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It's still a crutch that's supremely ineffective as a structure for doing what needs to be done. People keep telling me, "communication problems are impossible

It's still a crutch that's supremely ineffective as a structure for doing what needs to be done. People keep telling me, "communication problems are impossible to solve, you can just never get people to communicate perfectly. You need to accept that communication problems will always exist." I don't buy it. When a system is ineffective at solving a structural problem, it's because the system is not fit for the problem at hand. A giant bucket where all of our notifications, important communications, unimportant communications, and entirely irrelevant communications are dumped is simply an ineffective structure over which to build an effective process. I wholeheartedly agree with skipping the e-mail. Use a better system, get a better process, and don't allow people to fall back on the ancient and wildly unproductive crutch.

ObviousScience 12y ago
Could you name a feature you think that email is lacking that you believe another system provides? Ed: Perhaps I was being glib, but my point is that the person made a nonsense comment. I doubt anyone downvoting me can name something that email doesn't have a relatively straightforward way to implement (with perhaps the exception of IM, and only because of delay times). It's simply silly to think that /any/ system is going to let you deal with a large volume of messages a day without having to filter and configure preferences, but I've legitimately not found a replacement for email in terms of relying moderate sized chunks of information to individuals or groups.
- inovica 12y ago
  The biggest thing for me is when I send an email to someone with a 'task' I find it's out of my head and passed over. The problem is follow-up. I sometimes remember the task that I'd set and find that its not been done as the other party has forgotten it. Its this that's the biggest thing for me
- calinet6 12y ago
  Focus.
ams6110 12y ago
Completely disagree. Email is the one internet technology that's had the most success and provided the most benefit in the widest variety of use cases. It pre-dates the web by decades and is still the one technology used by almost every person who uses a computer at all. The very fact that it's not focused on a specific "process" and has very little in the way of required structure or content is a strength: it works almost everywhere. The history of software is littered with dead, defunct, and failed attempts to create task managers and communication platforms that impose a process on users. It almost never works.
byoung2 12y ago
A giant bucket where all of our notifications, important communications, unimportant communications, and entirely irrelevant communications are dumped is simply an ineffective structure over which to build an effective process. That's the problem we're trying to solve with our startup MorphMail https://www.morphmail.com https://www.morphmail.com
- manmal 12y ago
  As someone who could someday become a customer, here's some knee-jerk advice for your landing page: - The first screen doesn't "hook" me. Put a background image or product image or something there, and a better punchline. - I'd eliminate half the text and increase font sizes of item bodies. - The "What is MorphMail?" section is a bit convoluted. I want to know why it's better than email. How about a side-by-side comparison with a mobile email client? - The UI shots look very rough and a bit Windows-98-y. I get that those are probably early stage mockups, but I wouldn't consider using an app with this design. To me they are a turnoff, especially when compared to iOS Mailbox or even Gmail. If that sounds harsh, I apologize (please consider that I wouldn't have taken the time if I didn't care); I wish you the best of luck with your product!
  - byoung2 12y ago
    That's great feedback! We're a couple of engineers, so the marketing stuff isn't exactly our area of expertise. The current design is just an off the shelf jQuery mobile template to make prototyping easy while we focus on functionality.
    - manmal 12y ago
      I'm a dev too, but have some photoshop skills and have to learn this stuff myself. I can really recommend that one of you gets to know Photoshop/Pixelmator/Sketch and browses a lot of other product pages and apps (so you can "borrow" there.. stealing shamelessly is often a good idea ;)). A product needs someone who cares about that stuff.

ObviousScience 12y ago

Could you name a feature you think that email is lacking that you believe another system provides? Ed: Perhaps I was being glib, but my point is that the person made a nonsense comment. I doubt anyone downvoting me can name something that email doesn't have a relatively straightforward way to implement (with perhaps the exception of IM, and only because of delay times). It's simply silly to think that /any/ system is going to let you deal with a large volume of messages a day without having to filter and configure preferences, but I've legitimately not found a replacement for email in terms of relying moderate sized chunks of information to individuals or groups.

inovica 12y ago
The biggest thing for me is when I send an email to someone with a 'task' I find it's out of my head and passed over. The problem is follow-up. I sometimes remember the task that I'd set and find that its not been done as the other party has forgotten it. Its this that's the biggest thing for me
calinet6 12y ago
Focus.

ams6110 12y ago

Completely disagree. Email is the one internet technology that's had the most success and provided the most benefit in the widest variety of use cases. It pre-dates the web by decades and is still the one technology used by almost every person who uses a computer at all. The very fact that it's not focused on a specific "process" and has very little in the way of required structure or content is a strength: it works almost everywhere. The history of software is littered with dead, defunct, and failed attempts to create task managers and communication platforms that impose a process on users. It almost never works.

byoung2 12y ago

A giant bucket where all of our notifications, important communications, unimportant communications, and entirely irrelevant communications are dumped is simply an ineffective structure over which to build an effective process. That's the problem we're trying to solve with our startup MorphMail https://www.morphmail.com https://www.morphmail.com

manmal 12y ago
As someone who could someday become a customer, here's some knee-jerk advice for your landing page: - The first screen doesn't "hook" me. Put a background image or product image or something there, and a better punchline. - I'd eliminate half the text and increase font sizes of item bodies. - The "What is MorphMail?" section is a bit convoluted. I want to know why it's better than email. How about a side-by-side comparison with a mobile email client? - The UI shots look very rough and a bit Windows-98-y. I get that those are probably early stage mockups, but I wouldn't consider using an app with this design. To me they are a turnoff, especially when compared to iOS Mailbox or even Gmail. If that sounds harsh, I apologize (please consider that I wouldn't have taken the time if I didn't care); I wish you the best of luck with your product!
- byoung2 12y ago
  That's great feedback! We're a couple of engineers, so the marketing stuff isn't exactly our area of expertise. The current design is just an off the shelf jQuery mobile template to make prototyping easy while we focus on functionality.
  - manmal 12y ago
    I'm a dev too, but have some photoshop skills and have to learn this stuff myself. I can really recommend that one of you gets to know Photoshop/Pixelmator/Sketch and browses a lot of other product pages and apps (so you can "borrow" there.. stealing shamelessly is often a good idea ;)). A product needs someone who cares about that stuff.