arkitrave :: log

Email has been the talk of the town lately, as Microsoft and Yahoo! have both announced new spam-fighting techniques. These new ideas are far better than the tax on every email sent proposed by the not-too-bright Mark Dayton of my former hometown or the spam do-not-call-list [warning: only slightly better language than the snoop-dogg schizzolator…] proposed by Chuck “I love news crews and photo-ops” Schumer of my current state.

Another subject going around is the email paradigm itself. Eric Hahn noted at Inbox a few days ago that the email way of life we know and love is 30 years old. Obviously, it needs to change, as people are on information overload and spam overload. But how?

I don’t think the one-stop-shopping model is the answer. I’m sure Microsoft will try to integrate every media they can think of into Outlook to make it a 21st-century communications center, but this will only lead to more proprietary lockin and less consumer choice.

Apple’s model of late has been many apps, with similar interfaces, which do different things (iPhoto, iTunes, Safari, etc.) I, for one, prefer that to one app that does everything. I think it would be wise, in our sudden realization that email must change, to not go overboard (ala Push). Rather, let’s examine the aspects of email that are not scaling to our needs anymore.

As Eric notes, the key issue is filing. People hate to file. I hated filing when I worked as a temp. And I hate it now, hence the piles of papers on the floor of my office. The put-email-in-file-folder system doesn’t scale.

But the answer to that problem already in front of us. I’m using Opera for email. True, since I think Opera Mac is pretty lousy, I don’t use it for browsing, and it’s a bloated email client, but I couldn’t live without it for email. This may come as a shock - it’s a database! By storing the email in a database I don’t have to move it from folder to folder. I can simply set filters, and have many different “views”. The email shows up in my inbox and in any view it is filtered to, i click “read” after reading, and it goes to sleep in database-land. The same email can be, and often is, in 3+ different views, and I can apply the filters retroactively when I decide I need a new view. Now, a database isn’t a new concept for email, but it hasn’t made it into the mainstream yet. But I own my email now, rather than my email controlling my life.

Unfortunately, I can’t yet convince my wife to give it a try, but I’m convinced it’s a paradigm that can take email many more years without burdening it with Microsoft’s predictable multimedia overload. If it’s marketed well.

Another issue discussed, as a side note, was IM. Well, the reason IM isn’t integrated with email is partly that it’s a newer idea and has taken longer to catch on, and mostly that it is proprietary, unlike POP. If IM gets integrated into Outlook…

What do you think? Does email need a major overhaul? Can we teach grandma to use a database-centered technology? Or is it not going to be enough to solve the email problems for the years to come? Are there other email problems I’m missing?