October 26th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Those liking the Sims will like this one — 3D Mailbox. It’s a software that brings your email system to life by converting it into an interactive environment. You can interact and explore the surroundings while reading and writing emails. It even has an integrated IM chat system that lets you talk with your friends while reading/ writing emails.
There are two different environments to choose from, the initial Miami Beach environment and LAX Airport. The free software version includes the Miami Beach environment but it’ll cost you a one time fee of $29.95 to access LAX Airport.
Everything in the environment has a function related to either the email or chat system. For example, within the Miami Beach environment, your emails are represented by people on a beach, every email (person) that comes into your inbox (represented by a pool) will be checked by a spam filter (represented by a bouncer). When you are ready to check your inbox, just dive into the pool and interact with the people in there (i.e. your emails). When you swim in the pool, you’re basically browsing the emails (or people) you have available. They’ll remain in the pool until you move them into folders (represented by Cabanas) or delete them (by sending them to the alley). To get rid of the unwanted spam that might have come into your pool (or inbox), just feed them to the sharks (spam killers).
3D Mailbox is a pretty innovative and creative concept that’s the first of its kind. However, this is probably one of those apps that you’ll use once and then not use it anymore. It’s meant to be more game like and cool than functional and convenient. When I was testing it to see what it was all about, it started getting annoying real fast when I wanted to access a feature quickly. It was also pretty repetitive and the novelty of the Sims like interaction started wearing off the more I used it. They do promise to keep you interested by introducing new environments in the future.
Seeing the scantily clad women also makes this an R-rated software that’s definitely not suitable for young kids. I’m not surprise if Second Life introduces something like that within their virtual environment soon.
Here are two trailers for the different environments. A little cheezy but it gets the point across.
3D Mailbox is created by Robert Savage. He is the founder and President of World Market Watch, Inc., best known for VisitorVille®, the popular 3-dimensional website tracking software.
5 Responses to “3D Mailbox: Bringing your email to life”
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3D Mailbox said: @ 10:13 pm
October 26th, 2007
Thanks for blogging about 3D Mailbox!
One point I’d like to correct you on:
“Seeing the scantily clad and naked women also makes this an R-rated software that’s definitely not suitable for young kids”
There are no naked women (or men) in 3D Mailbox.
They are all attired in mainstream swimwear that can be seen on any public beach in America.
The Foo said: @ 10:21 pm
October 26th, 2007
@ 3D Mailbox:
There were some areas where it looked like they were naked and topless. Maybe it was my eyes playing up on me then or their bikinis were just very close a color to their skin. Anyways, I did change that statement.
Brian said: @ 2:51 pm
October 30th, 2007
I’ll be brutally honest - I can’t see a techie person using this software. It could be that I’m not the targeted demographic (male, mid twenties, college grad student) - but email rarely is something that should illicit joy or excitement… unless the content of said email encourages those emotions.
Just my 2 cents.
- Brian
The Foo said: @ 3:07 pm
October 30th, 2007
@brian
you’re right, no techie person will use this. like you, i really don’t need joy and excitement in my email app, i need functionality. i do think it would appeal to the younger pre and middle age teens.
3D Mailbox said: @ 3:18 pm
October 30th, 2007
:) You’d be surprised at the amount of people in this world who are interested in making their email more entertaining.