Canadian Post Office Moves Online in a Big Way

jeremyw writes "CBC News reports that beginning in November, Canadians will be able to receive mail and pay their bills at an Electronic Post Office. Although it is already possible to pay bills through many banks online, this is a new level of integration and convenience. I think this is an excellent example of an organization "reinventing" itself in order to survive and remain relevant in the near future."

Comments

They offer 1 thing. A return receipt.

[Que_Ball]

Basically everyone has noticed that this service doesn't have any advantages over using the services of your bank and email that you have now.

I have to agree except for 2 minor issues that I don't think are very relevant.

1. They offer a system where there is a return receipt on the email so that you KNOW for sure that someone has looked at it.

2. It is a way for people without bank account access to pay their bills online. May be cheaper than your bank if you get charged a fee for paying your bills.

Some other things I noticed about the service. I briefly checked out their legal agreement and it struck me as being fair to both parties. A rare thing in the age of blanket disclaimers that disclaim responsibility for any and all blame.

I was also wondering how long it might be until they try to get Revenue Canada (Our IRS department) to let them have people file their returns online. That might be nice. I just found out this year that I could pay my tax bill online through my bank. The only time I ever pull my printer out of storage is to print returns once a year.

They probably have other plans, exclusive content and junk like that for the future too.

What this actually IS... answered.

[sparks]

I have a basic principle for evaluating all Internet projects:

"If you can't explain what it does in one sentence, it will fail."

I have read the linked article and looked through the epost.ca site, and I can't honestly say I'm much the wiser. The site hits you with page after page of "EPO will change the way Canadians communicate" but doesn't seem too keen to be tied down to exactly why that would be so.

For example, click on the "What does EPO do?" link. Sounds like a helpful one, yes? "EPO puts all your mail in one place" it tells you. "No more going from Web site to Web site to pay bills, view account details and get information. Now it comes to you in your private, secure, Electronic Post Office Box". That certainly makes it much clearer, doesn't it?

Then there's the promising-sounding "Frequently Asked Questions" link. You might expect this to answer the questions people seem to be asking here on Slashdot; questions like "Will I still get paper mail or will it be scanned in?" But instead the FAQ link gives you a huge and utterly uninteresting page full of reassurances about Y2K compliance. And only Y2K compliance; "our code-remediation strategy includes a logic-based solution known as windowing for interfaces to external partners." It will no doubt reassure Canadian taxpayers that this service, being launched as it is in late 1999, considers Y2K compliance to be "achievable". Whoopie-doo.

Anyway, here's the Andrew Crawford Patent No-Crap Distilled and Filtered Guide to the Canadian Electronic Post Office. FX: Fanfare

• It's basically a webmail system.
• You can't send or receive normal Internet email
• You can send mail to and receive from other users of the system. This includes most banks, large employers, retailers, who have already signed up.
• You can choose to get your bank, employer, retailer, etc to send you a bill over this webmail system instead of through paper mail. The mails you get will be a standard template with your details filled in (think credit card statement) rather than a bitmap. You will have the option of settling those bills over the EPO system.
• There is no connection with paper mail whatsoever. Companies that aren't signed up for EPO will continue to send paper. Companies that you haven't asked to get bills from over EPO will continue to send paper.
• If your penfriend from Australia sends you a paper mail, it will continue to arrive in paper.
• If your penfriend from Canada sends you a paper mail, it will continue to arrive in paper.
• If your penfriend from Canada is also signed up with EPO, they have the option of sending you the message using that instead.

So what's new here? Nothing really. It's a proprietary secure email system. The key to its success will be whether they get enough companies signed up to use it. Even then, they've failed to show any overwhelming reason why it's better than the existing email infrastructure.

I think they're making a mistake hyping it as a replacement for paper mail when it's really not. Such merit as it has consists in making life a little easier for people who already use the Internet to check their balances etc and pay their bills by centralising everything. There aren't a huge number of people who actually do that though - and those that there are often do so because they appreciate the interactive features of being connected directly to the company's database. (Want to transfer a balance from one account to another? Or see more details of this transaction? Just click.) This kind of feature will be absent from EPO.

But I don't think it will succeed, because the people marketing it don't seem to have any idea what it actually does.