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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

#141

Post by goblin89 »

timjahn wrote: post #18
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…

"Something I would pay for: a rolodex social network. No centralized feed. No useless info. Your profile is 2-3 sentences and your current city (with some sort of maps integration for when you travel, to see who's near you). Two buttons, one to request to view resume, and another to request to view email. That's it. With the idea being, you use the site to enable you to keep up with people. You add people you know or…

> I need some sort of simple contact rolodex that simply shows who I know, why I know them, and why they're important…

Would you be one of them? Would you actually keep and update yet another online profile, so that other people can find you on this particular network?

> something that I would use most of the time simply to search.

The answer to the above question from almost everyone you might want to search for seems almost certain to be “no”.

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#142

Post by notatoad »

Pxtl wrote: post #96
lotharbot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"why I know them" is a crucial feature missing from many services (along with "what name or alias I know them under"). I have hundreds of contacts from church, school, work, video games, etc.

Sounds like google's circles. The problem is that most folks treat their Gmail account as their "real" account and don't give it out willy-nilly. Also, that the circles thing is one-way - I can use circles to control how I see others, but can't use them to control how they see me.

which is good. i don't want some guy i met at a work thing once adding himself to my best friends circle.

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#143

Post by obeattie »

lotharbot wrote: post #22
timjahn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Something I would pay for: a rolodex social network. No centralized feed. No useless info. Your profile is 2-3 sentences and your current city (with some sort of maps integration for when you travel, to see who's near you). Two buttons, one to request to view resume, and another to request to view email. That's it. With the idea being, you use the site to enable you to keep up with people. You add people you know or…

"why I know them" is a crucial feature missing from many services (along with "what name or alias I know them under"). I have hundreds of contacts from church, school, work, video games, etc.

IIRC, Facebook used to have this feature (ages ago), but it was removed. It used to ask where you knew someone from when sending a friend request, and it didn't let you send the request if you didn't know the person.

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#144

Post by tatterdemalion »

shmerl wrote: post #98
tatterdemalion wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is good but it makes some comments that don't seem true to me. > It's a globally addressable system that does not require any centralized system, which means it works everywhere and for everyone no matter what choice in service provider the individual user (or their organization) makes. Isn't it the case that nearly all email is routed using DNS? Certainly all of mine is. While there are certainly argume…

There are some designs for decentralization of the DNS. The decentralized nature of e-mail on the higher level still is valuable. > the advantage that email has isn't that its addressing system is uncentralized: it's that its addressing system is more libre than proprietary systems. I think that the biggest advantages of e-mail are its decentralization + federation based on open protocols. These make e-mail extremely…

I agree that federation is critical to email's value, but isn't that true of Diaspora as well? Again, I've never used Diaspora, but why is it notifying you through email? Everyone checks their Facebook without needing email notifications.

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#146

Post by tremendo »

timjahn wrote: post #18
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…

"Something I would pay for: a rolodex social network. No centralized feed. No useless info. Your profile is 2-3 sentences and your current city (with some sort of maps integration for when you travel, to see who's near you). Two buttons, one to request to view resume, and another to request to view email. That's it. With the idea being, you use the site to enable you to keep up with people. You add people you know or…

Something like Contatta? I used to work there a year or so ago, so I may be biased, but still feel it's an improvement over email and sterile CRM. I personally like how it brings several pieces together, even if it's still missing a calendar for example. It's still in open beta, but I know it's extensible too. I may sound like an ad, but there's nothing for me to gain from it now, just my opinion.

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#147

Post by spindritf »

fragmede wrote: post #140
mythealias wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked Gmail allowed me to create an account without providing an email address or phone number.

When was this? Currently, you need to provide a code that is texted to a mobile phone for some level of proof of identity.

I have registered an account last week or so without any codes beyond captcha. It surprised me, too, because for quite a while you needed a mobile.

Maybe the requirement is based on some heuristics? IP address, country, other info provided by the user, and so on?

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#149

Post by weavie »

travem wrote: post #130
lotharbot wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who is that information viewable by? I don't want to put in "obnoxious guy from conference" and then have that person be able to read it.

According to the LinkedIn help center [1]: "Your note will be visible in the Relationship section of the profile and will only be visible to you." Of course you may wish to store such information in a different system to avoid the possibility of LinkedIn inadvertently leaking the data. [1] https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/43370/kw/W...

Would you trust them enough to be certain enough that it would always stay this way so you could safely put slanderous information about a person here? I certainly wouldn't.

Re: Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet

#150

Post by nextos »

Aqueous wrote: post #101
zmmmmm wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> XMPP, IRC I actually think these guys are interesting exceptions. Yes, they are still around, but they've largely been eclipsed by proprietary solutions. Why? Why did Twitter storm to success XMPP was ostensibly the same thing but with all of these good qualities (open, federated, decentralised, etc.). Still to this day messaging is a battleground for new entrants touting completely opaque solutions. It seems like…

XMPP is one of those things that billions of people use without knowing it. Facebook Chat and GChat for a long time (and maybe still now) were actually just branded XMPP solutions - Facebook (annoyingly) shut off federation, keeping in the spirit of their walled garden approach, but GChat still interoperates with other XMPP servers if I'm not mistaken. Edit: GTalk shut off federation for XMPP extensions like multi-us…

Interestingly WhatsApp is also a XMPP-based system, although totally closed and likely incompatible with other clients.
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