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Email Turns 34
34019 writes "The original Gmail engineer, Paul Buchheit, reminisces on the creation of email, and how he designed Gmail in hopes of it improving the way we communicate. From the article: 'Of course that wasn't the only reason why I wanted to build Gmail. I rely on email, a lot, but it just wasn't working for me. My email was a mess. Important messages were hopelessly buried, and conversations were a jumble; sometimes four different people would all reply to the same message with the same answer because they didn't notice the earlier replies. I couldn't always get to my email because it was stuck on one computer, and web interfaces were unbearably clunky. And I had spam. A lot of it. With Gmail I got the opportunity to change email - to build something that would work for me, not against me.'
E-mail is throwing a birthday party! It's next week, the same day as Spam.
Unfortunately, they agreed that Spam should send the invites. Expect them in your mailbox soon along with the free drugs and Nigerian relatives.
Acording to wikipedia, network email existed prior to 1971.
The main contribution that happened in 1971 was the introduction of the "@" symbol and the use of email on ARPANET. But prior to 1971 there was email being sent between computers.
From wikipedia:
"The early history of network e-mail is also murky; the AUTODIN system may have been the first allowing electronic text messages to be transferred between users on different computers in 1966, but it is possible the SAGE system had something similar some time before."
I don't wish to take away any from what Ray Tomlison acheived in 1971 which was a great contribution to introduce email to ARPA net and make it really convenient.
Sorry, but I don't buy the google altruistic angle - they did this so they could better serve us ads. This is all about information, and who controls it. I doubt highly that it had anything at all to do with improving anyone's way of life. Google is a corporation, it's primary motive is, and always will be, profit.
I don't see how Mr. Buchheit's comment that he "designed Gmail in hopes of it improving the way we communicate" negates that Google does things with the intent of making profit. Just because you do something to make a profit, it doesn't mean that you do not have hopes it will accomplish good things.
If I designed a bridge, I would hope it would help the way people transported. This does not mean that I am not doing it because I wanted to make money. It does not mean I am claiming some kind of altruism. If people didn't think gmail was improving their life in some way, there would be no one to advertise to.
So, does anyone still have a working email address from 1971? If not, I wonder who has the world's oldest currently working email address?
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
And no, archive isn't the same.
Why not?
The point of archiving is to make the inbox a real inbox - a place where all the email you currently need (e.g. new mail, things you still need to take care of). You should have very little mail in your inbox at any given time (I average at ~6). Everything else should be archived and accesed through labels or search. Try it out, it's great.
Why does any message with the same subject get marked as part of the same conversation ? This is not always desired, and can cause a lot of confusion. This behavior should be configurable.
I know the gmail has a "delete-nothing" philosophy, but can we still have a keyboard shortcut to move messages to trash ?
I know google is all about searching
Don't get me wrong. I love gmail. It's right up there with pine and mutt as far as usability is concerned - and thanks to firefox/mozilla, I can use it seamlessly across platforms. I have learn't to live with it's quirks.
But my point is gmail is still lacking in the area of customization. It's like we all share Paul's gmail.conf file. Just because it works for Paul, doesn't mean it works for everyone else.
As I understand it, "Snail Mail" originally dated to the introduction of ZIP codes. Mail without a ZIP code would be de-prioritized and stamped "Snail Mail".