MailThink 2008

Disappearing ink for email

What if some emails had an expiration date? After the expiration date, both mailbox providers and mail clients (MUAs) could do smart things with the message instead of just leaving it there.

This could be implemented with a simple "X-Expires" header.

This would be useful for automated reports and daily log files that are sent out on a recurring basis. It's also great for news and stock alerts, weekly newsletters and more.

This is a win for consumers because they have less mailbox clutter. Messages that are no longer relevant wouldn't hang around in the Inbox. Depending on implementation, messages that have expired could be flagged with a visual indicator, moved to a special folder or just deleted. Users should be able to override this behavior if they don't want messages to expire automatically.

This is a win for mailbox providers and ISPs because they save disk space and bandwidth. IT administrators should love this because it will keep Outlook PST files smaller and help people stay under quota.

This is a win for marketers because they will get fewer spam complaints and higher open and clickthrough rates. If a user see lots of mail piled up, they are more likely to select all of them and delete them without reading them or even worse, mark them all as spam. If there is just one or two messages that are recent and relevant, they are more likely to be opened and acted upon and less likely to mark them as spam.

Why do we still send files to ourselves?

All around the world, it probably happens billions of times a day. It's getting late and I want to go home so I email the document I'm working on to my personal account. Or maybe I'm sitting at two computers in the same room and just need to get the file from one to the other. This isn't just about sending a file from one person to another. Often I'm trying to share it with myself! I end up with many copies of the same file floating around and its hand to find the most current one. My email quota gets filled up with file attachments in my Sent Mail folder.

At the same time, I often click on MIME attachments in my email to open documents that I want to edit. The file is actually saved to a temp folder or the desktop and if I open the document multiple times I can end up with multiple copies of the document. After I save the document, it can be hard to figure out which file I was actually editing and I often forget to move it from the temp folder or desktop to a more permanent location.

I want to be able to just drag and drop a file from my desktop into my email client without going through the hassle of composing a new message and typing in my email address and a subject line. I want to be able to "open" one of these files, make some changes and then just hit save - without having to worry about where temp files were placed or how to get it back up into my email and without creating additional copies of the attachment.

One possible implementation would be to have an email message with new MIME type that would indicate that the message was a document with no message body. A text part could be attached that would explain this in plain english so that an older email client would be able to display the message as a text message with an attachment. But smarter email clients would recognize that it is just a document and display it differently - a file icon instead of a message icon and the document name in the subject area. Double clicking the message would download the document to your local machine and open it with the appropriate application - but when I save the document it would transparently get uploaded back to the mail server, replacing the one I downloaded (over IMAP).

Intent, goals, approach: Incremental improvement, 3-5 or 5-10 years

In spite of 35 years of incremental enhancement, can email benefit from our taking a few moments to consider strategic opportunities that are being missed? Given a small amount of careful focus, can we make significant improvements?

This is not a question of replacing email. In spite of periodic claims that email is dying, a pure replacement of the current service is not likely and not in scope. Rather, can we identify small number of strategic improvements that seem feasible and exciting?

Perhaps the most recent example was the addition of multi-media content to the previously text-only email service. What was most astonishing about this accomplishment is that it was done as an overlay, without disturbing the existing email operational infrastructure and without requiring adoption by anyone other than the end-user participants. A few years of development, and a few years of adoption, and then we have trouble imaging email without it.

Are there other, similar opportunities?

I am hoping that we can put forward idea, find a few that resonate with others, and formulate a way forward to make them happen. Typically, it's easy to come up with interesting ideas.  What is difficult is coming up with ones that are practical and that get others to join in.

/d

Updated Agenda

The Agenda has been updated. Please take a look!

MailThink is a different kind of email workshop.

After 35 years of continuous growth and enhancement, Internet Mail could use some serious changes. MailThink will consider major challenges and improvements to Internet messaging that should be addressed over the next 10 years. Work will focus on making, developing, discussing and pursuing proposals for enhancement. Be prepared to think outside the inbox.

Attendance will be by invitation and limited to 50 people. Every attendee will be an active participant, with a point of view. Attendance is a commitment. Expertise is expected to include messaging design, development, marketing and operation, anti-abuse, social networking, group collaboration, community organizing, and more.

The specific content will be determined by the attendees, before the event. Every participant will be expected to join in extended discussions before the event. When the event occurs, we will already be a community.

Some problems and improvements can be achieved within 3-5 years, given sufficiently narrow focus and sufficiently strong motivation. Major changes will take 5-10 years. No matter the timeframe, all discussion will be based on pragmatics:

• What is the need?
  
• Who has it; do they know; do they care?
  
• What changes will produce fundamental benefit and why are we sure they will?
  
• Who is critical to making the change happen and what are their incentives?
  
• What are the barriers to adoption and how can they be overcome?
  

Topics could include:

• When messaging is part of collaboration, how can it do its part better?
  
• Is it realistic to integrate different styles of messaging (email, IM, voicemail) and what would be required?
  
• What are tolerable levels of messaging abuse and how do we get there and stay there, given the creativity of abusers?
  
• A message thread is a model and it can be treated as an interaction, a document, a task list, and so on. Can we build on these different views?
  
• Why isn't there a marketplace for email similar to search and display?
  
• Interaction involves trust. Do messaging trust models provide sufficient safety and flexibility? If not, what needs changing?
  

But nothing is out of bounds, as long as there is a need, a community desire, and a path for making it happen.

New name - MailThink

Dave Crocker suggested the name MailThink instead of Email Think Tank. Everyone generally agrees that shorter is better. So MailThink it is!

A different kind of email conference

MailThink will be a different kind of email conference. It's invite-only and attendance is limited to 50 people. Almost every attendee is also a presenter. This isn't about sharing perspectives, it's about proposing and debating solutions. Be prepared to think outside the inbox.

Topics currently proposed include:
- Is there an end to the Spam arms race?
- Is Email Authentication Working?
- Why do we still email Files to Ourselves?
- Email as the Task List
- What can Social Networking learn from Email?
- Why isn't there a marketplace for email similar to search and display?
- Emails from the Future

The last session topic will voted on by the attendees.

Each session consists of three to five short presentations by experts on the topic followed by open discussion with the group. If you have a suggestion for a topic to discuss, please email sessions@mailthink.com