20 years ago lovers would write letters to each other all the time. And because letters physically exist they provided a sense of emotion for years. But this new era is different. Email is the way today. And emails are awesome because they allow for quick and cheap communication. I fell in love 3 years ago and we always wrote emails to each other. Even though we would meet everyday we found it easier and more meaningful to communicate through the Internet. Over time my inbox had over 1,000 emails just from her. The rest I would delete regularly. And she had all of mine. I sometimes look back to see my old emails and just following old emails is like drifting through the pages of time. Those emails chronicle our lives together.
The idea is a marketing one for an email service provider. If somehow all of the emails exchanged could be converted into a hardbound book with a choice of picture/painting as cover then I think many people would love having a hardbound – email history. There could be an option to select emails from a certain date. Select just certain emails. Maybe the company could charge on a per email basis.-- nomadic_wonderer, Feb 11 2005 Lulu On-demand Publishing http://my.lulu.com/...and-books2.php#costLooks like it'll cost you about $10 + shipping for a bound 250 page book. [Worldgineer, Feb 11 2005] Its not hardcopy, but Gmail is a good start, and its free.-- linuxguy3827, Feb 11 2005 That's sooo romantic. Hope you have a good valentine's day. [+]-- wagster, Feb 11 2005 Thanks for reminding me to back-up my e-mail.
I've added a link to one of the on-demand book publishers. This is one way of baking this now. The only problem is that I'm not sure if it's possible to keep everybody from buying your e-mail book.-- Worldgineer, Feb 11 2005 (update) I read through the help forum on the site, and it looks like you can publish a book that nobody but you can print - select the "Direct Access" option.-- Worldgineer, Feb 11 2005 Ohhh, this would be so great. Eight of my childhood friends and I have been group emailing each other everyday (sometime a few times a day) for the last 9 years, since we all went off to different colleges/universities. Now that we're back in the same city and see each other regularly, we still email every day. I'd love to have the chronicles of our group emails hardbound.-- Machiavelli, Feb 11 2005 How big would a bound copy of the Halfbakery be?-- wagster, Feb 11 2005 There are currently 23,000 idea here. Average page length with anno's? Maybe two when printed in a book. That's 46,000 pages. I had thought it would be a good book to leave on the shelf above the toilet, but I'm not sure it wouldn't collapse.-- wagster, Feb 11 2005 ([wag]'s anno passed mine in the ether)
Currently about 23,000 ideas x ~3 pages each (guess) = 69,000 pages x $0.02/page on Lulu = $1,380 (ouch!). A 1" book is about 300 pages, so this pricy book would be about 19 feet thick.-- Worldgineer, Feb 11 2005 klaatu in one of his incarnations baked this as a piece of jewellery.-- po, Feb 11 2005 I like that. It would likely be possible to make using microlithography, but more than a little bit difficult to read.-- Worldgineer, Feb 11 2005 Lulu is very nicely done. I like the way that their copy is written and I hope the business works for them. A good link, [Worldgineer], thanks.-- bristolz, Feb 11 2005 ([bz]: I recommend [ldischler]'s book "The Divine Hahoo", if you don't mind a bit of outlandish in your fiction)-- Worldgineer, Feb 11 2005 Just so we're clear, you WOULD get to choose which emails to include in your book (and more to the point, which to leave out)?-- nick_n_uit, Feb 13 2005 [nick_n_uit] yes, fellow student of Eastern Michigan University.-- nomadic_wonderer, Feb 13 2005 Seems to me this would have business applications as well. Instead of a paper file filled with loose printouts, when a job is complete you click the Hard Bound Copy button and have something permanent and storable.-- Worldgineer, Mar 18 2005 random, halfbakery