

Is Google turning Gmail into an App platform? - jd
http://blog.stunf.com/email-as-a-platform

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dmbaggett
GMail already _is_ a platform; look at Mailbox.app -- it's a new UI for the
GMail "platform". Building on top of the GMail platform obviates the need to
actually do any of the grungy mail stuff. But as one commenter noted elsewhere
in this thread, the lock-in implications are pretty sobering.

We made Inky from scratch -- without building on top of GMail, Outlook, etc.
-- partly to avoid the lock-in, but primarily because it's hard to imagine
fundamentally changing the email user experience without touching any of the
code for the mail platform itself. The downside, of course, is the usual
trade-off: by not layering on top of somebody else's already-debugged stack,
we have to make our _own_ huge raft of code work right.

The analogy to Lotus Notes should be a wake-up call to CIOs everywhere; our
analysis of the enterprise email/messaging space makes it clear that the big
companies still using Lotus Notes are doing so primarily because they have too
much investment in the Notes ecosystem ("intranet web sites" built on top of
Notes, etc.) to switch. They come up with an internal estimate of the cost to
convert all the stuff they've built on the Lotus platform over to something
else and realize that figure exceeds the likely N-year savings from switching.
So, conversion project not approved by CFO. Next!

~~~
jd
Good point about the link to Lotus Notes. However, infrastructure decisions
are usually made for short term reasons, and that's often an OK trade-off.

Inky looks awesome, by the way.

~~~
dmbaggett
Thanks. We're still beta-ish, but getting there. :)

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tokyonoise
I am skeptical. There are apps out there extending Gmail's possibilities,
already. Look at Streak (<http://streak.com>), look at Right Inbox
(<http://rightinbox.com>). They are based on Chrome extensions. People use
them if they need. The real trouble is Gmail becoming a bulky web app in time.
Sending money, now actions in the Inbox. Lots of features, majority will not
use. It is unclear, if Gmail will remain an simple email platform (which was
the initial idea) or Google's promotion/enforcement ground.

~~~
porker
I use one of the other Chrome extensions extending GMail:
<http://www.activeinboxhq.com/>. It works well.

The one thing Google will need to address is GMail's memory usage - it's bad
enough on its own, but once you start adding extensions to it... I no longer
keep GMail open unless absolutely necessary.

[Edit: link corrected]

~~~
Flenser
should that link be to <http://www.activeinboxhq.com/> ?

~~~
porker
Thanks, I've corrected it!

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rubinelli
For once, the answer to the title isn't obviously "no."

Can you imagine Gmail as the new Lotus Notes? Specially as third-party vendors
flock in to fill the gaps? The potential for lock-in is absolutely dizzying;
moving away from Gmail once you have your whole workflow automated would feel
like going back to punch cards.

~~~
jd
Exactly. pg has also written about "using your email as a todo list" (in
Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund) to partially address the problem of email
being more than just a dumb box for all incoming information. Email as it
exists today is very obviously broken, and very few players are in a position
to change it. (Although there must be some startups with the frighteningly
ambitious plan to replace email as we know it today.)

Of course it remains to be seen whether this is just a first move by Google
towards a big goal or whether Google is just playing with new Gmail
functionality to see what happens.

~~~
rimantas
Email is only broken from the authentification point of view. The idea of
using email for every need is broken.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
Agreed. Do we really want Gmail to be a great operating system lacking only a
decent mail client? What is this, emacs 2.0?

And so what if people are using it differently then how it was originally
intended? Give me a well designed tool, and I'll use it in 930294 ways it
wasn't indented to be. That doesn't mean I'm going to like the new super-
multi-purpose swiss army knife version of that tool.... Keep it simple
stoopid, get off my lawn, not in my back yard, go unix, etc etc </curmudgeony
old person rant>

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pajju
Great read, and I'm expecting this to happen sooner too.

Think it something like -- the core-emailing is there within gmail, but extend
the functionalities via services. Some external app uses to build services on
top of emailing.

Something like -- Hootsuite on top of twitter, Hootsuite manages and adds
value by its own apps.

Think: we have Gmail powered apps? A link on top like: my-installed-apps -- to
easily navigate and find newer apps for your workflows.

~~~
amirmc
I'm working on stuff like this but from the ground up. You can't get any
meaningful innovation until you can allow people/devs a way to access the
system at a deeper level than Gmail will allow.

~~~
pajju
Yeah agreed. I remember the saying -- Be a bitch yourself, but don't be
someone else's bitch. :)

Build and think platforms and API's. Not consume API's :)

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don_draper
I'd love for another company to come out that has the clean interface and
reliability of gmail, with even more security and better customer service.
This is a great time for a disruptor.

Any company can compete with many Google products if they have a product that
is almost as good, if not better, with way better customer service.

~~~
saurik
How much would you pay for that? I ask, because Google is doing this for
free...

~~~
dmd
I'd pay $10 a month if it meant I had a phone number to call if something went
wrong.

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hatu
What ever happened to "If it ain't broken, don't fix it"? Every product
doesn't need to be constantly re-inventing itself.

What most people want from Gmail is a sleek, reliable and fast email client.
The Google+ integration is already annoying enough, please stop bloating it
with more features.

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blowski
Makes sense from Google's POV. Separating 'Gmail the email client' from 'Gmail
the IMAP/POP/SMTP server', the latter requires a lot of investment with not
much return. It seems that most of the value to Google comes from you using
their client, since they can:

* show more contextual advertising

* track you as you travel around the web (since you're more likely to be logged in)

* use other Google services - especially Google+

So by adding proprietary features that only mean anything when viewed within
Gmail itself, it's a big win for them. Also, once people become used to the
microdata, they can gradually reuse it in other Google services. For example -
complete a Google form straight from an email, that then does something
special on an App Engine product.

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brudgers
What this shows is that Google has given up on product improvements for
features. Instead of solving the inbox problem, they are selling "priority
emails, now with bigger flames!".

The email problem isn't figuring out what the sender wants me to do with each
message, it's figuring out what I want to do. This is e-junkmail and has less
to do with making the recipient's life better and more to do with advertising.

Pop-up blocker for email, anyone?

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amirmc
From the original announcement [1]:

 _"Today, we are introducing schemas in emails to make messages more
interactive and allow developers to deliver a slice of their apps to users’
inboxes.

Schemas in emails can be used to represent various types of entities and
actions. Email clients that understand schemas, such as Gmail, can render
entities and actions defined in the messages with a consistent user
interface."_

I haven't looked into this in any depth but it doesn't necessarily seem Gmail
specific (a good thing) but it does mean even more clicky buttons in an
interface where I can't easily see what those buttons actually do (less good
from a security/phishing standpoint).

[1]
[http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/introducin...](http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/introducing-
actions-in-inbox-powered-by.html)

~~~
sgrove
That may be why they've made it a partner-only program, and why they control
the interface for rendering each schema (that they specifically choose to
support). While frustrating, it's an interesting point to consider.

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barrkel
Hmm. With Google canning Reader, it removes the only reason I had left to
remain logged in, since I use a desktop email client. (Re Reader: I've moved
to Inoreader, a clone which is still a little rough around the edges, but if
it hangs around, it's a great replacement).

Gmail, as an email client, has always just been adequate. It isn't reliable at
notifying me of incoming mails without the installation of extra software or
downgrading to Chrome. And the real killer, it doesn't support multiple
accounts in anything like a usable way.

I'm putting "logged in Google" in the same box as Facebook, and only using it
in a separate browser.

~~~
otibom
Which desktop client do yo use ? I'd like to do the same but I know I will
miss Gmail's thread formatting. I know there is a plugin for Thunderbird but
it's not as great.

~~~
barrkel
Something old-school - Forte Agent. It can do thread formatting like a
newsgroup, but it isn't perfect - e.g. it sorts the threads by the timestamp
of the root of the conversation, rather than most recent message.

I particularly like its identity support.

I can't stand Thunderbird.

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don_draper
Users should be encouraged to click on less things in their email, not more.
Phishers, and other malicious actors will

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itsbits
Email is getting old with all the social platforms. I dont send email anymore
to my friends. They have to evolve along

