Innovation Incubator

Concerned lazyheads of the world, unite! The open letter application serves as an automatic voice to the voiceless – at least, any and all who have Internet access.

The open letter application (codename: Better Letter) allows Internet users to easily contact the editor of a newspaper, city commissioners, mayors and congressional representatives alike in the most convenient and effective of manners.

If a citizen reads a news article or blog post about an issue they're concerned about, chances are good that they won’t write a letter voicing their opinion to local leaders or newspapers. With the open letter application, people won’t have to break out the ‘ole pen and paper or go to a third-party Web site for their letter-writing purposes – instead, a link that opens the letter-writing window sits at the bottom of the news story or blog post.

In the window, the user can send a letter to their choice of local politicians (organized by zip code or state), as well as send a letter to the editor of local or national newspapers. A database of politicians and newspapers will include and autofill contact information for the user.

Users can also send the letter they write to friends in illustration of their concerns. In addition, users can view previously written letters and rate them with their comments.

A silly example of how the letter-writing tool works:

Joe, a 21-year-old student at the University of Widget reads an article on his favorite blog, Bwong-Bwong, about a group of journalism students who have been harassing the well-known and much-loved campus dog, Willy Widget. A steadfast animal lover, Joe decides to investigate the matter further on his local newspaper’s Web site, squeegeetimes.com, but to his surprise, there is no mention of the doggy-delinquents. Joe goes back to Bwong-Bwong and clicks the link at the bottom of the article, opening a letter-writing window. In the window, he can choose from a database of recipients. He decides to send the letter to a few city commissioners as well as to the editor of the Squeegee Times about his concerns of animal abuse in the area.

After choosing the recipients, he types his letter in the text box and signs his name. He can then choose to print the letter and mail it the old-fashioned way or e-mail it to the databased recipients. Addresses and e-mail addresses are autofilled, so all of Joe’s work (minus the letter itself) is already taken care of.

Bottom line: the open letter application allows people who wouldn’t normally write to their politicians or newspapers the chance to do it quickly, easily and efficiently.