

Gmail add-on to turn signatures into email contacts with phone numbers, etc - jeffwidman
http://writethat.name/

======
AgentConundrum
I'm almost definitely not the target demographic for this product, presumably
meant for businesspeople who need to keep their extensive digital Rolodex up-
to-date, but I doubt I would use it even if I were.

It's $20 a year to solve a problem that doesn't feel large enough to bother
with to me. Does contact information really tend to change that often? When it
changes, is it typically completely unannounced? $20/year really a large
amount of money, but I don't feel like the price is justified for what this
product does.

Also, I feel really nervous about handing over the keys to my email account to
an unknown company - no offense to the developers intended. They say that no
person will access the data, and that it is deleted as soon as it's processed,
but as Jeff Atwood says, "your email account is a de-facto master password for
your online identity."[1] Google is a well-known and fairly well-trusted
company, so I don't really have a problem with them having such access
(especially when they have so much to lose, and where they have so many people
trusting them already), but I don't really feel safe giving some unknown party
free reign over my email like that.

Also, would this only allow them access to my email, or to my entire Google
profile? Honest question, since I don't know how Google sets such things up.

I definitely don't bear these folks any ill will - as I said, I'm _not_ the
target here by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm sure it's a fine
product for what it's meant to do - but I don't see a huge market for this.

[1] [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/06/please-give-us-
your...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/06/please-give-us-your-email-
password.html)

------
watty
Seems like a great idea but not something I'd pay for.

~~~
karanlyons
I wouldn't pay for it either, since I only have to maintain contact with a
manageable number of people.

But were I the head of a large company, or in any position wherein I was
keeping track with an _un_ manageable number of people, I'd definitely be
willing to pay $20 a year to ensure that when I urgently need to get in touch
with someone, I'm not burned by having outdated contact information.

I'm actually a little bit surprised that my desktop mail client doesn't do
anything like this already.

~~~
JimmyL
If you were the head of a large company, wouldn't you probably have an EA to
do this manually as a part of their job?

------
PhilippeLaval
Thank you for mentioning WriteThat.Name.

I'm sorry if we've hurt anyone sensibility by this joke about Calvin & Hobbes.
We'll take it out in our next Design iteration.

Regarding market size, we feel that keeping your address book up-to-date is a
real issue for most business people. Some of them might still have PA, but
most of us don't, and less than $2/month strikes me as fair enough. This is a
market space where we are competing with the likes of Plaxo or Xobni.

------
kgtm
_Adventurous six-year-old boy_

Seriously?

~~~
AgentConundrum
What's the problem with that? Calvin _was_ six years old. Or are you simply
unfamiliar with the comic being referenced? [1][2]

[1] <http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/>

[2]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Calvin_and_Ho...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes)

~~~
kgtm
Yes, I was in fact unfamiliar, thank you for the pointer! Even so, it still
strikes me as odd that one would use something that can be misinterpreted by a
naive reader like me in their promotional material. Better err on the side of
unfamiliarity, no?

Edit: Don't really care about karma, but since downvotes abound, please take a
minute to explain your reasoning. You are punishing the post because: a) You
think i'm a pervert just for thinking about _that_ or b) I should have known
about the comic reference?

~~~
AgentConundrum
I don't really think you should have been downvoted, but for those that did, I
suspect that your original post was downvoted for the perceived tone of "
_Really?_ You used _that_? Why would _anyone_ want to do _that_?" Not everyone
would make the connection that you didn't understand the reference, since
Calvin and Hobbes is a _wildly_ popular comic, at least in North America. I
don't mean to assume you're not North American if you are, but it would
explain why you were unfamiliar with the subject matter.

As for your second comment - the one I'm replying to now - I still don't think
you deserve the downvotes, but some people might perceive it as an attack of
sorts, e.g. "How _dare_ they downvote me for such a simple misunderstanding!"

This comment (mine, I mean) doesn't really belong on Hacker News as it's a bit
meta/behind-the-scenes/inside-baseball, so I suggest we just leave well enough
alone, but I wanted to let you know that I understand your perspective and I'm
sorry you were downvoted for a misunderstanding like this.

~~~
kgtm
Much obliged for your reply. I'm not American, so this complicates things at
times.

