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I have to say, Rapportive is the biggest change to my emailing experience since I got Gmail, and it's due to this sidebar. The major difference is that I can s

by pbiggar 15y ago

I have to say, Rapportive is the biggest change to my emailing experience since I got Gmail, and it's due to this sidebar. The major difference is that I can see the face of the other person (this works maybe 80% of the time). In practically ever use case I have for email, showing me the other perons's face helps me out, whether I've met the person or not. - open source mailing lists become more human (and improves the aggressive arguing that can often occur there) - I "put a name to a face" for professional colleagues - I know something about people who email me out of the blue (VCs, founders who want something, coders with patches or queries about an OSS project) - makes my emails to others more human I encourage anybody who is technical and uses email to use Rapportive.

corin_ 15y ago
I'm sure it's different for different people, so not trying to suggest your view is wrong, but: I really don't see how that can help. People I know, I don't need a reminder of what they look like. People I don't, I don't see how seeing their face is useful. As to their latest updates and information from LinkedIn/Twitter/etc, if I care, I'm already connected with them and in-the-know, if not... then I don't want to see it in my email.
- pbiggar 15y ago
  I will occasionally care about their twitter/etc, but mostly it's the person's picture that matters. I guess it's hard to describe because it's a _feeling_, but it feels like I'm communicating with a person, rather than some kind of email sending robot. This wasn't the reason I started using it, so it kinda surprised me at how much of a difference this makes to my communication. I'm not sure why it's not useful to you - one possible reason is that you're already very good at empathizing with the person at the other end of your email (not being sarcastic). Another thing which surprises me is that the picture doesn't matter - old/young/geeky/cool/black/white/male/female don't really convey any useful information to my response, but it just kinda feels like I know this person in some way, and want to treat them better.

by pbiggar 15y ago

corin_ 15y ago

I'm sure it's different for different people, so not trying to suggest your view is wrong, but: I really don't see how that can help. People I know, I don't need a reminder of what they look like. People I don't, I don't see how seeing their face is useful. As to their latest updates and information from LinkedIn/Twitter/etc, if I care, I'm already connected with them and in-the-know, if not... then I don't want to see it in my email.

pbiggar 15y ago
I will occasionally care about their twitter/etc, but mostly it's the person's picture that matters. I guess it's hard to describe because it's a _feeling_, but it feels like I'm communicating with a person, rather than some kind of email sending robot. This wasn't the reason I started using it, so it kinda surprised me at how much of a difference this makes to my communication. I'm not sure why it's not useful to you - one possible reason is that you're already very good at empathizing with the person at the other end of your email (not being sarcastic). Another thing which surprises me is that the picture doesn't matter - old/young/geeky/cool/black/white/male/female don't really convey any useful information to my response, but it just kinda feels like I know this person in some way, and want to treat them better.