MailThink 2008

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