WhoReadMe

Have you ever wanted to know the type of web browser and operating system the recipient of your email is using?

No, me neither. Though I recall that before switching to webmail (though I may have to say "cloud based" now, to show I'm down with web 2.0), there used to be a system inherent in POP3 mail which allowed you to get a notification when your email had been opened at the other end. And nobody much used that, either.

So it's perhaps a little puzzling to find this site offering not only these features, but also telling you how long it was between sending the mail and the recipient reading it, and whether and when they downloaded any attachments. Neither of which, I have ever needed to know either.

The trick is carried out by embedding a small transparent graphic in the mail, which is loaded from their server silently and invisibly when the mail is opened. It's a way of spying on the recipient, in other words, though there's a limit to the amount of information that can be obtained in this manner (thankfully).

Downsides of the service are that you can't use a POP3 mail client such as Outlook, instead you have to send the mail from the Whoreadme website; you're limited to only 5 tracked emails per day (though you can send each mail to up to 30 people); you'll receive advertising offers including, but not limited to, email, display ads, and popup advertisements, it doesn't work if the recipient has HTML email disabled, you're limited to 2mb per attachment up to a 10mb maximum, and the server only works 90 percent of the time.

The shaky English and the site banner, "Who Read Me To Know Them Better" suggests an Eastern origin, which seemed more likely when I read they'd had a problem with Serbian characters. But as the site is available in English and Chinese, perhaps that explains the language difficulties. I think it likely too, that if their grasp of the finer points of English had been better, they might not have chosen an address that could easily be read as "whore 'ad me".

The upside is that it's a free service, but I can't imagine who the target market is for this one. It looks to me like an idea in search of a purpose, and honestly I can't as yet think of one myself.