Emtional ID(tm)

You’re about to call a friend who screens calls based on Caller ID. You want them to answer the phone because you’re in a good mood and they would be more likely to answer the phone if they knew you were in a good mood and wouldn’t talk their ear off complaining. Well…

Enter the Emotional ID System

As you prepare to dial your friend, your phone would prompt you to select your current emotion.

Then you would dial the number as usual and the above picture is what your friend would see on his phone

Walla! You know what emotion the caller is! Simple. Elegant. Fun. Productive. Questions? I thought so!

• What if I don’t want to send an emotion?
  Then don’t. There shouldn’t be a reason that you must send an emotion along with your phone call. I would guess that as this becomes more prevalent that you would be frowned upon for obscuring your countenance.
• Can’t I just lie and choose an emotion I’m not feeling?
  Of course. But once the recipient answers the phone and notices that you picked falsely, then they are less likely to trust your emotional icon. My guess is that there would be sufficient social pressure to keep this honest. If I’m screening my calls for only happy people today (or sad people that I want to encourage), then I’m less likely to answer your calls at all and you’ll want to shape up if you want to chat.
• But none of the phones in circulation support this feature.
  Some may be able to since you can send images between phones. But it doesn’t matter. The turnover for phones is HUGE! People upgrade (or break) their phones all the time. And if this was the killer app for new phones…LOOK OUT!!!
• This is stupid! Do you really think it will be popular?
  Of course it’s stupid! Most of the methods we communicate with today are trivial and silly. Look at IM. :-) That’s why it will become popular and I will make lots of money off the idea. You heard it here first.