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Gmail, We Need to Talk

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Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#221

Post by akrymski »

Nobody seems to have mentioned that the author works for FreshInbox - an email marketing company.

Sorry Justin, but sending web-pages by email is exactly why email sucks. No messaging apps allow HTML+CSS markup to be sent, and there's a reason for this - it's not readable. Instead send a URI/Link and the recipient can view the HTML using a tool that's designed for that - the browser! Web-pages aren't messaging. That's what the WWW is for, not email. Apple is totally at fault for introducing HTML support in emails, they didn't see the spam coming. Email is a messaging protocol, not a news reader or web browser. NOBODY (except for advertisers) wants SHOPPING CARTS in their emails. What non-sense.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#222

Post by MagnumOpus »

batiudrami wrote: post #152
maxxxxx wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my theory too. It seems a lot of software has peaked a few years ago and gone downhill from there: - MS Office peaked around 2000 - Gmail 3 years ago? - GMaps 3 years ago? - I would argue Windows peaked somewhere between 2000 and XP The same applies to managers. When an organization works well, they have the need to change things around just because.

MS Office is much more usable now than it was in 2000. Consider a new user, with no experience in office software at all. They're presented with either two rows of incomprehensible buttons, no logical order, and additional features hidden in the menu bar, compared to having features (reasonably) logically organised behind tabs and grouped into sections and frequently with labels. Sure, for power users, some things ta…

MS office post 2007 is an utter mess for novices and power users alike. I say that as a "power user" who used office apps 8 hours a day pre-ribbon and post-ribbon and has to help people who don't.

The ribbons manage to unify the drawbacks of both the button bar and the menu bar that you mentioned:

- it is composed of "rows of incomprehensible buttons" with no logical order (Where is the most-frequently-sought insert-column button in Excel? Hint: not in the "insert" ribbon tab, that would be too easy. Where is the function to create collapsible rows/columns? In the "Data" tab...)

- it has additional features hidden so well that nobody can find them without googling - Excel's most powerful features like creating named cell styles are now only reachable by clicking through several layers of unintuitive unlabeled mini-buttons tacked on as an afterthought. Yes, I have the muscle memory for remembering half a dozen triple-chord keyboard shortcuts like Alt-D-F-F, but nobody who didn't use Office 2002 will be able to use the new version at anything approaching full speed - that is exactly the opposite of UI discoverability.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#223

Post by RawInfoSec »

dijit wrote: post #188
RawInfoSec wrote: post #175

It's email. SMTP. It's not instant messaging and it sure isn't a browser. Point blank, it's easy to see that this is by design and not by quirk or fault. If anything Google are looking to maintain usability by keeping as close to RFC spec as possible. One of the biggest problems facing email today is SPAM, and general deliverability. Once you veer far off spec it gets a lot more difficult to manage these two issues.…

>look how nice Greylisting worked in theory, until you realize that most IT or hosting companies don't have a clue how to configure an MTA within RFC specs and do silly things like retrying delivery every 5 mins. that's what needs to happen for greylisting to work. it's spambots that don't have the retry ability.

Thanks, but you misunderstand my point. Actually you pretty much prove my point that most MTAs are run by those who can't grasp that there are RFC standards out there.

An MTA should never resend after only 5 minutes. It should wait at least 25 minutes before even the first retry.

I've seen many set up to retry every 60 seconds, giving up after 5 tries. One IT tech even told me it was so his boss doesn't have to wait 3 days to get a non-delivery report! Lol.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#224

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #199
gdulli wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maps has really become a chore to use, too. I remember getting directions used to be easy once and now it's like interacting with enterprise software.

Try Here maps. This is the old Nokia maps now owned by Android. I use this as my go-to for driving. It's much better interface and route selection is as good as Maps. Also I love the GPS speedo and speed warning. I tend to use Maps for location based searches like restaurants for the better reviews.

HERE is pretty great. I've been amazed how basic things like a list of recent searches (something that can be easily stored locally on your device) aren't even available on Google Maps if you turn their cloud location stalking off. Whereas HERE provides a pretty functionally useful app without me even having an account with them.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#225

Post by ocdtrekkie »

jkturbo wrote: post #185
ryan-c wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was aware of the proxying, but didn't realize that gmail always prefetched the image. This implies that even sending each recipient a unique image URL will not work?

Author here. Gmail does not prefetch the image. Appending a unique image URL will still allow the sender to know when you've opened the email. The proxy eliminates your IP as well as user-agent so the sender can't tell where you are and what you're using to read the email.

I was going to argue with you and go get a link to wave in your face.

But you're right: https://blog.filippo.io/how-the-new-gmail-image-proxy-works-...

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#226

Post by signal11 »

Nullabillity wrote: post #210
signal11 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows peaked somewhere between 2000 and XP Uh, Windows 2000 was good on supported hardware but had really poor support for typical consumer PCs. XP was a security nightmare, although XP SP2 did improve things. Hardly a "peak". Newer versions of Windows, with malware protection enabled by default, do a much better job of protecting customers. The big win for me is that somewhere between Windows 7 and 10 (not sure…

> The big win for me is that somewhere between Windows 7 and 10 (not sure when), Microsoft added a feature so that the OS wouldn't bluescreen if the display driver crashed -- it would fall back to its "basic", Microsoft-written driver, and try to restart the actual driver. This is just one example but imho Windows actually become more reliable over the years. Pretty sure that happened in Vista, actually.

Ah - thanks, that's the only version of Windows (apart from ME) I've not used.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#227

Post by drhayes9 »

ryan-c wrote: post #10
drhayes9 wrote: post #5

HTML emails reduce clickthrough rates: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/plain-text-vs-html-emails-... I think most people (correctly) interpret HTML-ness in email as a signal that the email is undesirable.

> While the plain-text emails we created had some formatting capabilities (hyperlinks, tracking pixels, etc.), they were as close to plain-text as we could while maintaining the ability to track opens and clicks for testing purposes. That sounds like "HTML email with minimal cruft" rather than "plain text" to me.

Yeah, that's definitely true. "HTML email" in this case is a synonym for "email with lots of images and crud" in it.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#228

Post by zeckalpha »

jkturbo wrote: post #187
zeckalpha wrote: post #129

> Gmail is the only email client that doesn’t support . And that's a problem? Please don't put CSS in your email.

Author here. The majority of non-personal emails contain some form of styling for readability. And the styling is done using CSS. The only issue with Gmail is that they force you to inline them which makes coding email very tedious.

> for readability

Really? Because I find it so much more readable if all of my emails are the same font.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#229

Post by MagnumOpus »

PhilWright wrote: post #22
soneca wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sole responsible for acquisition on a startup and I solely (for now) use direct cold email (it is B2B, email sent to public adresses, so it is not spam). I only use plain text emails. I don't even use email tracking so that hidden pixel doesn't trigger any annoying warning on the email client that ruins the experience.

Sending unsolicited email to public addresses in order to sell something is spam. Calling it 'cold email' to make it sound like a legitimate process does not change the fact you are spamming.

No. Not by the spirit on not by the letter of the definition. Spam is bulk mail, or otherwise annoying a whole group of people. Sending a targeted e-mail to a single person (even if unsolicited, even if commercial) is not spam.

Re: Gmail, We Need to Talk

#230

Post by makecheck »

batiudrami wrote: post #152
maxxxxx wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my theory too. It seems a lot of software has peaked a few years ago and gone downhill from there: - MS Office peaked around 2000 - Gmail 3 years ago? - GMaps 3 years ago? - I would argue Windows peaked somewhere between 2000 and XP The same applies to managers. When an organization works well, they have the need to change things around just because.

MS Office is much more usable now than it was in 2000. Consider a new user, with no experience in office software at all. They're presented with either two rows of incomprehensible buttons, no logical order, and additional features hidden in the menu bar, compared to having features (reasonably) logically organised behind tabs and grouped into sections and frequently with labels. Sure, for power users, some things ta…

The problem is, new users are "new" for a few weeks or months at most. After that, they join the massive groups of people that have to spend years using tools.

New users should be given tutorials, online help or other kinds of training that successfully bring them up to speed. Those kinds of materials are then cleanly separated, and they get out of the way forever once the user is acquainted with the system.

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