E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?
1–10 of 54 posts
Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?
#2The #1 difficulty with email startups is that they have to invent a market that doesn't exist and doesn't want to exist.
Few people even know that they can access Gmail anywhere other than at mail.google.com or via the Gmail app. Ditto for hotmail/outlook.com and pretty much every other freemail service out there. And of course ad-supported freemail providers have no incentive to let their users access email with a third-party app.
The distinction between an email service and an email app is so murky in the minds of most people, that Mozilla added a dialog box to Thunderbird where they offer to create a new email account for the user. Seriously, a lot of people were wondering why Thunderbird didn't come with its own email address! Instead of trying to dispel this myth, Mozilla just let people keep believing it.
Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?
#3I don't think the premise is right. From the beginning to now, Gmail evolved quite a bit. For one, they used their analytical knowledge to prioritize emails, which I found to be very helpful. Two, they started filtering newsletters and advertisements automatically. Third, the UI got revamped quite a bit. Add to that all the basics Gmail does right (spamfiltering, tag+-syntax, …), and you see why it is hard to compete.
That said, I don't use gmail anymore because I don't want my emails to be directly in the hands of the NSA.
But let's focus on their list for a bit. Because innovating a sector is not a goal. Having a goal and therefore innovating, that is a goal. So, does the list they formulated hold up? I don't think so:
better interfaces: Better than gmail? Good luck. Besides, even old-style programs like claws-mail, sylpheed and thunderbird have really good interfaces, for their purpose.
better email management: Gmail does that. And one has to be really careful with that: It is not something every user need, sure not something every user wants, especially if it even once sorts something the wrong way.
better workflow integration: Emails are not tasks. They don't need task management in general. Emails are a communication medium, and sometimes, they contain or become tasks. but that is not a general requirement for users.
better attachment handling: What does that mean besides searching for attachments, maybe including their title, and browsing through the photos? Like attachments.me tried to do. But all of that is not innovation…
better social integration: The action one might want to do, like tweetbacks, should be linked in the email. Isn't that already the case? Blogs do that (ok, serendipity does, don't know about the others).
better prioritisation and analytic: To general. Besides, Gmail tries that already.
So, hmpf. Though I want to add that their general product idea (shared inboxes for taskmanagement) doesn't look bad, for a very specific usecase.
Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?
#4Email didn't evolve with Gmail. Only the UI evolved.
It could be suggested that Wave was a revolution rather than an evolution, and that was its greatest weakness. I'm sad that it's gone.
Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?
#5" Why is it so hard to innovate? "
Hmmm ... because mail just works since 20+ years
And most of us just need grep command you IOS fanboy
Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?
#6Yet another case of a blog where I click the logo at the top and I don't get taken to the product, I get taken to the blog index. Infuriating!
Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?
#7I don't think the premise is right. From the beginning to now, Gmail evolved quite a bit. For one, they used their analytical knowledge to prioritize emails, which I found to be very helpful. Two, they started filtering newsletters and advertisements automatically. Third, the UI got revamped quite a bit. Add to that all the basics Gmail does right (spamfiltering, tag+-syntax, …), and you see why it is hard to compete…
Emails are not tasks? I disagree. You're right that they are a communication medium but it not incompatible. From my point of view most of the time they are both.
Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?
#8Email didn't evolve with Gmail. Only the UI evolved. It could be suggested that Wave was a revolution rather than an evolution, and that was its greatest weakness. I'm sad that it's gone.
Not completely gone, it still exists as Apache incubator project : http://incubator.apache.org/wave/
Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?
#9Since Gmail? What new did Gmail bring to email users exactly?
Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?
#10" Why is it so hard to innovate? " Hmmm ... because mail just works since 20+ years And most of us just need grep command you IOS fanboy
I was going to say much the same that it works fine already. Although thinking about it there have been real improvements like being able to send 2GB files with gmail which was darn hard 20 years ago. And presently if I compose a reply with gmail it does it in a stupid little pop up window while if I fire up Outlook it takes like 5 minutes to come to life. So maybe it's not all perfect yet.
Actually what still bugs me is that I use email as my default record of all conversations I've had since 94 or so but I have not found a way for it to include SMS messages. Facebook you can forward to email but not SMS as far as I know. I want to be able to say to the program show me all the conversations with Bob last year and see everything, SMS, WhatsApp etc included. So come on startup dudes, build away! I daresay much of the problem is the likes of Apple being precious about letting you download the SMSs, but anyway.