Those of us in the Internet service biz talk about and strive to delight our users. I was delighted yesterday when using Yahoo! Mail beta I discovered the Subject-O-Matique. Perfect for those prone to writer’s block, when picking a pithy subject line for a message. One click on the subject button brings up a random subject for your email.
Using, Subject-O-Matique, this post might have been titled, “the art of driving a giant, nuclear powered duck”.
According to the Yahoo! Cool thing of the Day blog archive, the feature is a holdover from OddPost (Yahoo! acquired Oddpost in 2004) :
The Subject-O-Matique!
Never again flail about for an appropriate email subject; the
Subject-O-Matique’s advanced Completely Random Selection™ algorithm
will determine the best possible (ie, random) title, based on
absolutely no criteria, and insert it into your email’s subject field
for you. Simply click on the “Subject:” button and let the
Subject-O-Matique astound you with such meticulously constructed turns
of phrase as:
- ILOVEYOU
- ASAP’s Fables
- Nutrageous!
- The puppet show has been cancelled. Ciao.
- open air hubbub or underwater sub snub?
- Allow myself to introduce…myself
Back in my Yahoo! days, we did a bunch of work to promote the new Yahoo! Mail – this feature wasn’t one we talked about (obviously) but it is fun. I prefer the Yahoo! Mail beta to Gmail, both of them leave whatever the heck Hotmail/Windows Live is doing in the dust.
