E-mail anyone via their phone number

My main concern would be spam. At the moment I get telemarketing calls on my mobile, but with this people could spam me through my phone number. You might want to mention to people how you combat that when you send your opt in SMS

If I have their phone number why can't I just call/txt them and ask for their email address?

How on earth do you get people's email addresses? My initial instinct is that your are just farming phone numbers...

Ultimately, our plan for Thinbox is that the number mapping will be connected to more information than just an e-mail address.<p>A path we're considering that might have some more obvious use cases: a mapping of phone numbers -&#62; mailing addresses. That way in your mobile postcard app, you can choose a friend to mail a card to, even if you don't have their mailing address in your phone. The first-time recipient would automatically get a text message along the lines of: "Steve would like to send you something. What is your mailing address?"

My biggest concern is seeing an "email" where my text messages. I get text messages all the time, and they're usually pretty high on my list of important messages because I know that 100% of my text messages are definitely not spam and that i should at least read them. Using email to send me a text only makes me think i got spam and i'll just delete the message, i probably won't even read it.<p>But really, why email their number when you can just message them for their email (or using gvoice or something similar)?

Can you explain why someone would want this? I'm not sure I've ever been in this situation before (only have someone's phone number but want to email them).

So, does this actually do anything? I've tried twice and not seen anything on the phone end . . . .

I really appreciate any feedback. This is an early stage version, but I wanted to get it out there and see what people had to say before taking it too far in one direction.<p>Also note: Thinbox only works with U.S. phone number at this time.

Interesting approach to cross service contact. We've taken a different tact with our app - <a href="http://tray.io" rel="nofollow">http://tray.io</a>.<p>Interested to see how it develops!