Email is the Internet’s natural integration layer April 29, 2008
Posted by geoffwolfe in : On Topic , 1 comment so farNo 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“:
Every now and then the “Email is dead” meme makes the rounds and lights up TechMeme. The right answer isn’t that “email is dead”; it’s that new and exciting stuff is happening around the use of “messaging” and it’s time for some new innovation.
His partner Chris Wand of Foundry Group goes further:
In a time when many folks view Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as the new darlings of the Internet, we still believe that email has been and will long continue to be one of the Internet’s few enduring killer apps.
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.
Blogged with MessageDance using Gmail
An argument for the opposite of Plaxo Pulse and FriendFeed April 22, 2008
Posted by geoffwolfe in : On Topic , 6commentsDon’t get me wrong, there is absolute value in knowing what my friends, colleagues, and people-I-pine-to-be-like are talking about. But not everyone who is in my circle uses an aggregator to follow me. I have friends who see my Twitter tweets. Some people see my updates on Facebook. I’d like to think people see my stuff on MySpace, but I doubt it (except maybe Lola and Cheyenne). I also have this blog, which is how my mother keeps up with me when I don’t call and return emails. Separately updating each social site, morphing the content to fit each format, is painful, tedious, and unlikely.
Inward-Out
Publishing my rich content and messages to all (or just some) of my social destinations in a single post is the opposite of the aggregators. They are Outward-In (not that there is anything wrong with that). MessageDance is Inward-Out.
The Middleware of the Internet
The key to this sexy processing comes from an unsexy tool — email. Email is still the killer-app. It is the most ubiquitous, under-utilized, and abused tool in everyone’s toolbox. When most people think of email, they think of spam. The beauty of using email in the context of MessageDance is that an email inbox is never the final destination of a message or content that has been shared. MessageDance uses the really good part of email which is its ability to transport data in the simplest of fashions. Along its journey, MessageDance transforms the format of the content for its final destination.
Portable and Powerful Email Address
Now there is great power in just an email address. You don’t need to start your sharing from an email client. Start in Facebook and send your extra-facebook messages, blog posts, tweets from the native Facebook messaging app. Stay on YouTube.com and share a video to Twitter by just using your MessageDance email handle. Hell, blog from Amazon.com if you must. Besides signing-up and adding a few settings, you never really need to use MessageDance.com or your email client — and still reap powerful Anywhere to Anywhere sharing.
Blogged with MessageDance using Gmail
Brown Sugar by Leggs April 16, 2008
Posted by geoffwolfe in : Off Topic , add a commentToo many funny things to point out in this photo I just took at 7-11 to write while I’m driving.
Sent from my iPhone
Blogged with MessageDance using iPhone
Number of Google Search Results April 14, 2008
Posted by geoffwolfe in : On Topic , add a commentIt’s interesting to see how many results Google shows for certain search terms and how they go up and down on a daily basis. Also, the media likes to spread disinformation about how popular something is by stating something like “there are 16 million results for ‘pet funeral parlors’” when they don’t really understand how search engines work. In MessageDance’s case, it’s nice to see the trend is continuously up.
Sent from my iPhone
Blogged with MessageDance using iPhone
