or mailer industry. They seem to be mostly out of entertainment and media (which explains, perhaps, the emphasis on look & feel, yet with a lack of comprehensive business model or target market, not to mention much security sense), and third-tier VCs. I also checked out Earth Class Mail’s service (new to me, thanks Robin and David) which seems to have management and board members out of the US Postal Service, Fed Ex, Royal Mail – real postal industry executives – has raised about ten times more capital than Zumbox, and has licensed its technology to the swiss post office. With the notoriously stringent european data privacy laws you have to assume their platform is ready for prime time to have gotten such a deal done… that’s impressive. They just seem a lot more credible and safe to me than these amateurs in La La Land. I’m probably going to sign up with them as their service seems very well suited to my nomadic digital lifestyle… wish I’d know about them sooner.
My 2 cents. I’d rather spend it here than on sending a spam message on Zumbox.
Merry Christmas folks, and, hey, don’t forget to thank your neighborhood postal carrier this time of year!
I interviewed for this company in August. I remember hearing the pitch and it was the most ludicrous idea I had heard all year. I said this to the interviewer and I’ll say it here
1. It’s a proprietary and closed source protocol
2. It’s a pay-to-play email clone
3. People love outlook and gmail – this works with neither.
4. It’s targeted for mailers – they want to get people that send you unsolicited snailmail, like Krogers and Walmart – to send you unsolicited zumbox mail. Yes. Their game plan is spam.
5. not necessary
The *only* possible profitable place for this that I see is in the legal system. if you can convince the court that a zumbox message is a good faith effort, then you can eliminate certified mail and completely automate bringing someone to trial. In fact, if you can convince the court that zumbox has legal standing, you have a huge revenue stream there – totally legit.
But the interviewer hadn’t a freakin clue what I was talking about, so I left.
Chris, you were very smart to walk out of that interview. Why is it that every tree hugger with a blog and some friends & fools angel money think that they can cure the problems of the world with a business plan that’s “green” but doesn’t solve anyone’s pain? They should come up with a good business idea that actually solve a problem for a user, then take their profits and plant trees with them… they’d do a lot more good for the planet that way. I’m shedding tears over the wasted electrons being consumed by their web servers and the pollutants emitted from the cars of the obviously-less-smart-than-you employees who took jobs at Zumbox when they drive to work every day. It’s a tough economy… they should start looking for new jobs NOW, before the company runs out of its paltry seed capital.
Robin Wauters, you have incorrectly described this service. I think you have confused readers by talking about physical mail, it does not handle physical mail. Suggest, go back to Zumbox’s FAQ etc and review it.
I was reading the comments with interest from the sidelines but I’m going to have to chime in here because the more I look at Zumbox the more creeped out I get. First, a reminder that you should ALWAYS read the Terms & Conditions (T&Cs) of a website before handing over personal information like your street address.
Before deciding NOT to sign up for this service I read the terms and conditions on their website and about fell out of my chair. As someone who works with lawyers in my day job (I’m not a lawyer) I can only guess that they never had qualified legal counsel review their T&C before, and they never thought any intelligent user would take two seconds to read it. (If a real privacy attorney reads this and can tell us what they think I’d appreciate it.)
Zumbox’s T&Cs appears to have a lot of boilerplate language that doesn’t make sense in this context. Section 2 actually says that their “jokes” and “characters” are proprietary content of Zumbox. I guess these guys all come out of entertainment media so they must have re-used an old T&C boilerplate and forget to scrub out the irrelevan. While agreeable enough and seemingly innocuous it made me nervous so I read the rest of the agreement with far more scrutiny. Didn’t take long to find the land mines.
First of all, nowhere does the agreement say that your personal information will be protected from marketers. To the contrary, you might as well just mail them your entire wallet! All they’re going to do is sell your name to more marketers to send you more junk mail, veiled by your unwitting conscription as a soldier in their “Do Not mail Paper” war-on-mailers campaign. Check this out!:
12. Do Not Paper Mail Program
12.1 While a subscriber of the Services, you agree to support the Do Not Paper Mail program promoted by us and will assist us in encouraging your mail senders to send billing statements, correspondence and other media to you through http://www.Zumbox.com .
12.2 You agree to permit us to identify you in a listing to vendors and other commercial, governmental and non-profit senders (collectively, “Senders”) as a “Do Not Send Paper Mail” subscriber.
12.3 You agree that we are permitted to send to Senders, as and when applicable, your change of address information.
No thanks, Yarone. 12.2 sounds to me like you’re just planning to sell my name to marketers of all kinds. 12.3 sounds to me like once I stick my hand in this trap I’ll never be able to get it back out again, even by moving to another state. Run, people. Run!
When Citibank starts sending bank statements through Zumbox I’ll sign up, but I can’t see it happening, honestly. The IRS isn’t going to send you your tax documents by Zumbox. My kids’ school isn’t gonig to send me their report cards by Zumbox. My aunt Betty isn’t going to send me a greeting card using Zumbox. They and we do not need Zumbox to create paperless mail. Gimme a break, that already exists. Schlock marketers will fill the zumbox accounts with 2-penny ads, that’s about it.
What Zumbox needs more than anything else is an opt-out so that no one else can steal your mail by registering with your name and address (to WilliamC’s point). That still sucks because it’s just one more way thieves can get to your identity. Thanks, Zumbox! Thanks for putting it on all Americans to be vigilant to yet one more way to have their privacy violated andidentity stolen.
If it wasn’t Christmas I’d have half a mind to ring up Scott Hardy today and file a class action suit against Zumbox on behalf of all Americans for putting our personal identities at undue risk of theft/fraud. Who wants in? We better move fast – they only raised $3M – but with Larry Ellison as an investor maybe we can get to some deep pockets! Whaddya say, Scotty?
The target market is clearly businesses. Companies who send a lot of paper statements are already highly motivated to encourage and even coerce their customers to go paperless. By “coerce” we mean that they’ll start charging customers for paper statements and essentially leave them no choice. It costs at least $12/year/ customer to send paper statements. That’s a big chunk of change for Citi and Verizon. We heard that AT&T is already considering charging customers up to $5 per paper statement if they want to continue receiving them.
The question then is whether email is adequate. It’s not. That’s why the adoption rates for e-billing are so low (15% at best).
While most of us hate junk mail (direct marketing), it wouldn’t exist if it didn’t work. Clearly someone is responding and even benefiting from junk mail. We’ve been known to use the 20% off coupons from Bed Bath & Beyond. So junk mail isn’t necessarily the problem. For us, it’s the time it takes to sort thru and filter out the important mail coupled with the waste stream 90% of the junk mail creates, despite recycling that paper. We may still want to get the MacMall catalog; we just don’t want the paper version.
And then there’s the $5.1 billion that the U.S. Postal Service lost last year. Wonder who picked up that tab? Oh yeah, the taxpayers. If a private alternative can help the USPS operate more efficiently (through competition), we’re all for it. Zumbox will never replace the USPS, but clearly that gov’t monopoly needs some help.
Max, you’re drinking the Kool-aid without being very skeptical about Zumbox’s hypish claims. Do they have you on paid PR or something? I thought you were this big time green blogger… what about doing your own skeptical research and reporting on the actual ecological benefits that one can expect from this marketing scam called Zumbox?
First of all the adoption rate of EBPP (electronic bill presentment and billing) is far higher than 15%. For most major mailers in the US it is already over 50% using their own infrastructures. There are examples in other countries with higher internet adoption rates of even higher percentages. Zumbox will be as limited as any other electronic billing method by internet adoption rate, so to fantasize over 100% electronic billing anytime soon like Zumbox’s hype is kind of silly, IMHO. More and more companies are offering only electronic billing (especially for services that involve computer access, the assumption being you own one). Zumbox isn’t going to create that effect… it’s been happening on its own for more than a decade.
It’s the old 80/20 rule, if not 95/5. Look in your own mailbox. The vast majority of transactional mailers are major corporations that have real IT departments and have to meet real regulatory compliance. They’re not going to opt to insert their privacy-sensitive billing records into ultra-low-security zumbox accounts when they have their own secure electronic billing infrastructures already in place that comply with all the regulatory requirements. Zumbox doesn’t even claim that their system is compliant with a single one of these regulatory *requirements* – they’re not even consciously aware of them, it appears. If all you care about is junk mail and you don’t truly intend to get financial billers then why bother to build expensive data centers and pay for expensive compliance programs?
Customers who won’t opt in for electronic billing because they prefer paper are not going to opt for Zumbox over their own bank’s or cable company’s electronic options. It’s simply preposterous to think that Zumbox is going to change consumer behavior.
All that means that the only “mailers” that may augment their paper mailings (but not likely stop their paper mailings because, as you point out, they still pull economically) are direct marketers, who don’t have to comply with significant regulatory compliance like billers do. Zumbox does not have a *single* major bank or utility company or any major 1st class mailer using their system… why should any consumer sign up for an account to receive only spam??? Their IT sophistication is obviously very low (although their lawyers are concerned about protecting the priopietary nature of the “jokes” and “characters” per my post above) to not even understand how difficult it is to get any bank to push privacy-sensitive information into any other company’s computer system, much less an entertainment media-oriented startup with only $3M of funding. Get real, Max. You really think your bank is going to give you the option of using your Zumbox account to get their bank statements? As Seth and Amy would say, “REALLY?!”
This company is treating privacy and regulatory compliance like a joke. Neither the founders or the investors in Zumbox did any sort of due diligence of what real mailers will require – trust me, this just happens to be the field I work in. They are representing ecological benefits when none will transpire if no major mailers shift to using their system – and that’s just not going to happen; doing so borders on fraud if not just simply false advertising. Some people call this “greenwashing.” This company isn’t even ready to prepare to get ready for prime time… they seem utterly clueless about privacy laws, SAS70, Sarbanes-Oxley, GLB, and a raft of other regulatory requirements that would need to be met before any major corporation would ever use their system for transaction mail, legal correspondence, tax, insurance or any of the things that we as consumers would consider “important mail.” If you’re excited about getting your Bed Bath & Beyond coupons in a Zumbox account that’s fine, but you shouldn’t fool yourself – or your blog readers – to think that you’re helping the ecology much. To do so would be journalistically dishonest, IMHO, and I thought you (i.e. Rob Reed) were above that, “Max.” Guess I was wrong. Paid PR seems to be what you’re really all about.
M_Bakker: We’re 100% transparent about any company we work with, just as Arrington is with TechCrunch. If we were consulting for Zumbox, it would have been disclosed. We’re not, so it wasn’t.
But our post also simply reports the facts. It wasn’t an endorsement. Most companies that promote E-billing and paperless statements do so with some type of green angle. All of which is legitimate b/c paper and postage have tremendous environmental impacts. We gave an overview of the total impact of the USPS paper mail system. Zumbox won’t solve this problem in its entirety. But the Prius won’t solve global warming or dependence on foreign oil, either. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t preferable to less-efficient alternatives.
We also didn’t have to go out of our way to point out the security issue b/c we linked here and quoted from the post. That also wasn’t our angle. That’s a journalism term for how one approaches a story. We blog about green issues, so that was our angle in reporting about Zumbox.
Objectively speaking, though, we don’t see how Zumbox’s claims are “hypish”. We don’t see them making any claims, in fact, other than that they have a new technology that offers an alternative to the paper-based USPS. They can’t really claim anything b/c they’ve just entered public beta. Before a couple days ago, they had exactly zero users as far as we can tell. So it’s also hard to see how it’s a scam. Don’t you have to scam someone for it to be a scam?
In fact, your claims are the ones that come across as overblown. Everything you says starts with “If”. Everything you say remains to be seen.
BTW, what’s your motivation? We and TechCrunch are looking for traffic. You wrote more words than either of us. To what end?