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Presentation given at Ajax World in San Jose on October 20, 2008. Presents an overview of Internet applications passed and present and gives a hint of what is to come.
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Building Email Apps
AJAXWorldOctober 20, 2008San Jose, CA
Andy DenmarkTripIt, Co-Founder and VP Engineering
Email Bankruptcy
“I routinely declare email bankruptcy and simply delete my entire inbox.”
- Michael Arrington, TechCrunch“Wondering if I can get a Bear Sterns bailout for my email bankruptcy.”
- willpate on Twitter
“(He) just declared email bankruptcy. I've read those declarations enough to know it means our email tools aren't usable.”
- garrickvanburen on Twitter
So, why is email still around despite all the challenges and criticism… ?
Email Is Still The “Killer App”
Email is a natural extension of a metaphor for communication that humans have used forever
Everyone has email and is the overwhelming majority of person-to-person online communication
No matter what else people use to communicate, they use email too
Email contains an amazing amount of context and data about our lives Our relationships Our purchases Our thoughts and the thoughts of people we know
What More Can We Do With Email?
Spam and mass email marketing may be contributing to the problems outlined earlier
But think of all the things we can do to make our applications better by making better use of email: Broadcasting data Query interfaces Data transfer Intelligent parsing of data
Mining of social connections (“Inbox 2.0”) Email as an application platform
Does An Email App Make Sense?
PROS Ubiquity – everyone has
email Exposure – email is on all day
and captures a lot of attention
Simplicity – easy to send email, everyone knows how to do it
Embedded identity
CONS May just not fit your service May be too complex for your
users to understand It’s challenging to properly
support all email clients, versions and formats
Building and supporting a system that sends, receives, and reads email is a pain
Prehistoric Email Apps
Domain Registration Email Sign-Up Email to:
[email protected] From address
authentication for new sign-ups
Choose to receive your bill via email or USPS
Authentication schemes for modify/delete were CRYPT-PW and PGP
Archie File Query Email InterfaceAvailable Interfaces Text-based client Graphical client Telnet client Email
Browsing The Web Via Email
“For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer. (I also have no net connection much of the time.) To look at page I send mail to a demon which runs wget and mails the page back to me. It is very efficient use of my time, but it is slow in real time.”
-- Richard Stallman (2007-12-15)
About TripIt
?
***CONFIDENTIAL*** 13
Forward Any Confirmation
Automated Online Master
Itinerary
Automated Weather, Maps,
Guides…
Trip Sharing & Social Alerts
iCal & Atom Support
Email & Mobile Access
Add Meetings, Activities,
Restaurants, etc.
Why Email Made Sense For TripIt
The native format of travel data is varied and unfriendly
The travel industry isn’t moving to expose that data Partnering with big travel companies and building
APIs would take too long Users already have all their travel data in email, but
that data is “dead” Auto-account creation using the embedded identity
of an email message It has become an “instant delight” factor for users
Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Interface
DataTransfer
SemanticParsingBroadcast
?
Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Interface
DataTransfer
SemanticParsingBroadcast
One Way
• User requests email information to be sent to them
• Typically triggered by an action or an alert
Examples
• Mailing Lists
• Google Alerts
Example: Mailing Lists
Searchable knowledge base built as a by-product of natural human communication
Example: Google Alerts “Real time” alerts
delivered right to my desktop
Useful way to asynchronously broadcast data I’ve requested as it’s available
With linkage to the web, alerts are actionable and controllable
Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Interface
DataTransfer
SemanticParsingBroadcast
CLI
• Users emails a command and Email App replies with a response
• Typically a standard list of commands and responses
Examples
• I Want Sandy
• TripIt
Example: I Want Sandy
http://iwantsandy.com/
Example: TripIt
Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Interface
DataTransfer
SemanticParsing
Email Forwarding
• Users forward emails and Email App recognizes and parses them
• Typically converts “unstructured” data into “structured” data making it more usable to the app and user
Examples
• Flickr
• Blogger
Broadcast
Example: Flickr
Example: Blogger
Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Interface
DataTransfer
SemanticParsingBroadcast
Intelligent Agent
• Structured data from email is enriched by the Email App by retrieving related information from other sites
• Typically leverages “keys” such as geo-coding to capture relevant data
Examples
• TrackMyShipments
• TripIt
Example: TrackMyShipments
Example: TripIt
Timezone
Online Checkin Flight Status Seat Advice
Flight DetailsWeather
Types Of Email App Services
Command Line Interface
DataTransfer
SemanticParsing
Email Forwarding
• Users forward emails and Email App recognizes and parses them
• Typically converts “unstructured” data into “structured” data making it more usable to the app and user
Broadcast
CLI
• Users emails a command and Email App replies with a response
• Typically a standard list of commands and responses
One Way
• User requests email information to be sent to them
• Typically triggered by an action or an alert
Intelligent Agent
• Structured data from email is enriched by the Email App by retrieving related information from other sites
• Typically leverages “keys” such as geo-coding to capture relevant data
ExamplesListserv Google Alerts
ExamplesI Want SandyTripIt
ExamplesFlickrBlogger
ExamplesTrackMyShipmentsTripIt
Email Systems as Platforms
Why turn an email system into a platform for running applications? Natural personal productivity integration point with other tools such
as calendar, contact list, etc… All the data is already there Done right, the UI is a natural extension of what hundreds of millions
of people use everyday, small learning curve Examples
Outlook/Xobni GMail w/ GreaseMonkey GMail Labs Yahoo! Open Mail
Outlook/Xobni
Search your Inbox People-focused analytics and
semantic analysis (e.g., phone numbers)
Implicit social graph discovery (i.e., who talks to whom?)
Related conversations http://www.xobni.com/
TripIt for GMail
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25778
Drives the UI to “forward” the emailNo access to the data in the message (e.g. headers, attachments, etc…)“Brittle” solution that relies on a UI that doesn’t changeNo feedback loop or error handling with TripIt’s backend
GMail Labs Features on top of GMail, no
mashups yet Not available to non-
Googlers Huge un-fufilled potential
Yahoo! Mail
Video: Yahoo! OpenMail/TripIt Integration
Key Takeaways
Email is not dead! Treasure-trove of data waiting to be mined
At least four different types of apps Broadcast, CLI, Data transfer, Semantic parsing
Emerging email platforms New ways of delivering your applications via mail platforms are
coming
If you get it right, huge payoff for you and your users
Questions
Andy DenmarkTripIt, Co-Founder and VP Engineering