Download Squad Q & A with 3D Mailbox creator Robert Savage

by Lisa Hoover Jul 23rd 2007

When Robert Savage, creator of the recently released email client 3D Mailbox, commented on our post about his new product, we invited him to participate in an email interview with us. Here's what he had to say:

DS: What gave you the idea to create 3D Mailbox?

Ideas just come. Hard to dissect. William Faulkner wrote The Sound and The Fury after seeing a girl's white dress.

DS: Does your company plan to develop any new types of software using the technology you've created for Visitorville and 3D Mailbox?

Yes!

DS: What's the target audience for this product?

Anyone who thinks out of the box, and enjoys having fun with technology. Gamers love it, creative types love it, and then a whole bunch of people love it who are just hard to pigeonhole.

DS: How many people have downloaded the free version, and how many paid users do you have?

You're kidding, right? And this is for publication? Typically, unless a company is publicly-traded, and must disclose such things in their filings, such things are closely guarded.

DS: Do you use 3D Mailbox as your primary email client?

Look in the headers of this email and you'll have the answer :)

DS: According to your Website, "We hope you enjoy the Free version enough to pay for the Registered version. That's our business model, plain and simple." If you don't acquire the necessary amount of paid users to make your business plan viable, what will become of this project?

Fortunately, I can remove that now. There have been enough paid users at this point to validate the concept.

DS: According to your Website "every $700 computer today" has the necessary requirements to run your program but that is not that case. Would you like to clarify?

http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/inspndt_bundles?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

DS: Since its release, 3D Mailbox has been criticized for several things, including its depiction of overweight people and women. Your Website says these and other criticisms are simply because "people say irrational things when they're angry or threatened." Would you like to elaborate?

Yes, people get pissed when they take comedy personally, when they feel inadequate by seeing a shapelier human than themselves, or when a new technology is introduced that threatens the way they do things. It's a universal truth that people resist change, and in recent times, there is a trend to personalize everything. It's the "me generation" gone berserk. Are people so self-absorbed because they are fundamentally selfish, or rather because they lack a fully-defined self? I think the latter.

DS: You have said that:

you released this product at a time when "some people are fed up with hearing about Second Life and fearing that 3-D is Web 3.0."
that people are upset because you have "introduced the possibility of change and that 3D Mailbox "threatens the Old Guard."
you are "unconventional" and your "sense of humor is not mainstream."
other software you have released received a "similar reaction."

Are you surprised, then, that this product has received such negative attention? Why or why not?

The key word there is "attention", and any attention is great for any product. I couldn't have paid for all the exposure it has gotten. The trailer alone, in the past week, has gotten almost 300,000 views. Remember, not everybody hates it. And when you have all those eyeballs, you get a lot of independent thinkers in the mix. You should know that all publicity is good publicity, and all the haters just help spread the word. That, to me, is amusing. I can creatively leverage this thing being called the "worst. app. ever" in many ways. It's a blessing. Speaking of blessings, the Church of England seems to be in your camp, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3zokklWwO4&watch_response

DS: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I've tried to address your questions as best I could, given that the questions themselves were designed to bait.

Tags: 3D, 3d mailbox, 3dMailbox, email, interview, mailbox

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Ankher said 3:03PM on 7-23-2007

Wow. Sounds like not such a friendly email, eh?

melloncollie said 3:43PM on 7-23-2007

This guy's an asshole.
Really.

WKW said 5:06PM on 7-23-2007

I try to separate the people from the product...if a product is truly good, I won't eschew it based on the personality of its owner (or its spokesman).

That being said, if I were going to judge a product based on the attitude of its owner, Robert isn't exactly doing a knock-down job here of convincing me to try out his stuff.

It's not DownloadSquad's fault, Mr. Savage, that your company made blanket assumptions like, "every $700 computer today" can run your product. Did you mean, "every $700 desktop,"? We know good and well there are $700 laptops that won't even come close. It's like a true/false test in college...the answer that says, "Every X is a Y," or "X is never a Y," is rarely the correct response. Had you said, "MANY $700 desktops today," you would have no problem with this statement now...but I guess that doesn't drive up download stats.

Again, I don't let an owner with a poor attitude scare me away from a good product. Thankfully, in this case, the attitude of the owner is right in line with the quality of the product.

Christian Piper said 5:59PM on 7-23-2007

Sound like a nice fella, should go far
/sarcasm

Tony said 6:10PM on 7-23-2007

Meh, I don't think he's not friendly, he is just protecting himself. There were several plain questions that he could have easily answered the normal way (like the one about $700 computers)but he knows the opinion of DLS already and he is right, several questions seem as if they were intentionally designed to try to make him say something he shouldn't.

lemm said 6:25PM on 7-23-2007

kind of a spiteful e-mail...

what i really wished you asked was how well it handles 100's of emails a day... and inboxes full of 1000's of saved e-mails...

Shawn Wildermuth said 6:41PM on 7-23-2007

What an idiot...and handing e-mail isn't much of a game...and 3D EMail isn't much of a game either... This looks like its for the uninitiated, not the "out of the box" thinkers. Maybe there is a benefit for porn e-mail that I didn't see in the video? Can you imagine the Viagra e-mails in that app? Get that D&^K out of my face please...

Robert Savage said 7:24PM on 7-23-2007

Thanks for the comments.

I'm not sure why I come off sounding like a jerk to you, but Tony makes a lot of sense: "several questions seem as if they were intentionally designed to try to make him say something he shouldn't."

The context of these questions was that Lisa was annoyed about the portrayal of women (in bikinis) and overweight people in the program. She was baiting, trying to set me up to sound like an idiot. Well, if I came off as a jerk, it was better than the idiot she wanted me to come off as. I admit to being annoyed at her, in return, for doing this. That's why I came off so rudely.

The reality about Level 1 of 3D Mailbox is that it's based on the first scene of the film Goldfinger. The bikini girls are a campy parody of the Bond Girls from that film; the spam avatar is based on Odd Job, also from that film. He, and many of us (me included) have put on a few pounds since the 60's. It was a send-up of the film. In the Bond universe, it's natural that the beautiful people hang out poolside. This was a tongue-in-cheek satire of that.

Believe me, having our spam guy fed to the sharks is better than having the beautiful women devoured by sharks. Then the cries would be about misogyny rather than misfatany (I know, not a real word). Then there really would be a problem about how women are portrayed.

Now, about obesity... We were not meaning to portray fat people as undesirable in any way. But *this specific* fat person (the humming guy with the ponytail, tattoos, speedo, etc.) is meant to represent mail we don't want. There is a huge difference there. Personally, I have never, ever seen a person as hideous as our spam avatar; it is unfair to the obese community that people are labeling him simply as "overweight".

Also, he is a "fat guy", but he is also a Caucasian. Are all Caucasians meant to be fed to the sharks? Of course not...

There is also another aspect to this, and that is how 'women are portrayed'. The statuesque beauties -- and their 18 male model counterparts -- are not degraded in any way. They are the privileged ones. Women are portrayed as beautiful, powerful, and pampered. Same with the men. If you have ever been to South Beach, you will see them, and their male counterparts, in droves. Remember, folks, this is not Grand Theft Auto. There are no strippers, no whores, nothing degrading to women.

If I recall correctly, Lisa tried to install 3D Mailbox on 4 machines without success. If the video card doesn't support pixel shaders or vertex shaders, it won't be able to run 3D Mailbox, because it's has a 3D game engine within it. Her reply was that their computers were plenty good, etc. But no pixel/vertex support (which most $49 cards have today), no running a 3D shader-based game. No Half Life 2, no Halo, no 3D Mailbox. I felt that she was being coy when she was asking me to basically prove if a $700 machine could have this support, when her machines don't, and I simply provided a URL to a page on Dell's site that list desktops in this range that support this technology. Again, I'm trying to explain why this friction existed.

Basically, I'm a creator, and am putting a product on the market for people to enjoy, with no strings attached (no pun intended). I'm sure that the next level of 3D Mailbox, with only planes and airport vehicles, will not raise hackles. Unless, of course, someone considers the 747 a 'fat jet', and then we're back where we started.

Robert
3D Mailbox

Scott K said 7:27PM on 7-23-2007

I too try to separate a product from its CEO, but only to a certain degree. Mr. Savage's hostile attitude toward your questions in combination with multiple bad reviews all over the web have confirmed my opinion that I will NEVER use his software, and I will recommend my friends and family stay away from it as well. I have a teenage nephew who would have probably been tempted to try it, but I just shot him an e-mail advising that he stay away from it.

Mr. Savage should have never agreed to be interviewed if he felt he was being baited. He may be able to code (bad) software, but obviously he has a long way to go in learning how to promote his product and create goodwill towards it.

Lisa Hoover said 7:29PM on 7-23-2007

"If I recall correctly, Lisa tried to install 3D Mailbox on 4 machines without success. "

You don't recall correctly. As the original post states, more than one member of this team attempted to install your product.

"The context of these questions was that Lisa was annoyed about the portrayal of women (in bikinis) and overweight people in the program"

On this point -- trust me on this -- you couldn't be more wrong.

Thanks for stopping by to comment.

Scott K said 7:29PM on 7-23-2007

P.S. My objections to Mr Savage's software have little or nothing to do with the depiction of fat people in it. If he thinks that is the only reason people think his software sucks, then he is missing the bigger picture.

bugmenot said 7:49PM on 7-23-2007

Robert,

I think you're hilarious, although I see your product as pointless to me personally, I still think it's funny. Everyone here with the PC sensitivity needs to grow some skin.

Clearly this were the same little twits that I used to shake their chess board and blow their DnD cards over the playground.

Which I also suspect to be the same whining loners that did Columbine. Put the Playstation down and go outside and make some friends. Ride a bike, go fishing, chase girls. For god sake. We need some balance.

Anastas said 8:44PM on 7-23-2007

I can see how Mr. Savage's replies could have angered a lot of people; personally, I loved the way he answered the questions. While addressing the issue raised in each question and avoiding the bait, I was still able to laugh.

I'd also like to mention that the several comments on human nature dispersed throughout the email, while they may not all be the most enlightening on their own, suggest a solid understanding of how people think and act - subconsciously, no less.

I like this guy. I won't comment on the product in question, however, having never tested it.

P.S. The commenters on this page are MUCH more rude than Mr. Savage is in the above email.

Ryan Carter said 9:54PM on 7-23-2007

As an actual gamer, I am pretty much offended that he thinks he knows what I want in an email application, 3d mailbox is not anywhere near it. If you had a mailbox app that functioned like WoW, give me a call, until then, I don't want to hear it. It is a bad idea, bad execution, and a pretty arrogant owner/developer, and I don't see any value practical or entertainment in the product. What is the point? If not productivity, fun? This is neither. I don't doubt this was a lot of work to produce but the notion that this is a viable business model, or helpful to anyone is completely nonsense. It won't handle more than a few emails, and given a few thousand, your system itself would be seriously short on resources, so this not only kills email productivity, but your entire system given the chance.

Shaun Sanders said 10:29PM on 7-23-2007

I was almost in tears from laughing at him saying his product is for "creative" people or people that "think outside the box".

I'm a graphic designer by trade... and thus paid to be creative.

But I would lose my job if I had to waste my time in a 3d world inefficiently reading/responding to e-mails.

At most, this is a joke or designed for people to "try". I can't see anyone possibly making this their actual mail client unless the person has large amounts of time to devote to e-mail.

The best term for this service, imho, is "gimmick". If the guy had created it as a joke or for fun, he'd be rewarded with laughter and people playing with it. But the fact that he--it seems--truly believes his product stands a chance makes it almost comically depressing.

Seriously... it blows my mind how stupid this is.

Victor Agreda, Jr. said 10:36PM on 7-23-2007

I think the root of the problem is that this is really just a tech demo thinly veiled as a product. If it were labelled as such, no one would be AS offended, IMO. But acting like this is the best thing since Gmail is asinine. I use Gmail, sir, and your skinny chicks and fat dudes are pale comparison to my labels and filters.

freakerz said 12:03AM on 7-24-2007

I still can't figure out why people hate it so much.. it is so funny when you think of it.. spam getting eaten by sharks.. bikini girls.. 3d.. it's just funny and useless, but a time waster..

Classic situation of "love it or hate it".

Keep up the good work, nice interview. ;)

H Hermanni said 12:20AM on 7-24-2007

I had no idea of the context, wasn't aware that an app called 3D mailbox exists, hadn't read the previous articles. But Mr Savage's answers alone were enough for me to go to google and check out the trailer on their homepage. Not a software I could imagine using and not all that original but prolly a neat little app if you're into that kind of thing (and prolly line dancing and mullets).

I really don't see what all the fuss is about, bikini clad ladies have been used to sell stuff to hordes of nerds for ages. And who gets offended of having a fat man getting eaten by sharks? Hope you were also offended by the Fat Bastard in Austin Powers. Guys, if you want to start improving women's rights and the way society portrays obese people there are a lot bigger fish to fry than a company that creates a _3D mail application_ =).

Robert's answers to the confrontational questions were pretty smart, interesting and to the point. And I applaud his use of his "15 minutes" of internet stardom, I'm sure he'll sell a lot more now that this article has been linked from digg. Hmm, this could well be a set-up. In which case I've been like completely pwned. Oh well. Glad my comps don't meet the minimum requirements :P. Anyway, a job well done Mr Savage!

Morgan said 1:13AM on 7-24-2007

At this point, if I had the time to kill, I would definitely try it. I love the hostility it elicits, and I am starting to like Robert.

Lisa, if he couldn't be more wrong, would it take too many sentences to correct him? At this point I'm really wondering what was so offensive.

Lord Necros said 2:42AM on 7-24-2007

@Lisa Hoover:
you did say that several other people tried to install the software but didnt say if any of them had pixel shaders as required by the software. if you dont have the required hardware, what is the point of your trying to claim that you cant install it. i hope that next you are not going to put up a writeup for bioshock claiming that it is flawedbecause you cant install it in your machine with onboard intel extreme chipset. meh.

"On this point -- trust me on this -- you couldn't be more wrong"
you do admit having a prejudice against him, right? then what is the point of having an interview when you already have formed your opinion about the prodect and the creator. what happened to objectivity?
most of the questions simply dont make for a good interview and are there only to put the creator in a negative light. Savage was rude, for certain, but thats what you get for baiting someone.

reading your review i came accroos this line;
"It's awfully persnickety and demands that your PC have DirectX 9 and that your video card have Vertex Shader and Pixel Shader."
seriously what kind of computer nowadays hasn't got DX9? Even XP comes bundled with DX9. if you are going to review a software please make sure that atleast your computer isn't antiquated.

personally, i myself wouldnt be using this program, simply because its too impractical but at least give the credit where its due. its not to make email browsing more efficient but to make it more fun.

and last but not the least, please stop with all that politically correct bullshit. its ok only to a limit. but foistering your level of sensitivity on others simply isnt the ebst thing to do. whats next? getting mad because it has negative portrayal of sharks? oh hell. sharks need their loving too. Discovery Channel has shown us too many times how cuddly and accomodating sharks can be, so why the hell that idiot Savage has tried to portray the sharks in a negative "man-eating" light?
quite frankly, let people make up their own minds on the PC level of a product. they might have a different sense of humour from yours. focus more on the functionality and performance.

hope to see better interview from you than this in the future.

regards.

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