At present my personal mail sits close to 5,000 unread emails, the majority of which are junk mail that I have given up trying to clear. Prior to discovering Maskr, I thought perhaps I should set up a separate email account to house all the unimportant emails. Not anymore.
In essence, Maskr is a privacy service that allows you to create an unlimited number of free, anonymous aliases that would be associated to a single email address that you own (see screenshots below). First, you will need to head over to the site to create an account and get verified. You will then be able to access a secure dashboard, which has features that allow you to create new aliases that will be associated to the email that you have used to sign up with. In the event a user starts to receive unsolicited emails, one can easily disable and create new ones. Ken Tan, creative director of The Bang Table Company (who are direct investors of Maskr), tells us more:
[There is] an additional protection feature allows direct blockage of senders per alias via a manageable blacklist. Maskr currently works on all platforms with seamless integration between desktop and mobile. An upcoming iOS mobile application will further enhance the mobile experience: store multiple email addresses to create aliases instantly with a single tap.
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So what’s the difference between signing up for a new email account and having a Maskr account? The latter makes it extremely easy to create new email aliases. We’re drawing parallels between signing up a new account which typically takes two to five minutes of your time, a click which takes a couple of seconds.
How Maskr came about
The idea behind the Singapore-based service first came about when Ken once left his personal email with a hotel while he was travelling overseas. He then found his personal email flooded with endless honeymoon promotions (which can be annoying, really), and wondered if a service that removes such “bad points of contacts” existed.
The idea was then brought forward and conceptualized towards the end of 2011, and launched just a month back. In the interview, Ken tells us:
Maskr was built in direct response to the increasing number of solicited emails (BACN). We’re on the consumers’ side – we’ve built Maskr to protect the identities of personal email addresses around the world.
Maskr takes away the hesitation when asked to share one’s personal email address, knowing you can kill the alias anytime.
At present, Maskr is free to use, and the team promises more updates with newer features. They are also planning to look into white-labeling the Maskr technology for enterprises (which I personally think is a brilliant idea, since a significant amount of my time is actually spent on clearing unwanted emails).
The Maskr team
Another thing that caught my attention about the Maskr service is the company behind it: The Bang Table Company (TBTC). I like the company name, and thought it added a little local Singaporean flavor. Ken explains more:
We wanted something colloquial, yet that makes sense. We make noise in the [startup] scene, banging on the tables of convention. [...] TBTC is a pre-seed investment company that aids and grows business ideas from their nascent stages, providing support to accelerate the route for startups to profitability. These startups could be either external or internal staff (or both), whom we encourage to think big. We provide the funds and infrastructure for them to develop their ideas, taking them from build to beta and then to launch; after which we’ll take on a bigger stake (and role) to get to the next stage which is typically seed or series A.
And the team (pictured top right) seems pretty solid to me, having a good mix of digital professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs who understand the needs when it comes to emails.
Future plans
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The team promises to release its iOS app early June 2013 (pictured above), and is looking to translate the service into Malaysian, simplified and traditional Chinese, as well as Spanish so as to cater to users in the other regions.
Plus, they’re also looking to develop an e-commerce service in the near future. In fact, Ken’s pretty excited about the journey ahead for the TBTC company:
We’ve always been innovators, and we’re obsessed with technology. The process of going from scribbles on paper to actual users embracing the product is both exhilarating and scary for us.
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