BigString: No More Sender Regret

I saw the founder and CEO of BigString on CNBC's "The Big Idea" and thought, hey, awesome.

It's an email service, with a twist. Not only can you send and receive email, but you can also send "self-destruct" email, which is Mission:Impossible style email as they describe it on the website, recallable/erasable email and a variety of other means, including video email.

There have been numerous instances of emails being sent on the fly, causing mischief and mayhem as the contents were, well, less than civil. Emails fired off in the heat of the moment instead of taking a few to chill. And email sits out in the ether of the Web, stored somewhere and never really erased. There's always the possibility, however remote, that a particular email will come back to haunt you.

BigString, therefore, is on to something. The ability to make a troublesome email go poof is enticing, and removes any incentive to think before you type.

Too bad Enron didn't have such a service at its disposal, though it seems as if the White House does since emails are still, ahem, missing.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how BigString and its email elimination business does. No doubt there is a market for it. And who knows what could be next. Now that people are understanding that the Web is public domain, plenty want information removed and have discovered that it is not quite that easy; information is never completely removed.

Perhaps this will lead to a solution, and more privacy and ethical battles are sure to ensue.