

Quickly – Giving email a mind of its own [video] - utkarsh_apoorva
http://blog.quicklyapp.co/giving-email-a-mind-of-its-own/

======
hellbanner
HEY. I signed up with a gmail address that uses an alias for my from:. You
sent me a "hi welcome thanks for signing up" email that included a different
alias I've used online before.

How did you associate this data? I signed up as <foo>+quickly@gmail.com ..
never used that address before.

Please disclose what dataset you used to associate my account with the name
you greeted me with.

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
Hey Hellbanner, thats a no-brainer. I was just using Rapportive - sure you
have heard of it :-)

PS: I just checked. You have also provided your name. :-)

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pgt
Cool. After watching the video, I understand pg's post about founder accents
better:
[http://paulgraham.com/accents.html](http://paulgraham.com/accents.html)

I can understand you, but I had to focus on it, instead of focusing on your
product.

The screencast is fine, although long. Structure the benefits and features you
want to communicate and outline these before diving into the "how". Script the
audio. Don't wait for the sync to Asana.

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
Thanks, I have read pg's post and quite agree with it. I have tried to keep
the voice as clear as possible but the Indian accent just pops up :-)

Your suggestions are really useful. I will try to list out the benefits we
have in mind on the website as well as write a post about it.

~~~
lukeholder
I see you are needing some design help on the modal windows etc. Are you
interested in a designer coming on board? my email is in my HN profile ;)

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
great. Yes, we are trying to connect with designers. Will mail you.

------
ar7hur
Cool project.

If I understand, it learns what emails mean and what actions should be
triggered across all users. So I guess it must store my emails and actions
somewhere, to participate to this across-the-board learning. I wonder if users
will be concerned about this.

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
Good point. In fact, we are concerned about that quite a bit - so much so that
we will soon be releasing details of how reconstructing somebody's email is
close to impossible, even by the Quickly team. Basically, we are storing only
patterns, not email content directly.

~~~
alphapapa
You're expecting people to take your word for it.

Even if you're telling the truth, when your security is compromised, so are
all your users' email, because you have full access to it.

Bottom line: Yet another "web 2.x", proprietary, "beta," SaaS, subscription,
third-party, unrestricted-privacy-compromising tool without a business model
that might be around for a few years before being bought and ruined or going
bankrupt. One would have to be nuts to trust it and to build one's business
processes around it.

And why? Seriously, it could be done client-side without compromising account
credentials or email privacy in a bit of Perl or Python, maybe a browser
extension, and throw in some Bayesian analysis to reduce the need for manual
templating and scraping. A few hours in Emacs/gnus/etc and no need to hand
over ALL OF MY EMAIL to yet another "but we're only storing your patterns!"
third-party web site.

Someday people will wake up to the insanity and stop trusting these ephemeral
convenience services. The question is, will it happen naturally, or will it
take more massive security/privacy breaches before people stop being so lazy
and nai...I mean, trusting?

~~~
rakoo
> Seriously, it could be done [...] in a bit of Perl or Python [...] A few
> hours [...]

People said the same thing when dropbox was announced, look where we are now:
very few people do it locally, and dropbox has won.

~~~
alphapapa
Dropbox has won? Won what? Was there an International File Sync and Sharing
Software Competition?

How is that relevant to the issue of giving a third-party access to ALL OF
YOUR EMAIL for the sake of convenience? How does that justify doing so rather
than developing a client-side, FOSS solution?

~~~
rakoo
There was (and still is) a need for seamlessly storing one's documents in a
secure safe, somewhere, where durability is guaranteed, and sync them between
one's devices. Dropbox stepped in with a solution to this problem, and someone
here on HN dismissed it with "it's just a glorified FTP".

It turns out that Dropbox has set the standard for how to store files on the
cloud and sync them for the masses. My gut tells me they're losing grounds to
the GDrive/OneDrive/iCloud et al but it's still a default option for many
people. In that sense, they have "won" this domain.

Now, don't mistake me: Dropbox and the likes have created a huge problem with
data privacy. But as FOSS developers, we must not think that somehow Dropbox
doesn't exist or doesn't solve a problem; if we want a better, FOSS
alternative, we must set the bar at least as high, and not blind ourselves.

------
wodenokoto
This is really cool. I am currently studying NLP and ML and these are the kind
of things I want to build to make the world a better place.

I would love to read a post about the kinds of classifiers and features you
use for this service.

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
Thanks wodenokoto, While we cannot share complete details of the technology,
we do plan to have a beginner's post on how we have leveraged these
technologies.

------
jmathai
My initial thought was how most email enhancement ideas actually create more
work than they save in the long run.

That was until I saw the demo. Looks like this could be a tremendous time
saver. Kudos on the work.

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
Thanks jmathai. We believe that everything that can be delegated to programs,
should be.

------
byoung2
Looks interesting...I noticed the task creation examples in the video all
started with "Can you please...". How good is the parser at picking up implied
requests. For example, where I work, requests more likely look something like
"We should look at improving the caching layer" or "prod is hanging".

Also, what are you thinking for pricing?

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
Right byoung, the examples do show similar statements. We are fairly good at
picking up implied requests right now, but I wouldn't call it brilliant yet.
Quickly is still learning :-)

I hope by the time we release, we will be fairly good to cover most of the use
cases.

------
jkh123
So, i a assume the collected Patterns will then be quickly's proprietary
knowledge. Right?

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
pretty much :-) However, if u wish to opt out of the service, the data - which
can be mapped to the user, will also be deleted. The primary ownership belongs
to the users.

------
ansimionescu
Probably should change the default background of the theme

[http://startbootstrap.com/landing-page](http://startbootstrap.com/landing-
page)

------
madospace
In short `Transform emails to Business actions` in one click

------
michaelmior
Looks pretty cool. I'd love to see a video with the new UI shown in the
screenshots on the home page.

~~~
madospace
Thanks michaelmior, We are working on it. Will be out soon

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pjc50
App running inside gmail? How does that work? Are there more of these things?
Can I write my own?

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
Well, this is a Chrome plugin. And yes you can write your own. Check out
[https://developers.google.com/gmail/](https://developers.google.com/gmail/)
and [http://gmailblog.blogspot.in/2010/02/gmail-chrome-
extensions...](http://gmailblog.blogspot.in/2010/02/gmail-chrome-
extensions.html)

------
Synergyse
Looks great, as a team that lives inside Gmail and Asana this could be very
useful for us.

~~~
madospace
Thanks Synergyse, We are planning to release soon, Love to get your feedback.

------
ahmed_zain
Request/suggestion: Can you add Producteev to the list of apps?

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
Producteev is in the list of 2nd tier right now. Will surely keep it near the
top of the list in that tier :-)

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subho007
Looks good, when will it be available for public beta?

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
Thanks. Public beta is about 1 week away. We are ironing out the edges right
now, and trying to add some more useful stuff in addition to what you see in
the video.

------
iamademar
awesome!

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
Thanks iamademar.

------
dang
Looks interesting, but we took "Show HN" out of the title since Show HNs are
for things that you've made that other people can play with. So a video isn't
a Show HN unless, of course, the video itself is the product.

When the software is ready for people to try out, this will make a great Show
HN. Good luck with the work!

~~~
utkarsh_apoorva
Thanks dang. Sorry we have not been very active on posting to HN, just a
consumer of information. It seems we got that part of the title wrong.

~~~
dang
No worries! But please do a Show HN when the product reaches that stage.

