Why RememberIt.com told me to forget it Analysis/Humor I'm puzzled. There I was, a nice Internet columnist with a quirky prose style and a fearless curiosity. What better vehicle to write a positive story about a new Internet company? But when I sent an e-mail query to the RememberIt.com, my well-worded missive hit a wall of silence. I fell victim to benign neglect. RememberIt.com decided I was too low on the food chain to deserve a rejoinder. Better a known hack, a friendly butterball of a booster, a merchant of hype, than someone who, alas, has occasionally suffered from a satirical imagination. In the field of truth, my opponent refused to do battle, leaving me standing, absurd and harried, and feeling like Don Quixote after his charge at the windmills. But I can't help continuing to respect RememberIt.com's intention to provide a useful service on the Net. RememberIt.com gives free subscribers a database for personal reminders. The website delivers e-mail notices at a time when they are likely to be needed to jostle the memory. For example, if Jane schedules a perm, cut, and touch up for January 23, she can schedule RememberIt.com to send her an e-mail reminder on January 22. For people who tend to forget their commitments, the service is potentially priceless. RememberIt.com emerged from Georgia Tech's Advanced Telecommunications Development Center, a state-sponsored organization that helps young professionals launch their businesses. The site shows signs of skillful manipulation of dynamic page generation, probably driven by Coldfusion middleware. RememberIt.com produces e-mails on the fly and on schedule, using server-based resources such as timed delivery of ASCII and HTML. What's more, RememberIt.com promises to abide by TRUSTe's privacy guidelines. Subscribers can feel pretty assured that their personal data will be handled with care. So why didn't RememberIt.com's management reply to my e-mail? Frankly, I don't doubt for a minute that they received it. I can only suspect that, like many business people, they feel that responsible journalism involves hype or the stodgy reiteration of platitudes. I don't measure up to the plain-as-porridge breed of Net writer. Which reminds me of the Romans who suffered from an equal lack of cultural sophistication, but nevertheless conquered the world. Are we creating men and women as upstanding as legionnaires, groomed to conquer through discipline and organization, yet strangely lacking in individuality and perception? Is the dogma of success silencing the new legions of conquest? I wonder: is it better to not ask questions, to live in appreciative silence, blinkered by upbeat myths and fearful of ugliness and truth? There's an uncomfortable tameness to the silence a communication medium like the Internet can foster in the absence of challenge. RememberIt? No, forgetaboutit, I say. January 12, 2000