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Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

theatlantic.com

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Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#51

Post by kasey_junk »

jabelk wrote: post #15

Wholeheartedly agree with the article. I have absolute control of my inbox with filters, labels, and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjects. There is no way a centralized end-to-end service is going to eclipse email for me, unless they radically change their business models. The value proposition is just really bad in all the services I've seen so far. "Oh, you want me to sign up for your servi…

I actually figured out a domain for this idea before I gave up. The problem is I can't figure out how it scales correctly. It ideally would A) have strong network effects B) you would get contact data through your interfaces of choice (iphone, email address book, gmail, android, etc) and would rarely if ever interact with a web gui for the service. It should also have a circles concept so that I can give different people different details.

those all seem to rule out the various business models. hope someone smarter than me figures it out.

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#52

Post by lepht »

jabelk wrote: post #15

Wholeheartedly agree with the article. I have absolute control of my inbox with filters, labels, and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjects. There is no way a centralized end-to-end service is going to eclipse email for me, unless they radically change their business models. The value proposition is just really bad in all the services I've seen so far. "Oh, you want me to sign up for your servi…

Cobook sort of seemed to be going in this direction, but they got acquired by FullContact:

https://cobook.co/pete

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#53

Post by jabelk »

verisimilidude wrote: post #44
jabelk wrote: post #15

Wholeheartedly agree with the article. I have absolute control of my inbox with filters, labels, and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjects. There is no way a centralized end-to-end service is going to eclipse email for me, unless they radically change their business models. The value proposition is just really bad in all the services I've seen so far. "Oh, you want me to sign up for your servi…

I recently gave serious thought to building something similar to a rolodex social network, but eventually poked too many holes in it to follow through. I'd just come back from a conference at which I'd been asked for business cards by lots of people, maybe a hundred. Of all those people, I only really cared to hear back from a few. Though it's nice to have my name out there and be cordial in the industry, I wanted to…

This is totally off the cuff, but here's my first thought:

To sign up for the site, you need only a username, password, and verification method (email/sms/facebook/something to authenticate you as a person, but this wouldn't necessarily be tied to the account). The usernames are unique, and your personal url is domain.com/username or something along those lines (like reddit).

Then you can give your business card to everyone and their spammy recruiter, and if they follow up and visit your domain.com/username, they can hit the "request email" button, at which point you can choose which email to give them or ignore it all together. Potential problem is that unique usernames will mean that professional ones run out quickly. Not sure at what scale that becomes an issue....

In other news, if anyone here is going to be at hackMIT and would be interested in working on something like this, email me (its in my profile).

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#54

Post by dsr_ »

3pt14159 wrote: post #8

Email will always be around, but I must say that "Email killers" are really going to be successful. For example, I don't remember the last time my team sent an internal email that wasn't a forward from a client. We use Slack. Exclusively. We organize projects around it, sales efforts, everything. It has the async nature of email, the separation of topics like email, and the search power of email. It also means that n…

How disrupted will your company be if Slack is purchased by Yahoo and is EOL'd with 30 days notice?

To do that to email, you'd have to dismantle DNS.

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#55

Post by specialp »

The main power for me in email is that I actually own it. I have my own domain. While I use Slack, Google Hangouts, Hipchat and a bunch of other services, none of them replace email. It is standardized and despite social media/chat services living and dying over time I have had my domain and email for 15 years now. I can't think of many other services I can say that about.

It is also a good medium for non urgent communication that paper mail used to serve. The problem people see with email is actually not a problem at all with email, it is with how it is sometimes abused. My boss sometimes sends me an email and then prods me via Slack if I did not read it in 5 minutes. That is what these chat/message services are replacing... The short term action required requests that were formerly served with a phone call.

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#56

Post by soneca »

verisimilidude wrote: post #44
jabelk wrote: post #15

Wholeheartedly agree with the article. I have absolute control of my inbox with filters, labels, and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjects. There is no way a centralized end-to-end service is going to eclipse email for me, unless they radically change their business models. The value proposition is just really bad in all the services I've seen so far. "Oh, you want me to sign up for your servi…

I recently gave serious thought to building something similar to a rolodex social network, but eventually poked too many holes in it to follow through. I'd just come back from a conference at which I'd been asked for business cards by lots of people, maybe a hundred. Of all those people, I only really cared to hear back from a few. Though it's nice to have my name out there and be cordial in the industry, I wanted to…

I couldn't reply on your last comment, so it will be here. How would be your "9 or 10 cards"?

I imagine you can just control what info a conctact would have access. Maybe: professional email, personal email, office phone, personal phone, where do you work. Maybe one profile for each info..but that is 5... how to reach 9 or 10?

I think of a relationship regulated by tags. Tags similar to Google+ Circles. You can use to set context: , , . Or access: , , , . You can define an access profile for a particular tag.

You can change contacts though an app, but he won't have any access until you alocate a tag to him. So you won't offend anyone upfront, as even the VIP investors will have to wait until you put an all-accesstag on them. So it is a much more subtle acknowledge when after weeks the contact still don't have access to your email.

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#57

Post by simpixelated »

kasey_junk wrote: post #51
jabelk wrote: post #15

Wholeheartedly agree with the article. I have absolute control of my inbox with filters, labels, and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjects. There is no way a centralized end-to-end service is going to eclipse email for me, unless they radically change their business models. The value proposition is just really bad in all the services I've seen so far. "Oh, you want me to sign up for your servi…

I actually figured out a domain for this idea before I gave up. The problem is I can't figure out how it scales correctly. It ideally would A) have strong network effects B) you would get contact data through your interfaces of choice (iphone, email address book, gmail, android, etc) and would rarely if ever interact with a web gui for the service. It should also have a circles concept so that I can give different pe…

subscription?

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#58

Post by jabelk »

SapphireSun wrote: post #50
jabelk wrote: post #15

Wholeheartedly agree with the article. I have absolute control of my inbox with filters, labels, and signing up for newsletters and/or updates on various subjects. There is no way a centralized end-to-end service is going to eclipse email for me, unless they radically change their business models. The value proposition is just really bad in all the services I've seen so far. "Oh, you want me to sign up for your servi…

Isn't this basically the same as your email contacts list with a free text field?

No, because people have too damn many email addresses.

I typically have multiple email addresses at all times, with one constant (my gmail) and the others revolving around my employer, my school, and other affiliations. And which email I give you depends on how I know you (I'll give classmates and potential employers the university one, etc). So even though I might have someone's corporate address, if they change companies, I'm SOL. With this service, I can click your "request email" button, and you tell me the most convenient address to reach you at.

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