We get, on average 15million emails a day with peaks much higher.
Definitely don't confuse that with ad revenue. No one ever ever said we get millions of users a day. Alexa or Quantcast can show you real user traffic - please consider ad revenue to be more realistically based off those numbers.
Simply emails. Pure spam. Once a user signs you up - you're getting spam for them - forever.
If you think of a dead-simple feature Mailinator doesn't have - its because we've probably tried it and backed it out from abuse.
With no exaggeration, we get one or more subpoena inquiries or subpoenas a month. On top of that, we have more code in anti-abuse systems than features. A sad reality but otherwise we'd be long gone. Despite claims of Mailinator being often banned, we go a long way to prevent people from using a feature like forwarding to automatically do an internet vote thousands of times. While that would be fun, we'd be banned in short order and that helps no one.
The most interesting point to me is that you need very strong infrastructure, servers and bandwidth to handle the load if you become popular. In other words, there are many many Mailinator copycats and historically, once a copycat reaches a certain level of popularity, the owners need to make a decision.
Paying for all that isn't easy. As far as I know - this is exactly what happened to the now defunct disposable email sites Pookmail, 2prong, and dodgeit.
Hi Paul, thanks for your insight. Wise words I'll always remember when facing adversity. This project is just to get a couple of bucks a month, nothing else. Running on top of google infrastructure I'll try to see how much it can handle without breaking apart, I'll be reporting on any scaling issues.
This will be a great learning experience for sure.
Those statements were said at different times, before and after new information was available. Kilimanjaro is working to a plan that can adapt; this is something to admire not mock. Personally, I reckon what he's doing is great, and I'm also impressed by Paul's openness and willingness to give advice.
I agree. Kilimanjaro's enthusiasm is just what you need as an entrepreneur :)
In some sense, my "openness" might be too much reality. He may find the business model he needs (and I was serious when I said there were 10's of copycats already - good idea to check those out for ideas)
And, of course, Mailinator is surely just a "weekend project" for me too. It just has an advantage of a good few years worth of weekends.
Started as a weekend project to make a couple of bucks a month, it has the potential to grow and scale backed by google infrastructure. As a side effect, it may grow bigger than mailinator taking its place as number one disposable email account provider.
I hope that clears the confusion about my intentions and future goals.
Comments
Paul from Mailinator here.
We get, on average 15million emails a day with peaks much higher.
Definitely don't confuse that with ad revenue. No one ever ever said we get millions of users a day. Alexa or Quantcast can show you real user traffic - please consider ad revenue to be more realistically based off those numbers.
Simply emails. Pure spam. Once a user signs you up - you're getting spam for them - forever.
If you think of a dead-simple feature Mailinator doesn't have - its because we've probably tried it and backed it out from abuse.
With no exaggeration, we get one or more subpoena inquiries or subpoenas a month. On top of that, we have more code in anti-abuse systems than features. A sad reality but otherwise we'd be long gone. Despite claims of Mailinator being often banned, we go a long way to prevent people from using a feature like forwarding to automatically do an internet vote thousands of times. While that would be fun, we'd be banned in short order and that helps no one.
The most interesting point to me is that you need very strong infrastructure, servers and bandwidth to handle the load if you become popular. In other words, there are many many Mailinator copycats and historically, once a copycat reaches a certain level of popularity, the owners need to make a decision.
Paying for all that isn't easy. As far as I know - this is exactly what happened to the now defunct disposable email sites Pookmail, 2prong, and dodgeit.
Death by popularity without revenue.
Hi Paul, thanks for your insight. Wise words I'll always remember when facing adversity. This project is just to get a couple of bucks a month, nothing else. Running on top of google infrastructure I'll try to see how much it can handle without breaking apart, I'll be reporting on any scaling issues.
This will be a great learning experience for sure.
"My goal is to dethrone mailinator as the de facto temp email provider."
"This project is just to get a couple of bucks a month, nothing else."
Which is it ?
Those statements were said at different times, before and after new information was available. Kilimanjaro is working to a plan that can adapt; this is something to admire not mock. Personally, I reckon what he's doing is great, and I'm also impressed by Paul's openness and willingness to give advice.
I agree. Kilimanjaro's enthusiasm is just what you need as an entrepreneur :)
In some sense, my "openness" might be too much reality. He may find the business model he needs (and I was serious when I said there were 10's of copycats already - good idea to check those out for ideas)
And, of course, Mailinator is surely just a "weekend project" for me too. It just has an advantage of a good few years worth of weekends.
Both.
Started as a weekend project to make a couple of bucks a month, it has the potential to grow and scale backed by google infrastructure. As a side effect, it may grow bigger than mailinator taking its place as number one disposable email account provider.
I hope that clears the confusion about my intentions and future goals.