Light Reading - Netted
Article • August 10, 2011

Light Reading

Limit Your Emails To 500 Characters Or Less

We’re on a mission to take back the World Speed Reading Record. Our training right now consists of Twitter, a ton of email, and two Kindles we’ve glued together for maximum efficiency.

Sure, not everyone can be speed reading champ, but for everyone else trying to read a little faster, we recommend ShortMail. It’s a new Twitter/Email mashup that keeps notes short (less than 500 characters!), to the point, and easy to read.

After logging in with Twitter, Shortmail will add “@shortmail.com” to your Twitter handle and remind recipients to keep replies under 500 letters, too. Like Twitter, a helpful counter keeps track when you’re close to your limit.

It’s easy to import both Gmail and Twitter contacts to Shortmail. Once you do, you can have public chats reminiscent of Twitter or just use it as your shortest, fastest email account.

We can’t decide whether it’s like a longer Twitter or a shorter email. We’re also having trouble determining whether the glass is half empty or half full, and whether to wax on or wax off. But we hired a pretty tough speed reading coach to help.