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E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?

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Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?

#21
post #11
post #9

Since Gmail? What new did Gmail bring to email users exactly?

Gmail introduced conversation threading, gigabyte storage, speed, powerful search, and lots more no?

for me: what is that "a lot more"? I just want to learn something new (btw, labels/tags are not really new, just redesigned imap folders)

Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?

#23
post #21
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail introduced conversation threading, gigabyte storage, speed, powerful search, and lots more no?

for me: what is that "a lot more"? I just want to learn something new (btw, labels/tags are not really new, just redesigned imap folders)

Tags have an important difference from folders in that messages can have multiple tags and you don't think of messages as being in a folder.

Personally I find this quite useful and it definitely improved the way I use email.

Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?

#24
post #11
post #9

Since Gmail? What new did Gmail bring to email users exactly?

Gmail introduced conversation threading, gigabyte storage, speed, powerful search, and lots more no?

Actually - when was conversation threading introduced in GMail? I know the Apple's Mail.app had it in 2011.

Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?

#25
post #12
post #9

Since Gmail? What new did Gmail bring to email users exactly?

Free email hosting for multi-GB mailboxes with a threaded web client.

I had 2GB mailbox in 2006 and an unlimited a year later. And I was never fan of threaded views, so I guess I didn't notice, heh.

Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?

#27
post #21
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail introduced conversation threading, gigabyte storage, speed, powerful search, and lots more no?

for me: what is that "a lot more"? I just want to learn something new (btw, labels/tags are not really new, just redesigned imap folders)

Non trivial statistical analysis of email contents and your interactions with your email to effect decent prioritisation?

That would be my top feature in gmail.

Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?

#29
post #8
post #4

Email 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/

True. But for it to succeed and be widely adopted, it really needs an organization that is able to host it for the masses.

Re: E-mail didn't really evolve since Gmail. Why is it so hard to innovate?

#30
post #11
post #9

Since Gmail? What new did Gmail bring to email users exactly?

Gmail introduced conversation threading, gigabyte storage, speed, powerful search, and lots more no?

> conversation threading

I believe this existed before gmail

> gigabyte storage

was not a tech problem before

> speed

in what way? the ui was and still is as fast as most lightweight desktop clients

> powerful search

maybe, although some clients supported powerful search with regex before

I think gmail was not that innovative, but it did bring everything together very well, in a very user-friendly way, along with some new-ish stuff like tags and the no need to delete anything.

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