[Design] Chandler as an email client? Another idea...

[Mimi Yin]

We've discussed on this list, a number of "alternate" usage scenarios  
for Chandler's "extended" notion of a PIM (RSS feeds, Photos,  
Bookmarks, Documents) that could be *supplemented* by email (as a  
simple way to share items in the context of conversations about those  
items).
+ Invitations and shared calendars
+ Shared tasks lists
+ Shared management of mailing lists, RSS feeds and other "public  
domain" forums
+ Shared resources (documents, photos, etc)

It's becoming increasingly clear that whatever web 2.0 means for the  
future, the landscape of "digital information and knowledge" is  
changing and more and more, the substance of people's work (inputs  
and outputs) is majority, if not completely, digital. Which means  
that all of a sudden, a lot more people will find it "worth their  
while" to manage that information in a digital PIM (as opposed to a  
day planner, post-it notes or other physical artifacts).

At this point, it's really hard to tell who the typical customer is,  
what kinds of information they will want to manage and in what ways.  
What *is* clear however is that traditional notions of email and PIM  
clients: what they are capable of, what they are used for, the very  
fact that they are "personal" as opposed to "inter-personal" is going  
to change drastically. Meeting these emerging needs is going to be  
what makes Chandler an improvement over not only Outlook Express and  
Thunderbird, but Outlook itself (with the caveat of: for small  
organizations).

I'm not sure that Morgen's use cases are all that rare or advanced.  
Many of them were simply descriptions of how to make Chandler work in  
a more tightly integrated way with people's existing email clients,  
which aren't actual usage scenarios per se. Assuming that Chandler is  
being used at all, I think most users would appreciate a way to for  
information to pass easily between Chandler and their email client.

Mimi

On Jan 15, 2006, at 1:36 AM, Davor Cubranic wrote:

> John Anderson wrote:
>
>> While I think Morgen's idea is intriguing, I don't think that he's  
>> a very typical customer -- or if he is, Chandler's user base will  
>> be almost zero. Most prospective customers don't need all the  
>> features he does and would be quite happy with something that is  
>> an improvement over Outlook Express or Thunderbird. To be better,  
>> Chandler doesn't have to have all the same features of those  
>> products, it just needs to do a better job of what most people  
>> need most of the time.
>>
> I don't think that's always the case in large organizations. If it  
> were, I'd have dumped Outlook the first day I sat down in my  
> office. But the company uses Exchange for everything, and that was  
> that. But at least I continued using my old PIM for all but email  
> management. :-) Morgan's idea would solve this kind of problem very  
> elegantly, I think.
>
> Now, the devil is usually in the details, and in this case it may  
> turn out to be a whole legion of them and the idea unworkable in  
> practice. But if the backend experts think it's worth looking into,  
> why not give a quick-and-dirty prototype a shot?
>
> Davor
>
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