I logged into my account this morning and saw that I've personally invited 100 people into Sendside.

By the way, we've left our Beta and released v1.0 for our Personal and soon to be released Business and Enterprise Editions. If you'd like an account, fire me off a request through the link below and I'll set you up. 

GET YOUR OWN SENDSIDE ACCOUNT >

 
Of interest may be that <jeffbarson> following my name. It's my Sendside 'Member Name' and with this new release you can now send directly to that and I'll receive that message. In future releases you'll be able to send to other unique identifiers just by typing them into the TO field. If they're unique, they'll be delivered directly to that recipient's Sendside inbox.

The takeaway here for all of you 'social network types' is that Sendside doesn't rely on your email address but identifies you in the same way that you're identified by all of your unique identifiers offline.. as an individual with a unique identity. Cell phone, email address, social security number, street address, military ID, name... anything unique, or any unique combination of identifiers could be used to send a message.

There are plenty of identifiers you can send to, but they're generally some sort of username inside the network. As far as I know, Sendside's the only network that has the potential to combine ANY online identifier as well as all things offline to determine exactly who you are and deliver content to you with total precision and security.

That, buy the way, is tres impressive. 

Sendside's user base is growing steadily, which makes us all happy around the campfire. And the release of the 1.0 code is moving the product ahead by a giant leap.

The constant rethinking and retooling of how we handle our members experience with the product put me in mind of something that Seth Godin posted about Google and their push to make the user experience better. 

From Seth Godin:

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google,

"We knew that Google was going to get better every single day as we worked on it, and we knew that sooner or later, everyone was going to try it. So our feeling was that the later you tried it, the better it was for us because we'd made a better impression with better technology. So we were never in a big hurry to get you to use it today. Tomorrow would be better."

...As a result of Google's decision, they made counter-intuitive decisions. No ads, for example. No clutter. No popups, no tricky interpretations of privacy policies. Instead, every decision was, "If this is going to be the one and only choice, the best search engine in the world, what should we do?" The feeling was, if they built that, the money would take care of itself. And the investors who bought in were in on the game from the start.

Sendside has no ads in the personal edition. (Sendside's business editions will be software as a service and generate the revenue.)

We're very aware that the experience users have with our free personal edition will impact our growth. We're going to be pushing very hard to make it perform.

One point of interest that strikes me is that even with the relatively small number of users we currently have, that some of them have already asked it it's possible to port all of their email addresses into their Sendside account. Of course that could well negate the ability we have to prevent all spam and phishing and destroy the very value that's inherent in the system.

Of course the real option is just to accrue more members.  

William Borghetti, founder and CEO of Sendside Networks, is no stranger to big ideas–he sold his last startup, Campus Pipeline, to Sungard after automating inefficient “stand-in-line” processes at Universities. Now, in the same way FedEx revolutionized traditional mail with overnight delivery, Sendside Networks aims to provide an entirely new way for individuals and organizations to interact and transact electronically. Borghetti and team see a future where businesses replace paper, postage, and delivery time. Instead Borghetti expects businesses to offer an exchange of rich, interactive messages, documents, even full-blown web applications in a trusted messaging environment free of spam, fraud, and phishing scams.

Borghetti’s shares the story with Brad Baldwin from Rocky Mountain Voices and explains why Sendside created an entirely new technology offering for sensitive and confidential communication. Sendside believes SMTP and “bolt-on” solutions (like encryption) just can’t extend SMTP’s life. To protect its vision, Sendside created an IP arsenal filing 16 patents.

Want to send or receive secure messages with complete tracking and guaranteed retraction–even after someone opens it? Sendside Networks opens for public sign-up April 3, 2008.

Digital IQ ran this story on Sendside: Building a better email.

 
We are in our new office space and it's quite a step up.

"Down a meandering hallway diffused with fluorescent lighting, in a squat two-story 1980s office complex like the one where your dentist works, is the door to Sendside Networks, Inc. Through that door you won’t find a sleek reception desk, a backlit logo, modern art, or anything else that says, “Welcome to a cutting-edge corporation, to the offices of a company that is changing the way you do business!” Rather, guests are greeted by…The Wall of Shame. Not papered with finger-pointing posters nagging you to quit smoking or gambling or visiting certain unsavory Websites – no – the red-faced source of this wall is mail. Ordinary U.S. mail and envelopes from FedEx and the like. From ceiling to baseboard, a crate’s worth of catalogs and cardboard dangles from tacks like scarlet letters.

“Our wall of shame is merely a two-week example of mail we’ve received here in the office,” says William Borghetti, CEO of Sendside. It is all mail that the company wants to be sent via the Internet and the “channel” Sendside is creating, a new category of electronic communication that promises to be highly secure, interactive and productive.

Imagine a week (or month) of your mail or, to save time, let’s talk about mine: Numerous statements from credit cards and banks. Reports and updates from my financial advisor and mutual funds. A delightful, lengthy exchange with the Veterans’ Administration over a relative’s benefits, requiring copiers and additional machinery. Queries from an insurance company that demand written responses.

Now picture all of this happening online, safely, without a hitch, knowing you received, they received – done and done. Envision a secure portal to interact and transact with all of these individuals and institutions – folks of your choosing whom you know and trust – through which you can accept, sign and return large documents. View statements and make payments without additional passwords and the click-click-click of following link after link or logging in to other Websites. Attach e-signed power of attorney papers and shoot them to the federal government and know they were recieved without interception. This is what Sendside Networks is creating – a gigantic, secure pneumatic tube from you to your sources and back.

Sendside’s network isn’t designed for all mail, but for the “layers that matter,” says Geoff Kahler, the company’s VP of marketing and sales. It’s not for protecting pictures of your pet fish and sharing with everyone on your mailing list. “Will the network entirely replace traditional email?” Kahler asks. “Not in the short term. It’s more likely to become an immediate replacement for paper-based communication,” a way to avoid the mailbox and the FedEx guy, saving billions in paper and mailing costs, including losses due to fraud, scams and lost productivity.

The idea for Sendside Networks, Inc. was hatched a couple of years ago, when, Borghetti says, “the light bulb came on for us” while going through mail and paying bills. “You may log onto your bank…so the bank has that going for it, in that you will initiate the self-service mode, but no one wants to log into the County of Salt Lake. No one wants to log into their accountant’s Web service, or lawyer’s.”

Borghetti continues, “Overall, [Sendside] is a way of restoring a two-way balance to communication in many respects. The organizations we’re talking to – not just banks, but credit card companies, insurance companies, law firms – they want to be able to send confidential information quickly, easily, cost-effectively. And the only way to do that is FedEx, U.S. Mail or the online ‘come and get it’ method, meaning there’s something important for you but you’ve got to log in and get it.”

The “come and get it” method of delivery of information – an email from your bank notifying you that your new statement is available when you click your mouse twice and type the magic words – is where a lot of time on the Web is wasted. Yes, the fact that we can pay bills online, securely, is more than we could do a decade ago, but has email and secure communication really come that far? Borghetti says no. “The world today, electronically, is a frenetic work-around to email’s shortcomings. Email encryption is a classic example of bolting on something that should be scrambled and non-viewable in transit anyways.” 

Email, or really the Internet, promised a lot of things in the beginning. Weren’t we going to save billions of trees back then because we wouldn’t be needing pesky old printers anymore, or moth-eaten books? It’s more likely (hasn’t someone out there done a study?) that we’re now able to work and produce and waste paper more rapidly than ever. Who doesn’t still subscribe to the Sunday paper, just because it feels good to open and flip and fold up each section when finished? But no one enjoys reading a financial statement (maybe some people do) or legal contracts over a cup of coffee. These are items we want to deal with as quickly, securely and professionally as possible and this is what Sendside is all about.

“We’re often misunderstood,” says Borghetti. “Is this a security thing? Is this an encryption company? What is Sendside Networks? It’s really none of those things. The heart of Sendside is being a trusted network providing the technology to allow organizations to connect to each other but also to connect to individuals. It’s not just secure email. There are a lot of secure email solutions out there, but they’re a pain in the butt for the consumer. We are creating a multi-faceted way of presenting information that is unique and novel and had never been done before.”

As founder of other technology-based companies including Campus Pipeline, a Web platform for universities that Borghetti started in his garage, the man is no stranger to new territory or the state’s start-up scene.

Jeff Barson, founder of Surface Medical, entrepreneur, networker of CEOs, blogger and “Chief Evangelist” for Sendside (according to his LinkedIn profile) writes, “William seems to be the group’s entrepreneur in residence and I find myself agreeing with him completely regarding his views with the state of startups in Utah. While it takes only a small amount of wine [to] get William’s views of the Utah capital markets and the way they work, I couldn’t agree more…William’s also philosophically inclined to give back, which I find refreshing. He’s got some good policies including buy-me-lunch-and-I’ll-tell-you-stuff, and no-need-to-call-in-on-powder-days.”

Still in the audit phase, Sendside Networks is up and running today and offering three products or levels of service. The first is Sendside.com, designed for individuals and available free of charge but by invitation only. Sendside Professional was developed for small- and medium-sized businesses, and for large organizations with millions of customers, there is Sendside Enterprise.

And while pricing for the professional versions is yet to be determined, Kahler says it will be a “no-brainer, approachable” alternative to the costs of regular mail and courier/shipping services. “We have an organization in California that needs to distribute quarterly updates to contracts to 850 providers at a cost of probably $25 per FedEx and usually the guy on the other side is sending a FedEx back with the signed contract, so they have a paper copy that they can shove in a file,” he says. “Why not give that organization a license, if you will, to send as much information as they want to that organization, quarterly updates, etc. for $25 a year, per customer? We’ve reduced their costs by 75 percent.”

Now, that would inspire a significant clearing of anyone’s wall of shame. In Sendside’s case, their wall may be disappearing altogether, unless someone plans to reinstall it in the company’s new modern office space in the East Cottonwood area of Salt Lake City."

The Sendside Invitation-only Beta is now open.

 
To submit your name for our Beta, take a second and fill out this 16 second form.

Due to the number of requests we're receiving, we may have to limit membership for a short time. If you think someone you know would also like to be included, now's the time.

Welcome to the Sendside.

What is Sendside?

Sendside is the world's first secure, private, spam–free communications network. We think it has the potential to fundamentally change the way that people & businesses interact on the web by adding something important to every interaction. Trust.

With Sendside, there are no anonymous users, and it's unbelievably secure.

It looks and feels like email (so you already know how to use it), but it's very different since you have total control over what information you send, and what people can send to you.

Here's some of the cool stuff you can already do on Sendside:

• Live without spam or phishing. (Zero. Zilch. Nada.)
• Still send to any email address. (Just like your regular email.)
• Get important info online instead of by mail. (contracts, medical records, account info. Stuff that can't be sent by email for security reasons.)
• Store all of your important documents and files online.
• Access from anywhere there's an internet connection.
• Send huge file attachments (currently 100MB)
• Recall a message even after it's been read. (Oops button)
• Restrict anyone from forwarding a message.
• See who your message was forwarded to.. and who they sent it to. Forever.
• Send a self destruct message.
• Let your kids use it as their email. (It's Family friendly)
• Did we say there was no spam? There's also no porn, Viagra, or phony messages from eBay.

Here's what you're going to be able to do pretty soon:

• Manage every business communication in one place. (Bank accounts, medical records, taxes, insurance...whatever.)
• Send or receive payments instantly. (PaySide)
• Pay every bill online. (Even a one-time bill like a $5 doctor's co-pay.)
• Accept signatures for simple approvals or legally binding contracts.

So, let the revolution begin.

Sendside's about to lauch our Beta, If you haven't requested a Sendside membership I'd encourage you to do so since we're limiting the Beta to 10,000. (Request a Sendside Membership here.)

Before that happens we're  working hammer and tongs to get our sites updated, create Sendside's corporate and Sendside user blog, wiki, forums and such, launch SEO, direct contact, and guerilla campaigns, and keep a number of advertising and development teams on track. It will of course result in the perfect storm in Nov/Dec. (Insert crossed fingers here.)

We're currently working with an agency on headlines for Sendside.com, the main portal site for users. I the spirit of transparency and disclosure, I publish some of the headlines we're looking at for various purposes. In the spirit of brevity, I've included only 20 or so.

Sendside Headlines: 

Email revolutionized communication
and we revolutionized email.
Which makes us doubly revolutionary.

++

Email was the first (small?) step.
Sendside is the giant leap for mankind.

++

Sendside
e
email
evolved
Sendside
Sendside, highly evolved communications.

+++

When was the last time you wanted to kiss your inbox?

++

Sending that critical report to your client should be a weight off of your shoulders. If not we have an Oops button.

++

Your future email will let you send huge files, control your message even after you send it, come with an Oops button and make martinis. Until then, no martinis. Sendside, highly evolved communications.

++

Sendside; you’ll want to French-kiss your inbox.

++

We’re happy to inform you that everything before us is obsolete.

++

Perfect online communication. This concludes our service menu.

++

Email for control freaks, spam haters, and environmentalists.

++

Sendside. Email walking upright. 

++

Spam? Phishing? Junk mail? Sendside, ignorance is bliss.

++

In the future there will be no spam, phishing, or junk mail. Welcome to the future: Sendside.

++

Give up your spam. Sendside.

++

Sendside users need to know a number of ways to deal with spam, phishing and junk mail. (That number is, of
course, zero.)

++

You give up things when you switch to Sendside. Things like spam, phishing, and junk mail.

++

Technology that works the way you want. Sendside.

++

Email just went the way of the Dodo bird.

++

We took a long, hard look at email and we didn't like what we saw. So we decided to get rid of it. Sendside.

++

Email was invented in 1982. Today it was perfected.

++

This ain’t your momma’s email.

++

Email for control freaks, spam haters, and environmentalists.

++

Sendside. Email walking upright.

++

The spam stops here.

So there it is. Part of Sendside's benefit proposition for our end users. If any of these lines tickle your curiosity, make sure you sign up for the Beta. 

Stint building UI, blogs, & other...

I find myself in need of some design, css, interface, mocks, html and other stuff. We've decided to bring some of this development inside so I'm casting a web to see if I know anyone who's in the market or a freelancer who may want a gig of a few months. You'll be builiding blogs, UI work, CSS, mocks and demos, possibly some print and collateral, whatever needs doing.

This is an opportunity, not a job. Contractor at first till we both decide if we like each other. This is a perfect opportunity for a younger designer who codes or a coder who knows a little about design to get a toe into a real startup.

Must have:

• Design sense that doesn't suck. The better your design sense, the more I'll like you.
• Familiarity with wordpress & blogging.
• CSS, HTML, & probably some java junk.
• Smarter that you are dumb.
• Ability to get things done.
  

Compensation:

This is a paying gig that will probably last a few months at least. If you're entry level and willing to learn, fine. If you're senior and willing to pull your weight for a while, also fine. I'll pay whatever you're actually worth.

You can email me at jeffbarson at sendside dot com and I'll call you.

I've put up a store over on Cafe Press for Sendside Swag and Email 2.0.

(I wanted a coffee mug but all I got was this thong.)

We're reworking a number of things so you may want to grab a mug or some boxers for posterity. It would be like having the Google logo on your underwear with all of the letters the same color. That's got to be worth something on eBay in the future.

In fact, I'll give anyone who buys this thong and emails me a picture of themselves in it a Sendside pro account when go live. (Is that gramatically correct?)

If you send a video, I'll give you two.