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Download Squad Q & A with 3D Mailbox creator Robert Savage
When Robert Savage, creator of the recently released email client 3D Mailbox, commented on our post about his new product, we invited him to participate in an email interview with us. Here's what he had to say:
DS: What gave you the idea to create 3D Mailbox?
Ideas just come. Hard to dissect. William Faulkner wrote The Sound and The Fury after seeing a girl's white dress.
DS: Does your company plan to develop any new types of software using the technology you've created for Visitorville and 3D Mailbox?
Yes!
DS: What's the target audience for this product?
Anyone who thinks out of the box, and enjoys having fun with technology. Gamers love it, creative types love it, and then a whole bunch of people love it who are just hard to pigeonhole.
DS: How many people have downloaded the free version, and how many paid users do you have?
You're kidding, right? And this is for publication? Typically, unless a company is publicly-traded, and must disclose such things in their filings, such things are closely guarded.
DS: Do you use 3D Mailbox as your primary email client?
Look in the headers of this email and you'll have the answer :)
DS: According to your Website, "We hope you enjoy the Free version enough to pay for the Registered version. That's our business model, plain and simple." If you don't acquire the necessary amount of paid users to make your business plan viable, what will become of this project?
Fortunately, I can remove that now. There have been enough paid users at this point to validate the concept.
DS: According to your Website "every $700 computer today" has the necessary requirements to run your program but that is not that case. Would you like to clarify?
http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/inspndt_bundles?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
DS: Since its release, 3D Mailbox has been criticized for several things, including its depiction of overweight people and women. Your Website says these and other criticisms are simply because "people say irrational things when they're angry or threatened." Would you like to elaborate?
Yes, people get pissed when they take comedy personally, when they feel inadequate by seeing a shapelier human than themselves, or when a new technology is introduced that threatens the way they do things. It's a universal truth that people resist change, and in recent times, there is a trend to personalize everything. It's the "me generation" gone berserk. Are people so self-absorbed because they are fundamentally selfish, or rather because they lack a fully-defined self? I think the latter.
DS: You have said that:
- you released this product at a time when "some people are fed up with hearing about Second Life and fearing that 3-D is Web 3.0."
- that people are upset because you have "introduced the possibility of change and that 3D Mailbox "threatens the Old Guard."
- you are "unconventional" and your "sense of humor is not mainstream."
- other software you have released received a "similar reaction."
The key word there is "attention", and any attention is great for any product. I couldn't have paid for all the exposure it has gotten. The trailer alone, in the past week, has gotten almost 300,000 views. Remember, not everybody hates it. And when you have all those eyeballs, you get a lot of independent thinkers in the mix. You should know that all publicity is good publicity, and all the haters just help spread the word. That, to me, is amusing. I can creatively leverage this thing being called the "worst. app. ever" in many ways. It's a blessing. Speaking of blessings, the Church of England seems to be in your camp, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3zokklWwO4&watch_response
DS: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
I've tried to address your questions as best I could, given that the questions themselves were designed to bait.
Comments
24
Subscribe to commentsLord NecrosJul 24th 2007 2:42AM
@Lisa Hoover:
you did say that several other people tried to install the software but didnt say if any of them had pixel shaders as required by the software. if you dont have the required hardware, what is the point of your trying to claim that you cant install it. i hope that next you are not going to put up a writeup for bioshock claiming that it is flawedbecause you cant install it in your machine with onboard intel extreme chipset. meh.
"On this point -- trust me on this -- you couldn't be more wrong"
you do admit having a prejudice against him, right? then what is the point of having an interview when you already have formed your opinion about the prodect and the creator. what happened to objectivity?
most of the questions simply dont make for a good interview and are there only to put the creator in a negative light. Savage was rude, for certain, but thats what you get for baiting someone.
reading your review i came accroos this line;
"It's awfully persnickety and demands that your PC have DirectX 9 and that your video card have Vertex Shader and Pixel Shader."
seriously what kind of computer nowadays hasn't got DX9? Even XP comes bundled with DX9. if you are going to review a software please make sure that atleast your computer isn't antiquated.
personally, i myself wouldnt be using this program, simply because its too impractical but at least give the credit where its due. its not to make email browsing more efficient but to make it more fun.
and last but not the least, please stop with all that politically correct bullshit. its ok only to a limit. but foistering your level of sensitivity on others simply isnt the ebst thing to do. whats next? getting mad because it has negative portrayal of sharks? oh hell. sharks need their loving too. Discovery Channel has shown us too many times how cuddly and accomodating sharks can be, so why the hell that idiot Savage has tried to portray the sharks in a negative "man-eating" light?
quite frankly, let people make up their own minds on the PC level of a product. they might have a different sense of humour from yours. focus more on the functionality and performance.
hope to see better interview from you than this in the future.
regards.
Claudiu SpulberJul 24th 2007 3:48AM
So what's the purpose of this program? It's not a real email client since doesn't help you at all with productivity (would like to see how it would handle 500+ emails a day), and it's not enticing enough for being a game (I mean sure, the bikini models could attract some horny teenagers, but after seeing the same avatar a couple of times they'll give up). I miss the days when programs were created for the need to solve a particular problem.
wowJul 24th 2007 1:29PM
What a dick. A classic case of "I-created-this-draw-dropping-piece-therefore-I-come-first-because-I'm superior." Regardless of how stupid the questions are, you should have responded in a professional manner -- it's not like you invented e-mail or created the ultimate e-mail client. I'd hate to be one of your customers asking for product service.
MizstJul 27th 2007 7:04PM
In this particular instance, I'm on Robert's side even though 3D Mailbox didn't fit with my usage.
There are only two ways to answer the "interview" questions. The first way would be to answer conservatively, kind of like how Bill Gates or any normal corporate would say it. This obviously does not fit with the "outside the box" attitude of Mr. Robert and quite obviously he went the other way - going straight against the questions, which is respectable.
The dialog above, to me, does not look like an interview. It looks more like a second or third email in a series of private arguments.