Hi, Dave. Dan Misener from CBC here. Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions. First off, is Shortmail intended to replace my existing email accounts, or augment them?

Shortmail is the best email address for person-to-person communications, while mailing lists and marketing are probably better suited for conventional email accounts.

The notion that people only use one email address is a bit outdated, and at-odds with research on how people use email, which shows that people have on average six email identities for different purposes.

We think we fill an incredibly important niche. We've touched a nerve. People want their time back.

Personally, my sense of "email overload" is probably better described as "messaging overload." If I already spend time checking several email accounts (home, work), Facebook, Twitter, Google+... what's the case for one more inbox? How should users handle the "one more service to check" factor?

It's not so much another account to check, but a superior experience. We think that Shortmail will become a premium destination for high-value communication.

We already integrate into mobile devices like iPhone, so it's really easy for someone to start using Shortmail right now.

Our users tell us that it doesn't feel like "another account," it feels like a better account.

In the small team I work with, we've had good success reducing the volume of email by moving to realtime tools (like IM) and asynchronous tools (like enterprise micro-messaging). What are the advantages of "short email" versus moving certain types of conversations off email entirely? Can you give me a "short email" use case?

There are a lot of choices available today, and they all have a place.

The really wonderful thing about email – what it has that nothing else has – is its ubiquity.

Unlike IM or Skype, it doesn't require that all conversation participants be using a client program. Google Wave is a good example of an interesting technology that didn't make it because it demanded everyone use a whole new technology.

We think Shortmail is a great technology because it's based on email at its core.

One of the most interesting Shortmail features is public email (like this conversation). But, we have decades of ingrained expectations around email as a "private" medium. I think that for a lot of people, the public email option will take some getting used to.

Despite clear messages that "This message will be publicly available," how will you deal with unintentionally public replies? Will I be able to redact messages?

We felt like there is a lot of valuable information locked up inside email, and we realized that the "privacy" surrounding email was somewhat arbitrary.

Clearly there are things that are private and things that we share, and we need to delineate between the two, but there's often no reason a dialog like this can't be displayed publicly if everyone agrees at the start. That's what Public Conversations are about.

And yes, we'll have a way to delete public entries if they're inadvertently shared.

Finally... I really like the idea behind Shortmail, in the same way that I like danah boyd's idea of "email sabbaticals," or three.sentenc.es. But, like those policies, I'm not sure I have the guts or discipline to stick to a 500-character limit. What do you say to people like me who like the idea of Shortmail, but aren't convinced it'll practically work for them?

We admire voluntary approaches like three.sentenc.es, but they're a bit like passing a law that asks everyone to be nice to each other. A good idea, but probably not very practical.

Shortmail, by contrast, poses a real design constraint that ensures that everyone plays fair; and they're actually incented to do so because it creates a better experience.

And we've proposed a standard header, X-Character-Limit, that will help bring the idea to all email services. It's a good idea, and it works.

Dave, thanks so much for taking the time. Appreciate it.

Thank you Dan! Let's do this again sometime!