Earth Class Mail: A Virtual PO Box? Who gives a rat’s ass?

Earth Class Mail

What the heck are they supposedly introducing as a value based service again?

In my eternal search for new and innovative ways to avoid being productive (don’t bother me when it’s Grand Slam tournament season), a new reality show on Hulu found it’s way to invade my time.

Though I generally try to avoid reality shows (unless it’s got that Gordon Ramsay dude… but only because he calls his contestants “lazy cows”) this one piqued my interest because it’s about a tech based start up company. And I find said subject extremely fascinating.

The show is called Start-Up Junkies and it’s traditional TV home is the Mojo cable network. But if you’re like me and you basically have the French Open playing in the background on your TV, your best bet is to check out all eight full episodes on Hulu for free.

In a nutshell, Start-Up Junkies is about a group of rag tag entrepreneurs who start up a brand new tech based company to interrupt the multi billion (perhaps trillion?) dollar “snail mail” industry.

How, you may ask?

By intercepting your paper mail, scanning it and re-sending this mail to you via email as a pdf type file. But not to worry, you can still get your regular important mail the old school traditional ways, this service is really for those pesky junk mail type stuff that you wouldn’t really pay any mind to anyway. I mean bills, personal letters, health clinic reports, those are things too personal to allow some stranger to open, yes? Right.

The show itself sheds a spotlight on many of Earth Class Mail’s trials, tribulations and passionate sales presentations all mostly done by company jolly guy, Ron. It’s all very fascinating and kinda inspiring. A bunch of renegades bypass working for “the man” in order to create and grow a company to become “the man” themselves. Very touching.

Here’s what I don’t get. These folks over at Earth Class Mail and Mojo don’t do a very good job of explaining quite exactly what they are offering. Is it virtual mail? A virtual PO Box? A junk mail filter that actually just ends up as more junk email for the user? And they would actually pay for this service?

Just to be clear… I’m paying you to send me more junk email? Because I most certainly wouldn’t give the green light for total strangers to open my private mails, bills, checks, packages, etc.

WTF?

The other thing that kinda miffed me was that they call their company and service Earth Class Mail, no doubt an obvious effort of trying to ride the new “green” cultural revolution that’s taken over our country. But from what I gather, this company’s service doesn’t actually eliminate any of the paper based mail that the receiver would normally get. All it does is just send the same paper mail to another address where this huge, overpriced, oversized mail sorter machine just scans the original paper mail and sends a pdf type file to the recipient’s email. Then if there is anything of interest, I may print out the email to save for later. So, basically I just used up more paper for what I think may be a pretty lame service. Al Gore would be very displeased with me.

This all leads to my “duh” questions of the week: Why would I pay someone to go through my junk mail? If this company just scans stuff that I normally wouldn’t pay any mind to anyway, why would I care that someone else take the time and efforts to scan this for me and send it to me? Isn’t that just helping the junk mail senders instead of making my life easier? Oh, and I get to pay for this privilege too? Am I missing something here? Ooh, piece of candy!

If anyone out there knows about this company or watches the show and can explain exactly what service they are selling and why it may be something, anything of value, I’d appreciate a note or message here.

Rafael Nadal

This kid is looking more like he’s going to win four in a row in Paris.

By the way, Rafael Nadal just absolutely destroyed Verdasco 6-1, 6-0, 6-2 in the fourth round of the 2008 French Open.

cap

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June 1st, 2008 in CAP Tech, Internet | tags: business, earth class mail, entrepreneurship, hulu, Internet, mojo, New Media

Comments

Nomad BusinessmanJuly 12th, 2008 at 6:26 pm

The reason it is useful to me is because I have a small business that I do from home, but I am not living at a permanent address. I can use there address on marketing and business correspondance and have the advantage of having a constant address while I am not pressured into a PO box where I live now and find out it is on the other side of town when I move to another address.

capJuly 13th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

Thanks for checking out the post, Nomad Businessman.

You’re absolutely right. I can’t argue with your reasoning.

I think my only gripe (if you could even call it that) is that the folks over at earthclassmail clearly wants to take over the larger corporate markets and my thing is that many of these bigger companies certainly have the capital and resources to not need a virtual PO box. I just can’t see these big corporate folks checking their email to look for PO Box content which are mostly going to be junk mail anyway.

But for the smaller businesses, I certainly believe there is a huge value proposed by services like earthclassmail.

Great comment on your part though. Thanks!

cap

JimAugust 6th, 2008 at 7:41 pm

You’d be surprised how useful their service is–we’re a fairly well capitalized company but due to the nature of what we do its better for us to run a “virtual” office. We could certainly afford an office with a mail room but that would necessitate me commuting to work, playing office politics, etc–I might as well get a real job. I’m also fortunate in that I can run my business from anywhere, but telling clients to mail something to you in Park City one week, Las Vegas the next, and Costa Rica the following week doesn’t exactly give off a professional image. This service is killer since I can log in and “check the mail” anywhere in the world. I handle all of my financial type stuff online so strangers opening my private mail isn’t a problem.

capAugust 7th, 2008 at 8:47 am

Hey Jim:

Thanks for checking out the post and sharing your comments.

I’m still torn by this debate. You make a very well laid out point. However, if you’re the kind of guy who travels to Park City one day only to move over to Vegas the next and Costa Rica the day after that (man, that’s a sweet job you got there), chances are that you have a homebase assistant who manages a lot of your day to day activities from the offices, keep you informed, etc.

Now I still find it hard to believe that this assistant couldn’t act as a filter and just scan your mail to send you a pdf file to your email so you can review any important pieces of mail. If you’re comfortable enough to have complete strangers at earthclass to open your mail and scan them, why not your assistant? About the “professional image” I’m not a big fan of sending mail to PO boxes to business associates who consider me an important part of their buyer/seller list. PO Boxes are kind of like the B Team files. This leads me to my earlier point in the post about just what types of mail you would have be sent to your PO Box? I’m sure any important pieces of mail (business or personal) wouldn’t be sent to a PO Box. Depending on the level of importance you would probably have it sent to you directly, use a courier service, etc.

It seems to me that earthclass is still a service that best serves as a filter for mail that you really otherwise don’t want or necessarily need to open or read such as junkmail (junkclassmail anyone?)

But at least the option is there for world class travelers like you and as long as there is an audience for such services, I’m sure earthclass will prove itself a value added service for the masses if it truly is meant to be. I’m still yet to be convinced.

cheers

cap

daveAugust 31st, 2008 at 8:22 pm

Hey, apparently they are on their way to NZ… Take a look http://www.earthclassmail.co.nz.

capSeptember 1st, 2008 at 11:53 am

?!?!?

JamieSeptember 8th, 2008 at 10:56 am

I live on my classic yacht and run into the same non-permanent address problem. I would love to completely eliminate an address from my life, but the world isn’t quite ready for that yet, in particular the IRS. I use the earthclass service that provides a real physical address (non-PO Box ~ I agree with you about the B Team image). That also means I can pick up packages from UPS, etc when I’m in town, as they provide Will Call service for items you don’t want them to scan. I hate running to the post office and was extremely resistant to a PO Box. This works well for us.

capSeptember 8th, 2008 at 12:17 pm

Hey Jamie:

Thanks for checking out the post. This is one of the most debated topics on the blog and I love how with each critic, I come off more foolish in my quick assessments of earth class mail! =)

So it certainly sounds like there is a need for the Earth Class Mail service. I just don’t know how it would break free from the select few and scale to benefit the mass.

Living on a nice serene boat sounds pretty good to me though!

cheers!

cap

supersnappSeptember 19th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

I have been looking for a service like this for some time. As a person who switches locations a lot, I end up missing important mail. This happened to me with a financial institution that did not make much of an effort to find me. I think the review is valid, but if you have a permanent address the service may miff you, but for others without a permanent address, this service could be great.

capSeptember 25th, 2008 at 8:42 am

Thanks for checking out the post and taking the time to comment supersnapp.

Look, I agree with your argument wholly. However, again from a business standpoint, I just don’t see this particular service going mainstream beyond a niche beneficiaries like yourself and the others who have had similar comments just right here.

If you watch the show and listen to these guys sprout off about this service they make it seem like they expect the majority of the public to eventually lead these nomadic lives like the few. And though much of that may very well be salesmanship, I’m just not buying it.

You can make a business out of just about anything, someone somewhere will always need this type of service and many others that benefit the specific few and not the mass. I just don’t buy that this is one of those mass beneficiary services.

cheers.

cap

jclaytonOctober 31st, 2008 at 12:18 am

You can check out what they’re doing to me on my blog, earthmailfree.com. Legal letters, cease and desist, and unreasonable (in my opinion) demand that I hand over my domain. I’d like to hear what you think.

TravisMarch 20th, 2009 at 6:44 pm

The reason you would use this service, is: A. you don't need to change your address everytime you move which is nice if you move alot like me (once a year) and keep forgeting to change your address with your credit cards, banks, dmv, etc. B. You hate paper mail. So i get an email with who sent the mail, then I can select to have that mail recycled if i don't want it, or scanned if i want to look at it. After scanning it i can recycle it too. They recycle the paper, and then I can keep the scan on my computer electronicly rather than have to file and waste space and time filing shit.

I'm a computer guy and hate the process of still using paper, and this company makes HAVING to receive snail mail less painful. I hate having to sift through mail I get, let alone go to check the damn mailbox for new mail, when there is crap or nothing. Waste of my time. This service will save me time managing my mail and I won't have to have a bunch of paper in my house. And about privacy: They have a process to try to protect your personal information, up to the point of a corupt employee that works there, you're stuff is safe. But I don't find it a big deal if some stranger knows my bank account balance or hospital bills. What's the big secret?

cameronparkMarch 20th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

Thanks for checking out the post and commenting Travis.

Dude, I hear all your points about the value in such a system. However, I would argue that you are: A) in the minority and B) have a subjective preference for the service.

I don't know too many people who move as often as once a year. I also personally prefer paper bills and junk mail way over the mountains and mountains of junk email I receive daily. No matter how often I delete them, place them in my spam filter, etc. They still manage to infiltrate my email, just like regular old school paper junk mail.

cameronparkMarch 20th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

Now as a matter of environmental issue, I hope that there would be less and less of this useless and archaic paper junk mail system (perhaps there would be less trees to cut down as a result). But I don't think signing up for a service like Earth Class Mail is something that would necessarily stop that nonsense either. I think that with the rising cost of energy and raw materials, paper junk mail will eventually go the way of regular paper newspapers and find they will diminish in size and scope year by year exponentially.

The bottom line for me personally though is that I'm still not convinced that there is a real value in this service yet beyond the very small demographics of habitual movers and junk email lovers.