E-Mail From The Past?
Robert Paul Reyes
December 19, 2005
FutureMe.org allows people to send e-mails to themselves and others for delivery years in the future.
FutureMe lets individuals send messages for delivery as much as 30 years from now, though most folks schedule their letters to be sent within three years.
If I send an e-mail to myself, to be delivered thirty years from now, it would be a statement of unbridled optimism, I probably won't be alive in 2035.
This is an interesting concept, but it is fraught with many problems. First of all, nothing is permanent online, there is no guarantee that FutureMe will exist three months from now, let alone three or thirty years into the future. For every Google.com and Amazon.com that have weathered the dot.com bust, there are millions of Web sites that went belly up.
If by some miracle FutureMe manages to survive well into the future, there is a good likelihood that your e-mail address may not meet with the same good fortune.
We change almost as quickly as the Internet, three years from now, we will not be the same persons and we won't be in the same relationships that we're in today. If you send an e-mail to your girlfriend, to be delivered a few years from now, who's to say she won't be with someone else?
Receiving an e-mail that you sent to yourself some years ago, will probably be as uncomfortable and awkward as looking at your high school yearbook.
Sending an e-mail to your future self is not very practical, however it does serve a purpose as a time capsule. Assuming you actually receive your e-mail, some years from now, it will serve as a reminder of what was important to you on 2005.
Even though this FutureMe idea is a very iffy proposition, over a hundred thousand optimists have availed themselves of this service.
I just hope that when they hear "Youv'e Got Mail" some years from now, the feelings of warm nostalgia will overwhelm the feelings of depression.
FutureMe lets individuals send messages for delivery as much as 30 years from now, though most folks schedule their letters to be sent within three years.
If I send an e-mail to myself, to be delivered thirty years from now, it would be a statement of unbridled optimism, I probably won't be alive in 2035.
This is an interesting concept, but it is fraught with many problems. First of all, nothing is permanent online, there is no guarantee that FutureMe will exist three months from now, let alone three or thirty years into the future. For every Google.com and Amazon.com that have weathered the dot.com bust, there are millions of Web sites that went belly up.
If by some miracle FutureMe manages to survive well into the future, there is a good likelihood that your e-mail address may not meet with the same good fortune.
We change almost as quickly as the Internet, three years from now, we will not be the same persons and we won't be in the same relationships that we're in today. If you send an e-mail to your girlfriend, to be delivered a few years from now, who's to say she won't be with someone else?
Receiving an e-mail that you sent to yourself some years ago, will probably be as uncomfortable and awkward as looking at your high school yearbook.
Sending an e-mail to your future self is not very practical, however it does serve a purpose as a time capsule. Assuming you actually receive your e-mail, some years from now, it will serve as a reminder of what was important to you on 2005.
Even though this FutureMe idea is a very iffy proposition, over a hundred thousand optimists have availed themselves of this service.
I just hope that when they hear "Youv'e Got Mail" some years from now, the feelings of warm nostalgia will overwhelm the feelings of depression.
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