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Gmail: Introducing Actions in the Inbox

googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.co.uk

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Re: Gmail: Introducing Actions in the Inbox

#131

Post by v13inc »

makomk wrote: post #58
icebraining wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Microdata and JSON-LD are open formats.

The format may be open, the ability to use it isn't - you need to register with Google[1] or they won't display actions on your e-mail. This appears to be necessary for security reasons. Imagine if every e-mail provider did the same thing! [1] https://developers.google.com/gmail/schemas/registering-with...

As a vendor, the registration would be extremely annoying. Since these widgets are meant to replace HTML links and buttons, I would then have to create and support 2 versions: the fancy widget version all the providers I registered with, and a fallback for providers that don't support it.

Re: Gmail: Introducing Actions in the Inbox

#132

Post by pjscott »

reddit_clone wrote: post #123
bigtones wrote: post #100

We were one of the companies to support this during the launch announcement today, and we've been playing with it for the past month or so. It's an awesome feature for transactional emails that require a quick action to be performed - we use it for task notification emails where you can check off a task as complete right within the email client. It's based on an open standard, and plain old HTTP POST so not specifica…

Again, what is the difference between this and clicking a link? Instead of showing a link , they show a button is it? Adding a bunch of crap into email body is worth that? This is right out of Microsoft's embrace/extend playbook.

Here's a use case:

1. I book a flight, and get a flight confirmation email from the airline. It includes a machine-readable version of my flight info in the metadata.

2. I press a button, and the flight gets added to Google Calendar, or a flight-status tracking app, or a shared travel calendar service for people who fly a lot. Note that this stuff doesn't need to be written by Google; it's an open format.

Sound potentially useful?

Re: Gmail: Introducing Actions in the Inbox

#133

Post by pjscott »

gcb0 wrote: post #73
makomk wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The format may be open, the ability to use it isn't - you need to register with Google[1] or they won't display actions on your e-mail. This appears to be necessary for security reasons. Imagine if every e-mail provider did the same thing! [1] https://developers.google.com/gmail/schemas/registering-with...

And even if they implement the "open standard" in outlook, who says Google won't bait and switch (oh the irony) then, like they did with their youtube apps on windows mobile?

So, suppose that (a) companies start sending useful metadata with their emails, (b) other clients like Outlook add support, and then (c) GMail capriciously removes support. As long as the metadata keeps getting sent, and there are clients which can do interesting things with it, I don't see the problem here.

Re: Gmail: Introducing Actions in the Inbox

#134

Post by tree_of_item »

d43594 wrote: post #107
kyrias wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few things adhere to the Unix philosophies anymore, and really, why should they?

The question you should really be asking is why shouldn't they? The best applications out there do one thing and do it well. Awk, sed, vi(m), emacs, git. Need I go on?

What is the one thing Emacs does well?

Emacs is the polar opposite of the Unix philosophy; it's more in line with the Lisp Machine tradition. Programs like sort, uniq, and grep don't embed interpreters for dynamic languages and provide thousands of different extensions for anything from reading mail to connecting to IRC.

Re: Gmail: Introducing Actions in the Inbox

#135

Post by pjscott »

imissmyjuno wrote: post #118
dragonwriter wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> currently SMS is the only open standard for instant messaging XMPP is an open standard (through IETF RFCs and related standards) for messaging and presence whose motivating use case was instant messaging: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP

Right. My comment is more on the adoption rather than availability of open standards.

XMPP is also used, behind the scenes, with Google Chat and Facebook Chat. It has a fair amount of adoption; you just don't really hear about it much.

Re: Gmail: Introducing Actions in the Inbox

#136

Post by pjscott »

orangethirty wrote: post #106

How long till gmail us turned into a hybrid private messaging/gmail system tightly integrated with G+ (more so than now)? Gmail as we know it seems to be on its last legs. Too bad, because it is a good product.

That's a remarkably dramatic response to Google announcing that (a) you can add structured event metadata to emails in a straightforward open format, and (b) G+ will use this metadata.

Re: Gmail: Introducing Actions in the Inbox

#137

Post by TkTech »

dmbaggett wrote: post #41

Lots of strangely negative reactions here. We ( http://inky.com ) think this is a positive development and plan to support it as well. We're happy Google has promoted open standards in doing this.

I tried Inky after following your link. I signed up, added an account, let it sync up and played with it. I then went to settings and deleted my account and quit Inky. I noticed my computer running hot a few hours later and it turned out "inkycore" had been running with 100% in the background the entire time.

Re: Gmail: Introducing Actions in the Inbox

#138

Post by [deleted] »

d43594 wrote: post #104
abraininavat wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to it? It's still around. People still write programs that do one thing and do it well. You're welcome to use them. Are you implying that there ever was a time when all programs did only one thing and did it well? Which era was that?

I think you are missing the subtle tones, implications and context within the comment. It was not meant as a blanket statement hence it is a comment against a specific item.

[deleted]

Re: Gmail: Introducing Actions in the Inbox

#139

Post by Maxious »

bentcorner wrote: post #76
dmbaggett wrote: post #41

Lots of strangely negative reactions here. We ( http://inky.com ) think this is a positive development and plan to support it as well. We're happy Google has promoted open standards in doing this.

It's all Fire and Motion. Google wants this to gain traction so that competing email clients spend cycles gaining feature parity. And for what? Make clicking a link easier?

For those who haven't read it before: Fire and Motion http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html

Re: Gmail: Introducing Actions in the Inbox

#140

Post by ars »

dragonwriter wrote: post #117
jacalata wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To hinder: to add difficulty. I'd say it certainly does hinder use of the protocol.

> > it doesn't hinder the use of the protocol outside of their services > To hinder: to add difficulty. I'd say it certainly does hinder use of the protocol. How does Google requiring registration before actions are displayed in Google properties hinder use of the schemas in email outside of Google services?

Because just like google needs people to register for security, so do other providers.

This rapidly becomes unwieldy - how are you going to convince people to register with tons of providers? So this format is pretty much google only.

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