We all know that email is a huge corporate problem, and the need to CC: your boss, her boss and someone else's boss is sucking pure $$$ out of every company.
We know that, but we haven't done anything about it.
Maybe it's time to figure out a way to charge people for sending email to more than one person. Crazy idea, I know. But what if you assigned a true cost to sending a CYA email to multiple people in the organization.
As it turns out, Facebook is already experimenting with this as a revenue source. Take a look at the pilot via Mashable:
"We knew Facebook was eager for new revenue streams. We just didn't know they were this eager. If you try to send founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg a message on Facebook, Mashable discovered Thursday, the social network may offer to keep the message out of his "Other" Inbox — for a cool $100.
In our tests from multiple accounts, it appeared to be the case that users only get this message if they're not one of Zuck's 16 million followers. That, however, could still be coincidental.
Keen Facebook observers will recognize this as a variant on the $1 pay-to-message plan that the social network has been experimenting with for months. The company indicated at the time that it would be experimenting with other prices, so it's possible we're starting to see the fruits of that.
There were sporadic reports in December of Facebook charging various people $100 for the service, but this is the first time we've seen it — and certainly the first time we've seen it applied to the founder.The "Other" inbox is Facebook's dumping ground for all messages it guesses you won't want to read urgently. It's been controversial for some time, as most users are entirely unaware of its existence — and many have been known to discover messages they really wish they'd read at the time, such as job offers."
So... Let's think about that when it comes to corporate email. What if you gave each employee a credit of $100 per year, then started charging various rates to send email to people outside of your direct workgroup? Couple of things would happen - people would at some point become aware of their balance situation and would automatically start making decisions about who to spend money on for email access, and those receiving emails would receive fewer messages - and might actually pay more attention to someone they knew had to pay for the concept/chance of getting their attention.
Crazy? Maybe. Or maybe it's crazy enough to work.
If I'm an HR Manager in Fargo for a Fortune 500, I'm probably saving some credits for when I really need access. True to models like Indeed, you could even spike the system to keep it on top of someone's inbox for extended periods.
Charge more, email less. Get better results.
Boom.
So if Facebook has been charging people $1 in the pay-to-message plan for months...how has it been collecting ? From debit or credit cards ? From bank accounts ? From garnishing the checks of its own employees....
Too many questions. Facebook doesn't need anothe PR fiasco. Remember the IPO ?
Posted by: Soloman Grundy | January 18, 2013 at 10:41 AM