The Corlive Messaging Service is a free web based alternative to email which takes the shape of an online message form. Instead of giving people your email address, you give them the address of your message form (e.g. http://corlive.com/nigel ) from where they can send you a message directly by just typing the text in. Each account holder gets their own account page with a dashboard from which they can read and send messages as well as manage a rudimentary contact address book. At the moment the whole thing works very fast indeed, which is a good sign.

The idea is to provide a super reliable, spam free service which by-passes all the conventional Internet obstacles to deliver your messages via the web 24/7. Senders can also add attachments and there’s a small Notifier module for account holders which sits in the Windows tray to say when you’ve got a message.

It’s an interesting idea, and certainly comes at the email problem in a new way, and who knows, it may be the solution for people who need the kind of ultra reliable messaging that email no longer provides. The real proof of the pudding though is when the service starts gaining traction, and you get the kind of throughput that typical email services get. Will it hold up under the strain? Hmm…your guess is as good as mine.