Email for the rest of us

No matter how hard we try, we can't seem to shake off email. While it basically hasn't changed much in 15 years, it serves its promise of delivering data very effectively. It certainly has its issues with spam, but if email is used in the context of an integration layer for the Internet, its future has never been brighter.

Brad Feld shouts "I Love Email":


His partner Chris Wand of Foundry Group goes further:


The keyword that Chris uses there is "Internet". Email is an Internet app. Its largest value isn't on the desktop; it's the ability to transport data.

TripIt has it right with using email as the input mechanism for user data into their system with a transformed output delivered back to the user. Their presentation at Web 2.0 Expo is right on the mark.



At MessageDance, we use email as the engine for our users to share content from their social sites to wherever they choose it to go. They each have a powerful email address ("you"@messagedance.com) they can use to share conversations, videos, and blog posts from sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Digg. Their sharing doesn't have to start from an email client, but when it does, it can be very powerful, as this blog entry itself was fully written and posted from my Gmail account, including image placements, tagging, and category assignment. It also went to my Twitter account automatically.

It's great to see our private beta users really spanning the spectrum in the email clients they use and the integrated services they are sharing from. Here are samples I've pulled from the shameless snippets we add to the end of their blog posts created with MessageDance.









We're just getting warmed up, so stay tuned for more innovations in the way you will use email in the future.