Virtual Addresses
I've been here three months now, and I'm still switching over from my old address. There's got to be a better way.
You may not realize it, but my email address isn't really dgoodman@infoway.com. Email sent to that address gets forwarded to whatever my actual email provider is. When I change ISPs, I simply forward to a different address.
Instead of giving out my actual snail mail address, I wish I could give out a virtual address. When you sent mail to me, the post office would simply look up my current physical address and send your message there. If I moved, nobody would have to know except the post office, and all my mail would get to me. Now, is that so hard?
The bonus would be that you could send me mail and packages, but you still couldn't show up at my house uninvited, trying to convert me to your religion, solicit my vote or sell me crap I don't want. I guess that's why we don't have the system I've proposed. 
Blog Tag: Opinion
Posted 3/31/2006 12:07:00 AM
L
On 3/31/2006 12:49 AM, 
Melissa said...
On 3/31/2006 8:32 AM, dkgoodman said...
On 3/31/2006 12:27 PM, 
Mike Duffy said...
On 3/31/2006 1:01 PM, dkgoodman said...
On 4/01/2006 6:28 PM, mosta said...
On 4/06/2006 8:43 AM, Dan Lyke said...
6 Comments:
It's an interesting idea, but so many people have the same names, how would the post office know which Dave Goodman to send the mail to?
The post office would assign you a postal ID, like goodmand65535, and that's all it would take to get a package to you.
Hey, let's use your Social Security Number!!! (grin)
Seriously, mail forwarding exists (for a price):
http://www.google.com/search?q=mail+forwarding+service
But who do you trust?
Sometimes I forward mail to "General Delivery" and then go pick it up at the post office once a week until I've filed a change of address for just the items I want.
It would be so much better if the post office just had virtual addresses natively. :)
Who's going to be the official mail server? Much like FEDEX, UPS, USPS, DHL?
I'd settle for a system that let me give people who might ship to me a URL from which they could retrieve current postal and shipping addresses. That way before magazines send their monthly package they just update their databases from my web server. (See LID, for instance.)
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