Self-destructing Email and Instant Messages.

A small company at Web 2.0 offers a product that allows people to send email and instant messages that disappear over time. Initially this seemed like a very tricky feat. But after getting into the details, I learned that their system just sends an email or IM which contains a link to the content on their web server. When you read the message it is really loading from the server. At the specified time-out they just delete the message from the server and the link that exists in your email or IM client can no longer access the content of the message. This simple idea could be very useful and could be implemented by any web-based email service (e.g. Yahoo, Gmail). Though it is a good idea it is not a likely business success because it is too easily copied by any company.