5 ms·

Those three well-executed features need to be done in the context of marketing/sales magic, otherwise the product won't take off. GMail by all rights should be

by brlewis 17y ago

Those three well-executed features need to be done in the context of marketing/sales magic, otherwise the product won't take off. GMail by all rights should be the dominant email client today, or at least every other surviving email client should have copied the conversation view from GMail. FriendFeed should be bigger than Twitter. I'll admit that twitter got the "few things" part, but I don't think they won based on doing those few things well. EDIT: More discussion at http://friendfeed.com/paul/e75a7022/if-your-product-is-great-it-doesn-t-need-to-be-good http://friendfeed.com/paul/e75a7022/if-your-product-is-great...

gokhan 17y ago
FriendFeed is about discussion. It's back and forth. There are lot's of software/site/thing on the Internet doing this, in many forms. Twitter is about publishing. It's one way. It's a minified blog without comments. A mini-blog for everyone is a need, apparently. Only Twitter is doing it.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  >A mini-blog for everyone is a need, apparently. Only Twitter is doing it. Facebook hits that need too (and adds a lot of other things which obfuscate the public take up of your miniblogged "wisdom").
- brlewis 17y ago
  Your assumption is that a product takes off because it meets a need. When you say, "a mini-blog for everyone is a need, apparently" you're reiterating that assumption, not supporting it.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  "It's a minified blog without comments." I keep hearing this, but it simply rings false for me. It feels nothing like blogging to me. It's apparently filling some need (or interest), but micro-blogging ain't it.
AndrewDucker 17y ago
"GMail by all rights should be the dominant email client today, or at least every other surviving email client should have copied the conversation view from GMail." Except that Conversation View is the only reason I avoid using the GMail web interface at all costs.
- brlewis 17y ago
  I posted a lengthy explanation of why I like conversation view here: http://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/2010-02-09 http://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/2010-02-09
  - AndrewDucker 17y ago
    I can understand why someone would like them - but by making them mandatory they've removed one of the major things I use email for - reminders for myself/to-do lists. If I can't tag/file different emails differently, and I can't leave just one or two parts of a 100-mail conversation in my inbox for later action then it's no use to me.
    - brlewis 17y ago
      Star is what I use for later action, which you can do to not only to conversations, but also to individual messages. You can tag conversations too. Maybe you can even tag individual messages, but I haven't tried.
      - AndrewDucker 17y ago
        You can't take individual messages, sadly.
tbrownaw 17y ago
"""GMail by all rights should be the dominant email client today, or at least every other surviving email client should have copied the conversation view from GMail.""" Some people (for example, anyone on a *-devel list) use email for things more like meetings or group discussions, rather than one-on-one conversations; an email thread can be concurrent/nonlinear. Collapsing everything into a single list interferes with seeing what's been responded to and what hasn't.

by brlewis 17y ago

gokhan 17y ago

FriendFeed is about discussion. It's back and forth. There are lot's of software/site/thing on the Internet doing this, in many forms. Twitter is about publishing. It's one way. It's a minified blog without comments. A mini-blog for everyone is a need, apparently. Only Twitter is doing it.

pbhjpbhj 17y ago
>A mini-blog for everyone is a need, apparently. Only Twitter is doing it. Facebook hits that need too (and adds a lot of other things which obfuscate the public take up of your miniblogged "wisdom").
brlewis 17y ago
Your assumption is that a product takes off because it meets a need. When you say, "a mini-blog for everyone is a need, apparently" you're reiterating that assumption, not supporting it.
jamesbritt 17y ago
"It's a minified blog without comments." I keep hearing this, but it simply rings false for me. It feels nothing like blogging to me. It's apparently filling some need (or interest), but micro-blogging ain't it.

AndrewDucker 17y ago

"GMail by all rights should be the dominant email client today, or at least every other surviving email client should have copied the conversation view from GMail." Except that Conversation View is the only reason I avoid using the GMail web interface at all costs.

brlewis 17y ago
I posted a lengthy explanation of why I like conversation view here: http://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/2010-02-09 http://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/2010-02-09
- AndrewDucker 17y ago
  I can understand why someone would like them - but by making them mandatory they've removed one of the major things I use email for - reminders for myself/to-do lists. If I can't tag/file different emails differently, and I can't leave just one or two parts of a 100-mail conversation in my inbox for later action then it's no use to me.
  - brlewis 17y ago
    Star is what I use for later action, which you can do to not only to conversations, but also to individual messages. You can tag conversations too. Maybe you can even tag individual messages, but I haven't tried.
    - AndrewDucker 17y ago
      You can't take individual messages, sadly.

tbrownaw 17y ago

"""GMail by all rights should be the dominant email client today, or at least every other surviving email client should have copied the conversation view from GMail.""" Some people (for example, anyone on a *-devel list) use email for things more like meetings or group discussions, rather than one-on-one conversations; an email thread can be concurrent/nonlinear. Collapsing everything into a single list interferes with seeing what's been responded to and what hasn't.