Forty million times a day, the voice says it.
"You've got mail."They are probably the three most-sounded words on the Internet. They're said every time an e-mail arrives for a client of America Online. They signal news, opportunity, contact, maybe friendship. They also, by repetition, seem disembodied.
Yet that's the voice of a real, live, married, middle-age, Midwestern man. And his name is Elwood.
Elwood Edwards, 50, of Orrville, Ohio, is the mailman of cyberspace. His voice alerts 19 million members of AOL whenever a message arrives. It's also his voice that says, "Welcome" and "File's Done" and "Goodbye."
He's so familiar, yet faceless, that he's like a friend nobody has met.
People began hearing him on their computers in 1989. AOL, then 3-years-old, was experimenting with ways to personalize its online service and make it more user-friendly. Edwards' wife was working for the company at the time, and she asked him to record a greeting. He used a cassette tape -- it was the days before sound cards -- and that original recording is still being used.
Edwards, a career broadcaster who has had executive jobs with TV stations in Washington, Houston, Cleveland and Akron, now runs a voice-over business out of his home. As for his appeal, he says, "I believe my voice is a friendly voice. There's not a lot of hype in the way I do things. Maybe a degree of honesty. Sometimes the mailman brings good news, sometimes he doesn't."
It may be only fitting that Edwards' voice seemed just right for announcing e-mails. Remember the movie "You've Got Mail," in which Tom Hanks meets Meg Ryan on an Internet chat room?
That's how Edwards met his wife, Karen.
It was before America Online had the name. It was called Quantum Computer Services and its online service, called Q-link, was for Commodore 64 computers. Edwards was among the first subscribers.
"In early '87 Karen and I met online. We started talking with each other in a Christian chat room. Finally in July of '87 we met face to face. A year and a half after that we married."
AOL has just "extended its relationship" with Edwards. On the company's new 5.0 version of software, Edwards will chime in when users do various tasks or need to be alerted. A new feature will have him saying, "You've got pictures!"
Neither Edwards nor AOL has disclosed the terms of their new contract.
But members of the service can be sure of one thing.
When "you've got mail," his check's in it.