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Inside continues to bet on email, the “largest social network”

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Re: Inside continues to bet on email, the “largest social network”

#31

Post by Spivak »

moreira wrote: post #26
jameslk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised we haven't seen the mIRC's of email yet (or maybe there have but that just didn't work?). mIRC was a popular client for IRC on Windows. It extended IRC with features such as color and formatting in your messages, which was beyond the protocol. A feature like that worked just fine because the color codes were mostly invisible to those who weren't using a client that supported them. In this way, mIRC and…

That can be done easily enough with @media queries, I suppose. It's possible to send a table-less, fully responsive, modern HTML email that is invisible for less-modern clients. It doesn't require anything special and is possible today. The problem is that people who send email need it to look a certain way, and leaving older clients behind, just like you'd have done in IRC/mIRC, is not an option. So having the optio…

> The problem is that people who send email need it to look a certain way

I think it's fair to say that actual people don't need any of this. It's businesses and advertisers that would be the overwhelming consumer of these abilities.

Re: Inside continues to bet on email, the “largest social network”

#32

Post by [deleted] »

jameslk wrote: post #8
RandomInteger4 wrote: post #4

This is tangential, but needs to be stated: What I've learned from email newletters is that Microsoft Outlook needs to die a swift and horrible death. There is absolutely no good reason why we should have to create email newsletters that require tables for layout.

I'm surprised we haven't seen the mIRC's of email yet (or maybe there have but that just didn't work?). mIRC was a popular client for IRC on Windows. It extended IRC with features such as color and formatting in your messages, which was beyond the protocol. A feature like that worked just fine because the color codes were mostly invisible to those who weren't using a client that supported them. In this way, mIRC and…

[deleted]

Re: Inside continues to bet on email, the “largest social network”

#33

Post by azurezyq »

Maybe in US this holds, but things may be different in different places.

I'm a Chinese living in the bay area. I think people here treat E-mails as part of their daily life probably because most of them began to use it before the mobile internet is a thing. On the contrary, in China where the majority internet users are mobile-savvy, WeChat is the new email. Actually E-mails are only for official communications there, and I don't think official communications can be treated as "social networks".

I'm wondering if the same thing is happening in other developing countries where people first touched facebook/whatsapp before even knowing E-mail exists.

Re: Inside continues to bet on email, the “largest social network”

#35

Post by Spivak »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #6
RandomInteger4 wrote: post #4

This is tangential, but needs to be stated: What I've learned from email newletters is that Microsoft Outlook needs to die a swift and horrible death. There is absolutely no good reason why we should have to create email newsletters that require tables for layout.

That and HTML email that doesn't have a text/plain alternative. Even the braindead conversion contain some nuggets of information.

If you want your email to look the same on all clients text/plain is the way to go.

Re: Inside continues to bet on email, the “largest social network”

#36

Post by nilved »

eli wrote: post #15
gsich wrote: post #2

Email is like the one and only vendor/device/programming language independent way of communication.

Well, unless you try to use an HTML layout technique more modern than tables and spacer gifs.

HTML is awful enough on the Web, why would you want that in your inbox?

Re: Inside continues to bet on email, the “largest social network”

#37

Post by Spivak »

paxy wrote: post #22
gsich wrote: post #2

Email is like the one and only vendor/device/programming language independent way of communication.

If you want to send plain text, yes. There is a lot of variation among clients when it comes to formatting and layout however. But then by those constraints you can also count HTTP or SSH or Telnet or any other protocol at that layer.

Nobody outside of business and advertising cares how annoying it is to write carefully formatted HTML emails.

For any end user, email is the universal communication mechanism.

Re: Inside continues to bet on email, the “largest social network”

#38

Post by Spivak »

eli wrote: post #15
gsich wrote: post #2

Email is like the one and only vendor/device/programming language independent way of communication.

Well, unless you try to use an HTML layout technique more modern than tables and spacer gifs.

I think you'll find a lot more push back on using HTML in emails at all.

Re: Inside continues to bet on email, the “largest social network”

#39

Post by paxy »

azurezyq wrote: post #33

Maybe in US this holds, but things may be different in different places. I'm a Chinese living in the bay area. I think people here treat E-mails as part of their daily life probably because most of them began to use it before the mobile internet is a thing. On the contrary, in China where the majority internet users are mobile-savvy, WeChat is the new email. Actually E-mails are only for official communications there…

Same with India and WhatsApp
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