I envision the letter writing application something as such:
A reader of an online news article would find at the bottom of it a link to our application entitled something like, “Write a letter about this article,” or whatever. The link would take the reader/user to a Web site that would feature contact information to people that the application would suggest one might write a letter to about the issue/event that the story discussed, but would also allow them to choose from the entire list of contact information that the application stored, or enter the contact information of another person.
A text box would be embedded below the salutation section that would feature a standardized opening paragraph that says something like, “This letter is in regard to issue/event X as discussed in article Y in publication Z.” The message would be as nonpartisan (dare I say, objective?) as possible and would be intended to give the user a jumping-off point. There would be a link to an aggregate of all of the other letters written about that particular article/event/issue, which could also appear on the article’s page. All of the letters written/sent using our application would be available to view and would be organized by tags that correspond to the tags of the articles they concern and would be accessed through a searching or browsing. People could send other people’s letters by simply copying them and using their name.
I contend that this application be embedded directly on a news organization’s site because it makes the letters people would write part of a pre-existing, tangible conversation (like comments on a news story) rather than leaving them to create or find another dialogue about an event or issue they’re concerned about to take part in (like blogs). The biggest obstacle I can think of right now is that the people the algorithm or whatever provides as default contact people might argue that their names appear as contacts about a particular story might be the result of bias, but I don’t imagine this would be terribly difficult to work around.
My brain works in sloppy sentences.