What would you name the baby of Email and Twitter?(vikinghammer.com)
vikinghammer.com
What would you name the baby of Email and Twitter?
http://vikinghammer.com/2010/01/09/open-twitter-what-would-you-name-the-baby-of-email-and-twitter/
11 comments
It seems that a lot of people are looking to extend twitter with email-type features, but I wonder if the reverse strategy (extending email) might be more fruitful.
Email has some great properties that make it the ideal foundation for a communication service:
I love all the new communications platforms and protocols, but I wonder if there isn't some life left in good old email.
Email has some great properties that make it the ideal foundation for a communication service:
1. You can send arbitrary text with arbitrary encoding.
2. Attachments can be any type, size, or number.
3. Virtually any device on the planet can send and receive mail.
4. Everybody already has a unique ID that they've memorized.
5. There's a boggling amount of infrastructure already in place.
6. Spam filtering is quite mature, and remarkably effective.
I love all the new communications platforms and protocols, but I wonder if there isn't some life left in good old email.
I was also expecting to allow arbitrarily long text, as well as attachments and additional (potentially user(or client)-defined) metadata.
Well, all the dutch HN readers will agree it would be "Etter".
But I personnaly don't think this would change much. For me there are two categories of information: private and public. For the private information email is the only solution and for the public solution I have my personal website. People who don't have their own website/blog won't care on who's server the messages are.
* EDIT * I was just thinking, isn't this what sites like blogger are about? You can make a page where you blog, several people can follow you, and they can reply.
But I personnaly don't think this would change much. For me there are two categories of information: private and public. For the private information email is the only solution and for the public solution I have my personal website. People who don't have their own website/blog won't care on who's server the messages are.
* EDIT * I was just thinking, isn't this what sites like blogger are about? You can make a page where you blog, several people can follow you, and they can reply.
So ... why do people use Twitter, when blogs already existed?
What I mean is that most people who use twitter don't care at all whether the messages are on their own server or on a server owned by some company.
The same is true of most people who use email, but email still wouldn't have become as widespread as it is today if it weren't interoperable with other email servers.
What he's trying to build already exists (http://identi.ca), but will never succeed in any form: the only reason Twitter has stayed so constrained is because it's not federated. Only a walled garden can avoid basic features that way -- an open platform wouldn't embraced and extended so shittly.
What he actually wants also already exists, and he's using it successfully already. It's a goddamn blog.
What he actually wants also already exists, and he's using it successfully already. It's a goddamn blog.
Google Wave! ;)
RSSCloud is similar to this - http://rsscloud.org/walkthrough.html
That's just a pointless fantasy of Dave Winer's. He has the magical combination technical and social incompetence, that thoroughly poisons anything he is allowed to insinuate himself into.
Attempt no landing there.
Attempt no landing there.
Instant messaging?
isn't that more like one of the parents of twitter (the other being email)? I always saw twitter as slow IM
if email is one of the parents of twitter and is now parenting a child with it, aren't we looking at a live case of....INCEST here?
sms
No, sms is too personal. I think the point was that you can have several followers.
Twitail