

Ask HN: What do you want most from webmail? - starter

Webmail has been the same old for too long. What do you wish your web mail had?<p><i>Even better spam filters?
</i>Absolutely no ads?<p>And, are you already happy with what you can do with IMAP across all of your devices?
======
staunch
Gmail was a huge step forward from Hotmail/Yahoo. People went from 4MB storage
ad-riddled sluggishness to massive storage AJAX interface awesomeness.

Unless you have ideas that are as big as that you probably shouldn't bother
stepping into the ring. The product quality bar is very high and so is the
lock-in for email (Yahoo/Hotmail are still bigger than Gmail).

~~~
starter
Yahoo/Hotmail are still bigger? Thanks for the eye-openers. I'm passionate
about helping people communicate more easily so if I discover a way to make
email more efficient for my generation, I'll step into the ring!

------
apas
I love Gmail's filters.

Labels/folders, no ads would be awesome, IMAP (and Push) is exceptional.

I'd like to see everyone implementing Gmail's "conversation" layout but not
taking it to other level—making email look like chat, that is.

Plus, I'd like the feature to export all of my emails from one account whether
it's Gmail or Yahoo, etc.

~~~
starter
This is good. You like Gmail. What one better feature would entice you to
leave Gmail. Only no ads?

~~~
glimcat
Gmail has ads?

Enticing the average HN reader and enticing the average Gmail user are two
different problems.

And it already has great spam filtering and minimally-intrusive ads that
people have learned to ignore.

~~~
starter
I know, you are right. My mission isn't to revolutionize email itself but to
revolutionize how people message people online. Not by email. By messaging.

Email only sites like Gmail probably won't last in a world where a high
percentage of your contacts are on your social network of choice. I want to be
that social network and I want to offer a better way for people to message
each other.

~~~
glimcat
Communication is a deeper problem than email. It's not something you will
single-handedly solve, but there is a lot of room to do good work in this
area.

"I want to be that social network" - if that's your sole strategy, you're
screwed. You need to start smaller than that.

Build a tool which lets users do more for less effort and it will be easy for
them to adopt. Worry about penetration from there.

~~~
starter
More for less effort. Got it.

------
russjhammond
Batch delivery, except for urgent messages. I like to get my email like my
snail mail, all at once.

------
vipivip
upvote/downvote emails.

~~~
starter
Sounds like a really intriguing idea but why? What exactly do you want that up
voting to do for you?

It could be a way to ensure that emails from contacts with higher votes are
prioritized. Is that it?

------
vipivip
upvote/downvote emails

