Is Zumbox the First View of Mail 2.0?

Three thousand six hundred. That’s approximately the number of seconds I’ve stood in a wifi-free Post Office queue this week, unable to do anything except stare blankly at a mute screen as John Henshaw promoted away.

Both times (for it took a mere two visits to clock up such a gargantuan amount of waiting) have seen my mind drifting as to the possibilities for postage in a Web 2.0 world. Surely there’s a better way?

Well, the prospect of Mail 2.0 may just have been glimpsed in the form of Zumbox. Currently only available in the US, it’s essentially a digital mailbox.

Anyone with a street address can simply type in their address, view their mail as envelopes, and then click through to see the contents. Any printable file can be sent or received, and of course web formats such as HTML can also be built into the “mail”.

It looks such a giant leap on from the antiquated system we currently have. I for one will be hoping we see something similar over here very soon.