On Feb 3, 2004, at 1:21 AM, Paul Crowley wrote:
email is going. Rich content. In 1975, headers were 40-50% of an
average message. Now, if they're 2% I'd be amazed (I haven't analyzed
it in a while).
This runs contrary to your earlier post discussing whether IM should
replace mail. I think it will always be a minority of emails that
carry rich content - for one thing, at least half will say things like
"thanks for the photo of the kid's birthday!".
Perhaps, I think it more explains that email is a service with a
complex suite of uses and has to be designed to allow them all t
operate easily and reliably. As connections to the internet become ever
more persistant, the short/quick IM model has become more prevalent,
because, frankly, it's faster and more convenient than either email or
a hpone call for some things. But at the same time, as network pipes
(especially last mile) have gotten larger and faster, email has almost
migrated in the opposite direction as a transport layer for rich media
as well.
email isn't mutually exclusive, and the designs shouldn't be. it can be
many things all at once, with a bow wrapped around it... (grin)
I think it's still *way* too early to be discussing this sort of
detail, but for what it's worth...
I tend to agree, but I think it's useful to spend some time hashing out
stuff in general, and then I'd probably suggest we figure out which
aspects are highest priority and solve them first, but at least we'll
have a framework of understanding on which to build those decisions...)
If you make XML the format you'll have to work out how to contain that
250K JPEG.
actually, I don't care if it's XML or not. I pushed the XML button
because it was a useful container for a more serious (and appropriate)
discussion, trying to get people on this list to stop thinking about
"headers" and start thinking about "meta-data", and I think in general
people have picked up on it. How we store the meta-data is an
implementation issue that can wait, happily -- but I still think XML is
a useful tool for that avoids having to re-implement the universe. But
we'll have that fight some other time.